Show Notes
Jamestown is remembered as the first permanent English settlement in America. What's remembered less often is how close it came to becoming a mass grave. During the winter of 1609–1610, hundreds died from starvation, disease, siege, and violence—and archaeological evidence eventually confirmed something historians had debated for centuries: some survivors resorted to cannibalism.
Today, the island has its own collection of ghost stories, from footsteps inside an empty church to figures among the ruins and strange sounds drifting across the marsh. But beneath the folklore are the remains of very real people, including a fourteen-year-old girl archaeologists call Jane. Tonight, we explore the brutal history and lingering ghost stories of Jamestown.
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