The Rev. Richard Bucke Shipwrecked in Bermuda
Diocesan Press Service. August 23, 1974 [74226]
(Note: Please Credit: From Washington Diocese)
Anxious to uphold the religious traditions of colonists in Virginia, the Virginia Company engaged the Rev. Richard Bucke to cross the Atlantic to Jamestown in 1609. He was to succeed the first Jamestown clergyman, the Rev. Robert Hunt, who had drowned in the James River.
Mr. Bucke sailed on the "Sea Venture " as chaplain of an expedition headed by Sir Thomas Gates. However, before they reached the shores of Virginia, the ship was driven off its course during a hurricane and wrecked on the reefs of an uninhabited island now known as Bermuda. This calamity on an isle viewed by sailors as haunted was William Shakespeare's inspiration for "The Tempest."
A commemorative plaque honoring the Rev. Mr. Bucke will be unveiled during a Remembrance Day service in St. George's Episcopal Church, Bermuda, Nov. 10. Among those participating in the service will be Ella F. Harlee of Washington, a direct descendant of Mr. Bucke and president of the Educational Communication Association. The occasion is on the agenda of a tour program, Bermuda and American History, an ECA-sponsored American Bicentennial event. *
The Virginia-bound company and its chaplain spent nine months in Bermuda while two new vessels, the "Deliverance " and the "Patience," were being built by the survivors. They salvaged what they could from the "Sea Venture " and managed with crude, handmade tools to cut and process new lumber. During this period, Mr. Bucke served as minister to his shipwrecked companions.
Finally, the party sailed from Bermuda aboard their new ships on May 10, 1610, arriving in Jamestown (James Cittie) eleven days later. They were welcomed by colonists in desperate straits, and the Rev. Mr. Bucke immediately began his ministry among them with sermon and prayer. Thereafter two worship services were held daily "to restore morale and courage to the disheartened. "
Mr. Bucke was assigned 750 acres of land, 100 to be laid aside for "gleab land." The first frame church was erected in 1617 and Mr. Bucke served, surviving many hardships and Indian massacres, until his death in 1623. He earned a place in history as chaplain to the first representative Legislative Assembly in the New World, which convened in the Jamestown church on July 30, 1619. It was Mr. Bucke who, in 1614, officiated at the marriage of Pocohontas and his good friend, John Rolfe, certainly one of early America's best known love stories.
* Detailed information concerning this event, Nov. 9 -12, may be obtained by contacting the Educational Communication Association, 906 National Press Bldg., 14th & F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20045. Telephone: 202/393-6267.