Yorktown – A Traveling Fool

I love history anyway, so I can easily get excited over seeing someplace like Hadrian’s Wall or Egyptian pyramids and temples or battlefields like Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Yorktown, Culloden, the D-Day landing beaches, etc. Smaller historical events are also intriguing to me.

Whether you are fascinated by history or not, knowing just a little bit about a place can make it much more interesting, such as what is the significance of an old cemetery? Who is buried there?

In St Augustine, Florida, I was fascinated by the fort. It had been built by the Spanish prior to the English settlements at either Jamestown or Roanoke, Virginia or Plymouth, Massachusetts.

In Israel, Masada would have just been several piles of rocks up on a high, hot plateau without knowledge of its history. For those who hadn’t read up on it before the trip, there was a short film down at the base that everyone watched before taking the cable car up to see it.

At Thermopylae in Greece, without knowledge of what had taken place there a couple thousand years ago, just looking at a monument to Leonides and the 300 Spartans who fought and died there wouldn’t have been all that fascinating. Since I knew the story, I could use my imagination. And a good imagination was necessary. The topography has changed quite a bit since 480 BC.

On this trip, my knowledge of Joan of Arc came in handy while in Rouen. I knew that the museum dedicated to her was in the very building where her trial had taken place. I also knew about all of the other locations associated with her.

In Avignon, I was aware of the history of the town, the Pont de Avignon, and the Palais des Papes. Despite it being a very hot day, my back hurting, and lots of stairs to climb, I was very interested in seeing it all.

Sometimes when visiting a place where you already know the history, you can find that seeing the place itself can make your understanding of it much clearer. It was one thing to read about traboules (the secret passages that had been used by the French Resistance to escape detection), but quite another to actually walk through a few of them. They had been built in the old, Renaissance portion of Lyon back when that part of the city was new. People who lived there knew about them. But people who didn’t live there were at a loss. To this day, only a handful of them are open to the public.

Although most people are well aware of who Napoleon was and his role in history, I always find it to be fun to see personal objects used by such iconic public figures. In Napoleon’s case, it was his hat on display in the library of Malmaison – the home he shared with Josephine. It made him seem more human. Like when I saw one of Queen Victoria’s gowns and Admiral Horatio Nelson’s uniform.

Alexandria, Virginia – now basically a DC suburb – was a major slave trading port with one of the largest slave markets in the country. The building that housed the offices of a slave trading company is now a museum called Freedom House. Some of the auctions were held in front of the Town Hall. Our stop in Alexandria was brief — just long enough to see the Town Hall and a little of the Old Town.

The land on which Mount Vernon stands was acquired by George Washington’s great-grandfather in the 1600s. The view from the house across the Potomac River is gorgeous. What a lovely place to live! No wonder Washington was anxious to get home after he was President. We were able to tour most of the house (though not allowed to take photos other than in the kitchen). I walked around the property, looking at everything. Once I paid my respects at George and Martha’s graves, I went back to the porch and sat in one of the rocking chairs, taking in the views until it was time to leave.

We had lunch at Spotsylvania Courthouse, location of a Civil War battle in 1864. The 20 hour battle ended in a stalemate and three cemeteries full of bodies.

Our afternoon was spent at Yorktown. Founded in 1691 as a port town, Yorktown was the site of British General Cornwallis’ surrender to George Washington during the American Revolution in 1781. This was also the battle when Washington finally caved in to Alexander Hamilton and let him take command. One of the photos I have from there is of a redoubt where Hamilton fearlessly led the charge. In town were several buildings that were there at the time of the Revolution, including a house (the Nelson house) with a cannonball still imbedded in the wall. Down below the town, is a cave that Cornwallis used as his headquarters.

We spent the night in Williamsburg, not too far from the historic part of town. We could actually walk there. It would have been a long walk, but we could still walk there. Since I had walked all over Mount Vernon and Yorktown (I covered the entire battlefield as well as the town), I didn’t feel the need to walk all the way into town that evening. So I grabbed some food near the hotel and watched a movie in my room.

