The secret Catholic in the land of Puritans

THE early English settlers who travelled to America are usually thought to have been Puritan Protestants.

But it now seems that one of them was hiding a religious secret – he was a clandestine Catholic.

Researchers spent two years establishing the identities of four skeletons unearthed in Jamestown, Virginia. The bodies – who died between 1608 and 1610 – had been buried in the church where Pocahontas married John Rolfe in 1614.

The first body was identified as Captain Gabriel Archer, who died aged 34 after leading expeditions up the James River.

On top of his coffin was a box which could have been a Catholic reliquary containing bone fragments, and a lead container that may have housed holy water.

Investigations revealed that Archer’s parents were Catholics and at that time the religion had been banned in England, suggesting he may have been hiding a religious secret. The other men included Sir Ferdinando Wainman, the first English knight to die in America. He arrived on board the 1610 expedition that restocked the colony and saved it.

He was buried near his relative Captain William West, who was killed in a skirmish with Powhatan indians. The fourth set of remains belonged to the Reverend Robert Hunt, the first chaplain at Jamestown.

The dig was led by archaeologist William Kelso and experts from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Mr Kelso said the discovery had been ‘like solving a 400-year- old cold case’.