This modern-day photograph shows the remains of the tower of the Anglican church that colonists constructed in Jamestown beginning in 1639. Nearby is the foundation of an older church, built in 1617, that also served as the site of the first meeting of the Virginia general assembly or House of Burgesses, the first representative legislative body in English North America. The churches illustrate the importance that Virginia’s leaders attached to maintaining the central English institution of worship and spiritual order in the fledgling colony. Courtesy of Preservation Virginia.