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We weren't disappointed. The breakfast was great, the service was great, and it was in high spirits that we got back in the Merc, wound our way to the Colonial National Parkway and headed southeast for Jamestown. It started to sprinkle almost as soon as we were on the road. I turned the wipers on to the intermittant setting and they dutifully swept the droplets from the windshield. |
Yet the closer we got to Jamestown the harder the rain began falling. "This isn't too bad," I thought. "Maybe it'll let up by the time we get there." Wrong. As we pulled up to the ranger station and purchased our admission tickets, good for a week at both Jamestown National Park and Yorktown National Park it was clear the ranger thought we were crazy. I'm sure the Minnesota plates on the Merc reinforced his opinion. Heedless of the danger in we went. Once in the parking lot we saw signs for an automobile tour of the island. There is a three mile loop and a longer five mile one. Not thinking twice we opted for the long version and pointed the Merc down the one way auto path and into the woods.
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As the trail winds around the island there are turnouts periodically where the Park
Service has placed informative signs with an artists rendering of the early colonists
at work and at play with a short descriptive paragraph below decsribing the scene.
We dutifully pulled in to each one and I snapped some shots of the signs from
the driver's side of the car. Soon the ever increasing rain storm made even this
small attempt at tourism all but impossible. Being troopers we carried on
wondering if we'd find out later that they had given this storm a name. Around the island we drove, marveling at the dense woods that crowded around the swampy lowlands that were everywhere. Both Robin and I remarked that it was no wonder at all that the colony came so very close to dying out in those first years. They moved into a honest-to-God swamp and stayed there! Okay, here's where you landed |
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We made it back to the parking area without incident but by then the rain was blowing
horizontally across the lot and from the looks of it taking half of the foliage that
remained on the October trees with it. The rain wasn't abating but our
resolve certainly was and we decided that the better part of valor would be to return
to Williamsburg and do some souvenier shopping for the four children we left at home
in the care of Robin's 27 uear old godson, Eli. Besides it was cold and we
hadn't packed any rain gear. So it was off to Merchant's Square, a quaint little
area of vendors between the Historic Area and the College of William and Mary.
And shop we did, vowing to return to continue our quest for history on the
morrow. Sunday morning was gorgeous. The only remnants of yesterday's "hurricane" were the occasional puddles in the low spots. Back in the Merc, get a nice breakfast (on the house, of course) and Jamestown here we come. |
| At this point I think I should point out that there are two "Jamestowns" and two "Yorktowns." Back in the late 1800s, when almost nobody cared about American history, a group of Virginia women took it upon themselves to save those sites in their state that symbolized the founding of our country. They called themselves the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and persuaded the owners of Jamestown Island to donate the 22½ acres that encompassed most of what had been site of the Jamestown colony. But for their efforts the earliest settlement of the English in North America might well have been plowed under and planted in tobacco. They were the sole custodians of this historic site until 1934 when the entire island was aquired by the federal government to be part of Colonial National Park along with the site of the seige of Yorktown. The APVA continued to manage their 22½ acres while the National Park Service took care of the rest of the island. |
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The upshot of all this is that when, in the late 1950s, the state of Virginia wanted to create some tourist interest in the 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown the actual site of the original colony was already taken. So, in 1957, the State of Virginia opened Jamestown Festival Park. They followed it with the Yorktown Victory Center a few miles away in Yorktown in the Bicentennial year of 1976. Together these two arms of the same park augment the paired national parks with whom they share their space.
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Jamestown Settlement is a very slick, modern blending of historical museum, outdoor exhibits, careful recreations and theme park. The only thing missing were the rides. Portions of a new visitor center were still under construction while we were there. One enters the park through the museum proper. Within are three main galleries; The English, The Powhatan, and the Jamestown. The English Gallery describes life in sixteenth century England and the forces that motivated those adventerous individuals who sought a better life in the New World. The Powhatan Gallery tells the story of the indigineous people of the "Tsenacommacah," or the "densley inhabited land" as they referred to it. The Powhatan, as they called themselves had lived in this "new" land for thousands of years and evolved a society rich in tradition and culture. Finally, The Jamestown Gallery is a depection of the world the two colliding cultures found themselves in after the three ships landed on a small river island and discharged their living cargo of settlers in a "wilderness" painstakingly created by the native population. |
Upon exiting the museum a map of the recreated settlement provides direction to the three outdoor exhibits; a Powhatan village, the triangluar fort, and replicas of the three ships that brought those first permanent English settlers to the shores of North America.
