Conservationists, historians and politicians are among the large group of people working to establish a national water trail that tracks the historic exploration of Capt. John Smith.
The Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail would follow 2,300 of the more than 3,000 miles Smith explored of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries between 1607 and 1609.
“It is all part of the bigger effort to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown,” said Sean Connaughton, Prince William County Board of Supervisors chair.
Smith explored nearly every inch of the bay and its associated rivers in a 30-foot, open-air row boat called a shallop. He traveled to the mouth of the bay at the Atlantic Ocean, to Richmond on the James River, to the area on the Potomac River that would later become Washington and over what would be the Delaware line.
During his travels, Smith was instrumental in establishing relationships with various American Indian tribes—encouraging trade between the colonists, tribes and England —and mapping out the region, said Joel Dunn, a Chesapeake associate for the Conservation Fund and a member of Friends of the Capt. John Smith Trail.
The National Park Service has agreed the trail has historic value and would provide opportunities for public and private partnerships, one of the main benchmarks for establishing the trail, Dunn said.
“It is not just about history, but about recreation and economic development all at the same time,” Dunn said.
Recreational boaters of all types and sizes, will find new cruising areas and be able to see changes in the largest national estuary, said John Page Williams, a Chesapeake Bay Foundation senior nationalist.
“We’ve asked the Chesapeake to do a lot of adapting to us over the last 400 years. And now we are surprised that … we lost some of the resources of the bay we really care about,” said Williams, who hopes people will get involved in restoration programs due to the trail.
Both houses of Congress have pending legislation to establish the trail with strong support from Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania legislators. Officials hope to fully dedicate the trail before April 2007 for Virginia’s Jamestown celebration.
Capt. John Smith Trail
» A recreated shallop row boat will take part in the 400th anniversary celebration.
» The shallop will be featured at the National Geographic Museum in D.C. beginning in November.
» For information, visit www.cbf.org, www.conservationfund.org or www.johnsmith400.org.
