I put the letter aside and examined the last two items. Both were grainy photocopies of newspaper photos, one dated 1938, and the second 1992. I looked at the newer photo of three men and a young woman standing around what looked like an archeological excavation site. One of the men was Prescott Avery; the two others were members of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. The young woman, who appeared to be in her early twenties, was identified as Josephine Wilde, a doctoral student in geology at The College of William & Mary and a researcher at the Jamestown Settlement.

Small world—it was the same Josie Wilde I wanted to talk to and ask if we could hire her to help us with our grapes.

The caption under the photo read:

An archeological excavation undertaken by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in conjunction with Historic Jamestowne in November has reached the conclusion that “Francis Bacon’s Vault” is not and was never located in the area excavated at the northwest quadrant of Bruton Parish Church. This excavation lays to rest—permanently—centuries of speculation about its existence.

The 1938 photo showed four men standing around what was apparently the same location.

Church officials at Bruton Parish in Colonial Williamsburg have recently uncovered the foundation for the first brick church built on this site, which was completed in 1683. With an influx of students from The College of William & Mary (founded in 1693), and the relocation of the Virginia capital from Jamestown to Williamsburg after a fire destroyed much of the settlement in 1699, a new church, which is the present-day church, was built in 1715.

Two of the four men identified in the photo were from Bruton Parish Church; the third was a member of the Rockefeller Foundation, which had provided the funding to restore Colonial Williamsburg. The fourth man was Jock Avery, Prescott’s father. Very small world.

Why would two generations of Averys be present at two different excavations more than fifty years apart on the grounds of Bruton Parish? I’d been a student at William & Mary a dozen years ago and I’d never heard of “Francis Bacon’s Vault”—probably because, according to the 1992 story, it never existed.

And what of this “shipwrack” in 1609 that led to the discovery of Bermuda? I pulled out my phone and did a quick search, landing on someone’s blog page.