OLD JAMESTOWN CHURCH TOWER, Jamestown National Historic Site. The story of Jamestown, site of the first permanent English settlement in America, began on May 13, 1607, when the first Virginia colonists selected Jamestown Island, then a peninsula, as their place of settlement. This old church tower is believed to have been part of the first brick church, begun in 1639. It and foundations of the last State House on the island and of several important residences have been preserved by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, which purchased 22-1/2 acres at Jamestown in 1893. The Association's lands, designated as Jamestown National Historic Site, are administered by the Association in close cooperation with the staff of Colonial National Historical Park under a cooperative agreement between it and the National Park Service, to make possible a unified program of development and administration of the entire Jamestown area.