Come on a journey to remember and commemorate
the history and travels of Captain John
Smith!
Over four
hundred years ago, Englishman John Smith and a small crew set out
in an open boat to explore the Chesapeake Bay. Between 1607 and
1609 Smith mapped and documented nearly 3,000 miles of the Bay and
its rivers. Along the way he visited many thriving American Indians
communities and gathered information about this “fruitful and
delightsome land.” In December 2006 the U.S. Congress
designated the routes of Smith’s explorations of the
Chesapeake as a national historic trail—the first national
water trail.
Are you ready
to follow in the wake of Captain John Smith? Visit sites along the
National Historic Trail and learn about the native cultures and the
natural environment of the 17th-century Chesapeake through the
Captain John Smith Chesapeake Geotrail. The Trail provides
opportunities for you to experience the Bay through the routes and
places associated with Smith’s explorations. Caches will be
located in museums, refuges, parks, and towns in Virginia, Maryland
and Delaware along the rivers and creeks that Smith and his crew
explored four centuries
ago.
The Captain
John Smith (CJS) Geotrail launched June 4, 2011 with over 40 caches
within Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. A trackable geo coin will
be awarded to the first 400 geocachers, while supplies last, for
locating at least 15 CJS caches. To be eligible for the coin,
geocachers must download a passport from either the CJS Geotrail or Maryland Geocaching Society website.
Geocachers must find and log at least 15 finds, record the code
word from each cache on their passport and post a picture of
themselve at each cache location. After discovering the 15 required
caches, geocachers may have thier passports validated in person or
via mail at the National Park Service, Chesapeake Bay Office
located at 410 Severn Ave, Suite 314, Annapolis, MD 21403. Please
refer to the passport for complete validation instructions.
Participating in the CJS geotrail is fun and we
hope that many people join in. However, it is not a requirement for
logging your find on this cache once you find the
container.
This simple puzzle cache will lead you through
beautiful Occuquan Regional Park. This special park has many
recreational features including a confluence of hiking trails,
Cross Country Blue Trail, Occoquan Water Trail and the Capt. John
Smith Water Trail.
At the posted coordiantes, you will need to gather information from
3 historic signs to get the coordinates to the final. The final is
a Lock & Lock stocked with a variety of items. There is a
special FTF prize, a copy of the Chesapeake Bay map as drawn by
Capt. John Smith.
Find the answers to the following questions and this will take you
to the final location.
On The March Continues sign, what two digit number is prominently
displayed in the center of the photograph? This number = AB.
On the Voices for Votes sign, how many women are depicted in this
photograph? This number = CD.
On the Jailed for Freedom sign, how many letters are in the last
name of the woman depicted in the photograph on the far right side
of the sign? This number = E.
The final cache is located at: N 38 41.FGH where FGH = AB + 54 W 77
15.ECD
After finding the answers at the posted coordinates, cachers should
also hunt the Lorton Brick Oven cache (GC11AFH) which is just feet
away from the posted reference
point.
“Suffragist”
Occoquan Regional Park on the Occoquan River offers 400 acres of
recreational land and serves as a trailhead for the Occoquan Water
Trail. It is a part of the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail,
the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, and the
Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network. It offers picnic
facilities, ball fields, a paved hiking and biking trail, a marina
and boat launch.
In 1917, more than 70 suffragists were imprisoned in the Occoquan
Workhouse, then part of the Lorton Prison complex, in retaliation
for picketing the Woodrow Wilson White House for the right to vote.
The reports of inhumane conditions, beatings and force-feeding at
the workhouse electrified the country and became a “turning
point” in the struggle for the 19th Amendment. The Turning
Point Suffragist Memorial Committee plans to erect a suffragist
memorial at the park to commemorate the struggle of these
women.
Officially, the suffrage movement in the United States began with
the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, convened by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott. The Seneca Falls Convention framed a
national discussion about women’s rights in America and
marked the beginning of a massive civil rights movement that would
span the next seventy years. National suffrage organizations were
established, dedicated to advancing women’s rights through a
federal amendment to the constitution that would give all women the
right to vote. They also worked toward reforms on issues that
included divorce and child custody laws, women’s property
rights, employment opportunities, education, and increased social
freedoms.
There were no women included in the first company of English to
arrive in the Chesapeake in 1607. This was a business venture, paid
for by the investors in the London Virginia Company, chartered by
King James I in 1606. All of the Jamestown leaders, including
Smith, were investors and employees of the Virginia Company. Their
employer’s instructions were simple: find gold or silver, and
find a water route to serve as a shortcut to the lucrative trading
business in Asia. Other goals included preparing the land for
cultivation of food crops and establishing friendly relations with
the Indians. The Virginia Company would send supply ships from time
to time (and in mid-1608, the first two women arrived), and
expected returning ships to be loaded with valuable commodities.
This profit-driven venture did not include grand aims of converting
indigenous people to Christianity or reflect motives of religious
persecution.
Thanks to Baja Clan for helping with
this hide and to the Maryland Geocaching Society for assisting with
this
project!