CJS - Dutch Gap - Henricus Historical Park Mystery Cache

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.

The listed coordinates will take you to a sign at stage 1.
1. What year was the Citie of Henricus founded?
Take the first two digits, subtract 1, and add to the N coordinates. Add the 4 digits of the year, multiply by 3, add 3, and add to the W coordinates. This gives you the Stage 2 Coordinates.

Stage 2. How many nautical miles from the Chesapeake Bay is this area? Multiply that distance times 3, subtract 15 and subtract from the N coordinates for Stage 2.

How many beds were in the Mt. Malady hospital? Multiply this number by 3, add 15 and add to the W coordinates for Stage 2. You now have the coordinates for the final.

The Henricus area comprises of fee and non fee sections. The original site, where the cache stages are located, is open to the public. The restored living history area (http://www.henricus.org/) charges admission. The Conservation Area (http://www.chesterfield.gov/content2.aspx?id=5441) has over a dozen caches and excellent hiking. There is no fee.

WARNING: This park is serious about closing times--as in metal gate, chain, and lock. Read the sign. If you get locked in, call the police. The hider of this cache does not have a key!

Dutch Gap Conservation Area surrounds the location of Henricus, the second successful English settlement in Virginia. It consists of 810 acres of woodlands and waterways along the James River, a major Chesapeake Bay tributary. Visitors to the Conservation Area have the opportunity to hike or paddle roughly 300 acres of wetlands surrounding a tidal lagoon, formed when the James River flooded a sand and gravel mining pit. Wildlife in the Conservation Area include blue heron, eagles, beavers and muskrats.

The first English colonists passed by the site of what is now Dutch Gap as they sailed up the James, scouting to see where the river led, shortly after they settled at Jamestown Island on May 13, 1607. The “Citie of Henricus,” named for King James I’s son, was established in 1611 by Sir Thomas Dale, in the hopes that colonists would fare better in the healthier environment upriver. Dale’s decision to cut a ditch through a narrow neck of land to create a more direct route upriver gave Dutch Gap its name, a technique he learned as a soldier in the Low Countries (now the Netherlands), where he campaigned for Dutch independence from about 1588 to 1609.

The settlement was destroyed in the 1622 Powhatan uprising, a series of surprise attacks along the James River, and the survivors fled back to Jamestown. Led by Opechancanough, chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, the uprising was an attempt to expel the English, whose presence on the land had expanded rapidly since the cultivation of tobacco began in 1614. On March 22, Indian warriors simultaneously attacked most of the outlying settlements (that is, most established after and away from Jamestown Island), killing 347 men, women, and children – nearly one-third of the English population in Virginia. By this time, Dale had already sailed back to England in 1616, along with Pocahontas, both fated to never to return to Virginia. The uprising was ultimately unsuccessful – the English initiated a policy of total war, attacking any Indians suspected of involvement, destroying their villages, crops, and tools. In desperation, Opechcancanough sued for peace. At the peace parley in the fall, the English poisoned two hundred Indians with a tainted toast and slew another 50 by hand. Opechcancanough escaped, and hostilities continued almost unabated until 1644, when the murder of the elderly Opechcancanough led to the capitulation of the Powhatan Confederacy.