Ale or Water?

Symon Powell. Prays that justice be done on the murderers of his brother John Powell 1601. This was a petition sent to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, Secretary of State to Elizabeth Queen of England.

                                             Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

                                      

I have seen a copy of a will by a John Powell, brewer, written in 1599.

Captain William Powell of James City my 11^th Great Grandfather’s father is a John Powell, brewer in St. Olave, Surrey, England. Could this murdered John be his father?

Let’s move on to the brewer part for now.

A brewer makes beer or ale. Ale was a very common beverage served in England and drank like we drink water. At some point it had become quite clear that drinking water was making people very ill. Keep in mind there was no bottled water, no faucets bringing clean water that is tested and approved for human consumption. People got their water from a local river, stream, pool, or pond. Getting your water from the source or spring was probably safe but further down river after going through numerous villages and cities and people dumping who knows what into the water, it was probably very polluted and full of nasty bacteria. Dead animals, human waste, animal waste; people washed their bodies, clothes and dishes in the water. It was filthy. It made people sick.

                                      The Ale-House Door, by Henry Singleton

During the ale brewing process milled grain, or the malted barley is crushed and mixed with very hot water. This process creates a sugar rich liquid called wort. The wort is then transferred to a copper kettle and boiled. Boiling sterilizes. Copper is used because it transfers heat more evenly and quickly and because the bubbles produced during boiling do not cling to the surface causing insulation from the heat.   By the time it is all completed anything that may have been in the water to begin with is pretty much gone. Therefore people also noticed that the folk who drank more ale and less water did not become ill.

                                  Copper Kettles from Coors in Colorado

Ale became a very important beverage to the English for health reasons. Ale was on board all ships at all times as well as loaded on wagons for long journeys by land.

During the English settlement of the colonies one of the first non-residential buildings erected was always a brew house. The process for making ale was established quickly and it was not uncommon for a small village to have several brew houses.  The local water of course was pure and untainted but the English tradition of not drinking water had been long ago established.

The reason the people decided to disembark the ships at Plymouth? The supply of ale was running very low and the need to have the beverage so they did not have to drink water or dehydrate was critical. They needed to brew and so in freezing cold weather and in very rustic conditions they built a brew house a church and a village.

The first of the Ancient Planters in Jamestown and the territory around it forgot when they departed England to bring brewers.  They went many months before the next ship arrived bringing two brewers with her. The year was 1609. This problem probably added to the starvation and malnutrition. They were not drinking much of anything.

It soon became the tradition for people to brew their own ales and so almost all homes had a small attached building near their kitchen specifically for brewing.

Apple trees imported from England thrived here and soon the colonists were making apple cider.

Back to John Powell I found in a book, published by the Huguenot Society of London an Assesment in St. Olave in Surry for 1589 two John Powells. A John Powell who is listed as a cooper (a barrel maker) and a John Powell brewer. Why only two Powells in all of London? This list is actually titled “Aliens in London” meaning these were not Englishmen as in born in England but were from many other places Flanders, Holland, Germany, Spain and other parts of Europe. The name John Powell, brewer appears again in 1593 and 1594. The cooper, John Powell is not on the list but a Widow Powell is.

In 1616 in Shrewsbury in the parish of Saint Chad I find a Reece Powell. He is living in a poor house and is very old. Family name?

Why was there a left leg bone and part of a pelvic bone found at the bottom of a dry well during an archaeological dig at the Jamestown site? Whose leg was it? Why was it there? How did it get there? Where is the rest of the body?