Pocahontas' Wedding Site Found

Photo: A historic portrait of Pocahontas in London, age 21, dressed as the Christian lady she had become. She died within months. This portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian, in Washington, D.C.

A team of archaeologists believe they may have finally discovered Pocahontas' wedding site, a mystery that has long vexed scholars.

Her matrimonial location may sound more modern than one would expect for a 1614 marriage between a 19-year-old daughter of an American Indian chief and her tobacco farmer husband.

Archaeologist Bill Kelso and his team discovered the church in a previously unexplored area of the fort in Jamestown, Virg. During a dig, they unearthed a series of deep holes. They believe the holes were once filled with wood columns that supported the fort's first church, built in 1608.

Kelso, the director of archaeology at Historic Jamestowne, has spent decades excavating Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in colonial America.

Remnants of the church are mostly now gone, but Kelso believes the site had 60-foot-long walls and a thatched roof.

A row of graves found near the altar was the clincher that convinced his team that they had indeed found the fort's church.

Historically, prominent Anglicans were buried in that part of the church, called the chancel.

The church was a major part of the settlers' lives. The large church was built in the center of the fort, so no one could pass through the site and miss it.

Some erroneously believed Pocahontas was romantically linked to Captain John Smith, most likely due to the Disney film inspired by her life. In fact, many scholars believe Smith's claims that Pocahontas saved his life after he was captured by the Powhatans to also be myth.

Pocahontas married the widowed John Rolfe in 1614 and bore him a son about nine months later. She died in England in 1617 at the age of 21. The cause of her death is still unknown.