This is one of the stories Lee received in his hunt. This boy and Richard Pace are truly our and your heros.
On good Friday, March 22, 1622, there occurred the Great Massacre by the Indians under Opecanough. Richard Pace was then residing in his plantation called "Pace's Paines" on the banks of the James on the Surry side near the Four Mile Tree and Mount Pleasant plantations. Pace, who had been living at his plantation since December 5, 1620, was instrumental in saving the lives of the Jamestown settlers.
His story is known to every school child, yet it might be well to quote from the original account published in the records of the Virginia Company, as follows:
The slaughter would have been universal if God had not put it into the heart of an Indian belonging to one Perry to disclose it, (CHANCO) who living in the house of one Pace, was urged by another Indian, his brother (who came in the night and lay with him) to kill Pace, (so commanded by their King as he declared) as he would kill Perry: telling further by such an hour in the morning a number would come from divers places to finish the Execution, (who failed not at the time).
Perry's Indian rose out of his bed and revealed it to Pace who had used him as a son: And thus the rest of the Colony that had warning given them, by this means was saved.
Pace upon this discovery, securing his house, before day rowed over the river to James City (in that place near three miles in breadth) and gave notice thereof to the Governor, by which means they were prevented there, and at such other plantations as was possible for a timely intelligence to be given, "for where they saw us standing upon our guard, at the sight of a piece, they all ran away."
Pace was forced to leave his plantation and reside in Jametown for safety. In the winter of 1622, he petitioned the Governor to allow him to return to the plantation promising "to fortify and strengthen the place with a good company of able men."
The petition was granted but the brave Pace died not long afterwards, for George Pace, "son and heir apparent to Richard Pace, decd., on 1 September, 1628 recceived a patent "to the plantation called "Pace's Paines", granted his father 5 December, 1620; westward on land of his mother Isabella Perry; East on land of Francis Chapman now in the tenure of William Perry; gent., his step-father and north upon the main river; 100 acres due for the personal adventure of his father Richard Pace and 300 acres for the transportation of four persons."
George Pace married Sarah, a daughter of Captain Samuel Maycock, a member of the Council, who was killed in the massacre.
Descendants of the Pace family have spread throughout the South.
In the Massacre there were 347 persons killed out of a total population of 1,240 in Virginia.
above from: courtesy of COLONIAL SURRY, BY John B. Boddie