The content of this story is unverified. Ivins has not been found among the list of settlers of Jamestown or the passengers of the ships Deliverance or Patience.
Ivins File 1610 to 1918, Adam Brockie, LDS Family History Center Film 1421576, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Transcriptions of a LDS film are given here. Written by hand: The first two men in the Ivins File, Henry and son Daniel, are only partially documented. Land records, Jamestown Census, Governor of Virginia's account of early Jamestown and Friends Meeting House records. The rest of the history is fully documented.
"In 1610 the ships, Patience and Deliverance, arrived in Jamestown. The day was May 23rd. Spring was in the air; certainly the planting season was soon to start. The arrival of new adventurers and suppliers was always cause for celebration and thanksgiving. Mr. and Mrs. H. Ivins were part of the new people sent from England to inhabit the plantation of Jamestown. Mrs. Ivins was with child, and eight months after their arrival Henry Junior was born.
England, a land of dispirit and under a monarch, gave subjects little chance to change their position in life. So the migration to a plantation, set up by boards of business men supplying money for ships and supplies, was the answer to a better life. In January, 1612, when Henry was one, he lost his mother. It was a hard life with demands from England, and just surviving in this wilderness from day to day was a problem. Henry Jr. progressed with the help of neighbors, learning whatever came his way and accepting adventure that a new land offered.
At the age of 19 he went up the James River to Cheaspeak into the Delaware River to Racoon Creek. Here he spent three days building a wigwam. Henry then set up a trading post with the Indians. Some of the items he bartered were guns, beads, blankets, and cloth. In return he received skins of mink, beaver, and other animals. He spent two years trading with the Mentacoms tribe. During this period Henry carved out canoes and assembled rafts to carry his furs to buyers. He floated down the Delaware River to the Hudson River, then to New Amsterdam. The demand for furs was great, and he sold them all to the Commercial firm of Cabrey and Sons of Amsterdam. The Dutch Company hired him to continue his fur trade with the Indians which he did from 1633 to 1639.
Henry also traded in Tobacco which meant periodic trips to Jamestown plantations. In 1645 Henry went back to Pen's Neck, a Swedish area, to buy land from his friends, Chief Necomis and his mother Necosshehesco. He had found a woman to marry and wanted to settle down and start his family. Their first born was Daniel, followed by six more children. Daniel, like his father, learned quickly the ways of the land. All shared the work and even his Indian friends came to eat and help. The crops were corn, and wheat mostly, with pigs, chickens and cows rounding out the plantation.
In 1675 John Fenwich arrived with the first English settlement that could be considered lasting. Charles II was king of England at that time, and to quiet problems with the Swedes and Dutch (after their defeat by England) an arrangement was made for quick claiming of property purchased from the Indians. This protected land owners of record at the time. It was also agreed to pay a right Conveyance to England so the land owners could sell or transfer title if they desired to do so."
A more detailed account has been shared. [1]
1610 Historical accounts of the Ship Deliverance.
1609 From Jamestown National Park [2]:
John Rolfe stepped into history in May 1609, when he boarded the Sea Venture, bound for Virginia... The Sea Venture was the flagship of a nine-ship convoy of 500 new settlers. By July, the ships had reached the West Indies where they were struck by a hurricane. The Sea Venture ran aground on a reef off the Bermudas, but the entire company of 150 safely reached shore in the ship's boats. The colonists found Bermuda to be a hospitable place with sufficient food. In the following months, two smaller ships were built from cedar trees and salvage. By May 1610 the two ships, aptly named the Patience and the Deliverance, were ready. The ships reached the Chesapeake Bay after ten days sailing.
1610 The Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Papers report the following on May 23 or 24. [3]
The Deliverance and the Patience arrive in Jamestown, carrying John Rolfe, Ralph Hamor, Sir George Somers, and others from the Sea Venture wreck. The survivors have built the two ships on Bermuda island from wreckage of the original ships destroyed in a hurricane. They find approximately sixty malnourished colonists at Jamestown.
Research Notes:
Our interest is in Isaac Ivins [4], who was an ancestor of Robert Wolfe. We would be delighted to hear of any documentation concerning a relationship between Henry Ivins and Isaac Ivins.
[1] no author History of The Isle of Wight Hampton Road Jamestown Virginia Colony America, [URL].
[2] John Rolfe, Historic Jamestowne, Colonial National Historical Park, Virginia, [URL].
[3] Thomas Jefferson Papers Timeline, [URL].
[4] Janet and Robert Wolfe, Genealogy Page for Isaac Ivins, [JRWolfeGenealogy].