Nearly 400 years ago, when English settlers in Jamestown, Va., were so terrified of being ambushed by American Indians that they rarely left their fort, John Smith launched an open boat into the ...

Captain John Smith, the famous founder of America's first settlement, at Jamestown, Virginia, traced the Chesapeake Bay river system with remarkable precision from his primitive sailboat ...

But in a nod to Smith’s charting skills, the religious separatists did purchase his map and notes of New England. It is hard to know if they actually had the map with them on their voyage.