Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Gosnold, Bartholomew

GOSNOLD, Bartholomew, English navigator, d. in Virginia, 22 Aug., 1607. After accompanying Raleigh as an associate in his unsuccessful attempt to found a colony in Virginia, Gosnold commanded an expedition that was fitted out at the expense of the Earl of Southampton for planting a colony in New England. On 26 March, 1602, he sailed from Falmouth with one vessel and twenty colonists, and, instead of taking the usual southerly course, undertook the direct voyage across the Atlantic to America. From the Azores, to which he was carried by opposing winds, he took a westerly course, and after seven weeks came in sight of Cape Elizabeth in Maine. Thence he followed the coast to the southwest, and on 14 May anchored to the east of York harbor. Here he was visited by natives, and then proceeding south in search of a more suitable place for a settlement, discovered, on 15 May, a promontory which he named Cape Cod. He and four of his men went ashore, and this was the first spot in that region ever trod by Englishmen. Sailing around the cape, and stopping at an island now known as No Man's Land, Gosnold landed at the mouth of Buzzard's bay, and planted his colony on an island, which he named Elizabeth, in honor of the queen, but which is now known by its Indian name of Cuttyhunk. The hostility of the Indians, scarcity of provisions, and disputes about a division of profits had a discouraging effect on the colonists, who returned to England, where they arrived, 23 July, with a cargo of sassafras-root, cedar, furs, and other commodities. Gosnold then organized a company for colonization in Virginia, led by Wingfield, Hunt, and Capt. John Smith. A charter was granted by James I., 10 April, 1606, the first under which an English colony was planted in America. On 19 Dec. of that year he sailed with three small vessels and one hundred and five adventurers, only twelve of whom were laborers, and after a tedious voyage reached the mouth of the James river, which they named after the king. Sailing up the river, they landed about fifty miles from its mouth, and founded Jamestown, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Gosnold, who opposed the selection of this site owing to its unhealthy location. Before autumn fifty of their number, among them the projector of the colony, died.