The year was 1607, Mary Queen of Scotts only son was king of England,  Scotland and Ireland and on the north bank of The Haven Boston Lincolnshire  the Scrooby Separatists later to be known as The Pilgrim Fathers made their  first attempt to escape and seek religious freedom.

Also the first English settlement in the New World in Jamestown Virginia  North America had just been established. Among the hundred and five men who  set sail from London a year earlier was a Lincolnshire son named John Smith  of Willoughby, he was responsible for establishing trading links with the  American Indians.

It was during this time that he was captured by a group of Indians who  murdered some of his companions and threatened to execute him but according  to the story John Smith told he was rescued from this fate by the  intervention of the eleven year old Pocahontas who pleaded for his life.

John Smith became president of Virginia in 1608 returning to England in  1609.

In 1614 Pocahontas married John Rolfe of Heacham Norfolk.

St Helenas’s Church Willoughby Lincolnshire

John was born in Willoughby Lincolnshire in 1579. He was Baptised in St  Helenas’s Church on the 9th January 1580.

He died in London in 1631.

The Stained Glass Windows from left to right: The Western Window, The John Smith Window and The Eastern Window

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Detail taken for the three stained glass windows St Helenas’s Church Willoughby Lincolnshire Commemorating John Smith’s Life and Times