Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The first Jamestown Colonists suffered from extremely high mortality rates and described symptoms consistent with dysentery, typhoid fever, and salt poisoning. These can all be transmitted or impacted by the quality of the water consumed. When the colonists first arrived in the spring of 1607 they drank from the river, but natural seasonal variations in salinity drove the colonists to dig wells to the shallow groundwater system, beginning in 1608. We propose that the colonists had such a high mortality rate due to consuming poor drinking water. The groundwater today has high salinity, values above levels suggested by an EU Report. Today, the Pitch and Tar Swamp contributes about 10% of the water to well 170-1a, the well closest to the colonists’ original well. Because the colonists arrived during a drought, it is likely that the water was even more saline then, almost 2 g/L in well 170-la. In addition, we found amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), arsenic, iron, and barium in the groundwater suggesting the Pitch and Tar Swamp as the source of the ions in the drinking water. Close to the Pitch and Tar Swamp, As, DOC, and Fe are high in concentration, and generally decrease moving away from the swamp. Arsenic values in 170-1a ranged from 0.58 to 1.2 ppb. Without precipitation to dilute the groundwater, it is likely that the colonists were consuming these ions in higher amounts than what we are measuring, however, even with this correct, we believe it was unlikely a high enough concentration to cause health problems. We believe it is most likely that salt poisoning contributed, at least in part, to the high mortality rate of the Jamestown Colony and found that it would take about 39 days for colonist to consume salt in the water equivalent to the acute salt poisoning toxicity level (234 g).

Date Awarded

2014

Department

Geology

Advisor 1

James M. Kaste

Advisor 2

Gregory S. Hancock

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