Jamestown was our first stop for the day. The first settlement there was begun in 1607 when the ships Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed arrived in what later became Virginia. The settlement had a pretty rocky time. Its location was swampy with loads of mosquitos and brackish water. The settlers arrived in the middle of a major drought and too late in the year to plant anything. Most of the group were gentlemen and their servants, none of whom were used to manual labor. Seems that this idea was not too well thought out. In a few months, roughly 80% of the group was dead.

Although another group arrived in 1608, many of them ran off to join the Powhatan tribes, so the settlers were in dire straights by 1609. This was when the Sea Venture led several other ships to rescue Jamestown. Unfortunately, they encountered a hurricane and ended up stranded in Bermuda for nearly a year while they built new ships. They finally arrived at Jamestown in 1610.

1609 and 1610 are remembered as the Starving Time. There wasn’t much left of the settlement by the time the people from the Sea Venture finally arrived. But their arrival saved what was left of the colony. There is an interesting book about it titled The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown. This story is also considered to have been the basis for Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”.

My first ancestor to arrive in what eventually became the US (and my 11^th great grandfather on my paternal grandmother’s side) was on the Sea Venture, survived the hurricane, and arrived in Jamestown on the Deliverance in 1610. He stuck around for a couple years and headed back to London in 1612. In 1620, he decided to give it another try and sailed across again with his second wife and children from both his first and second wives. I’m descended from a daughter by his first wife.

I would have really liked to have seen the remains of the original settlement that is known as Historic Jamestown, but we were taken to the recreation of the colony known as Jamestown Settlement. A Powhatan village was been reconstructed just outside of the settlement. They also have replicas of the three original ships and of the settlement itself as it would have been in 1610 through 1614. It was very interesting to see. Sometime, though, I would still like to visit the actual settlement.

After spending the morning at Jamestown, we returned to Williamsburg for the remainder of the day. I had been to Williamsburg before on an earlier trip, but we ran out of time before we could tour the Governor’s Palace. So this time, immediately after lunch (which was at the same end of town as the Governor’s Palace) I made my way there first.

To try to keep from having too many people in the building at the same time, they gather groups in the courtyard. Then, when one group has pretty much exited, they let another in. Fortunately we did not need to stay with our group and gather around a tour guide. We could wander through at our own pace. There were placards to read and costumed guides who could answer question and would bring our attention to something they especially thought we should see or learn about. Since we had all afternoon, I took my time.

Making several stops along the way, I walked from the Governor’s Palace to the House of Burgesses at the other end of town and back again. I stopped in at the Brickyard (brick making), the Blacksmith shop and Armory (making horseshoes, tools, weapons and nails), the Joinery (finishing work on doors, windows, fireplace mantels), the Gunsmith shop (gun making), the Apothecary (pharmacy), the Bindery (book binding), the Coopers (barrel making), the cabinetmakers (furniture making), the Wheelwright (wheel making), the Foundry (creating objects in brass, bronze, pewter and silver), and a Shoemakers (making shoes and boots). I also visited some of the houses that were open to the public, such as the Everard House, the Geddy House, the Wythe House, and the Peyton Randolph House.

There were also several costumed interpreters portraying historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and George Washington, and others playing various townspeople, soldiers, and slaves. Had a nice chat with a housemaid at the Governor’s Palace, a soldier at the parade ground, a free black woman, and Thomas Jefferson, in addition to some of the people at the different shops and workshops. All in all, a fun day.

That evening, we went back into town to have dinner at the Shields Tavern, where we had an 18^th century style southern dinner accompanied by 18^th century music. We also had a few actors playing patriots who were doing a little rebel-rousing. After breakfast at the hotel, we had an interpreter give us information on the life of a slave at that time.

Next time – Richmond, Monticello and the Shenandoah National Park.