Robin and I wandered around, exploring the native village with its "yehakins," or longhouses made of bent saplings covered with woven mats or bark. We saw their garden plots and cerimonial circles while interpreters dressed in native garb dried skins, tended the gardens or repaired weapons and tools. From there we walked down to the docks and aboard each of the three reproduction ships moored there, the Godspeed, the Susan Constant, and the Discovery. The first thing that struck us both is how small these ships were. The Discovery, was 49' 6" from the tip of her bowsprit to her rudder and a mere 11' 4" at her widest point. That may sound respectable but it feels downright tiny when you're aboard her. It is estmated she carried a crew of 9 and 12 passengers. Twenty-one people on that itty-bitty ship must have made for either some very close friends or some very testy travelling companions.
Then it was up the trail to the recreated Jamestown Fort. The fort depcits the earliest days of the settlement. Inside we see small, one-room houses, necessities like the blacksmith's shop, and the large, centrally located church. A costumed interpreter worked his forge while another discharged his matchlock musket in a thundering demonstration on the other side of the fort.
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When I started photographing chickens both Robin and I knew it was time to see the
real Jamestown. So it was back out through the Powhatan village with a brief
stop at the snack bar for an iced tea, and into the Merc for the short drive down
the coast. The actual site of the English colony on Jamestown Island is just a few miles away geographically but might as well be on a different planet. Gone are the slick exhibits, the fancy buildings, and the snack bars. What we found was more like what I expected to find, an archaeological site with gridded digs shielded from the elements by a large enclosure. And real buildings or what is left of them as there has been no effort to reclaim the bones of Jamestowns past and cover them with reconstituted flesh as has been done in Williamsburg. This is not to say that either of the two approaches is better than the other. I'm just saying that there is a serious effort underway at Jamestown, by the AVPA and the National Park Service, to do some seriously academic research into early English North America. |
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It was with a mixture of reverence and awe that Robin and I stood inside the oldest Protestant church in North America. I can't explain the feelings that played over my senses while I walked through a room where the devout have prayed for almost four hundred years. By European standards it is a new building, but by American ones it is age itself. Outside are the graves of Jamestown's own, those who fought and died while scratching a new life from this swamp. As we walked outside among the ruins of earliest Virginia I couldn't help but find myself falling back through the centuries to stroll through well-tended lanes winding beside these once substantial homes. The grass now grows between the foundation stones and metal rods criss-cross to keep teetering brick walls erect. But this was real. This was Jamestown.
I pulled myself from the self-induced reverie and discovered that Robin was asking me if I was hungry. And I was. It was nearing four o'clock and we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. But there was no slick snack bar here, much less the sit-down restaurants we both favor. So, on to Yorktown and food!
We were soon on the Colonial National Parkway and headed for Yorktown. We saw the entrance to the National Park as we came into town but hunger won out and we found ourselves in front of Nick's Seafood Pavilion on Water Street, a Yorktown tradition for over 50 years. If you've seen My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding (and you should---Ed.) then you already have a feeling for the place. It is Greek-American in the best possible tradition with Grecian statuary abounding amid the blue and white decor. The food was excellent, and quite reasonable by California standards, with a dozen plump oysters on the half shell running about $6.00. I ordered too much food, as usual, and Robin and I left stuffed.
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We found our way back to the entrance of the National Park without difficulty,
remembering its location easily. What we had forgotten however was what
time it was. We pulled into the lot at 4:55 pm, walked into the gift shop,
and found it deserted. The staff were putting things away, dusting off the
counters, and starting to "ring out" the cash registers. I immediately panicked
and asked if I could make a few quick purchases. Robin, being the smarter of
the two of us asked if she could use the rest room. Both our requests were
granted, and both of us feeling relieved left to see what we could of the park in the
fading daylight. Just outside the Visitor's Center are some revetments and cannons pointing into a large open field. I took a hasty look and we got back in the car to take the vehicle tour through the park, following the posted signs from one encampment to another. I just wasn't able |
We got back in the car, got back on the Parkway and headed towards Williamsburg. We passed the Yorktown Victory Center, the State of Virginia's tribute to the revolution's climactic battle, and saw it was closed up tighter than a saloon on Sunday. Trying to take the philosophical view to hide my disappointment I said, "Well, you can't do everything at once. We needed a reason to come back anyway, didn't we?"
My game face didn't fool Robin for a minute. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek as she touseled my hair. "Don't worry, B. It'll still be there when we come back." As I eased the Merc into it's space behind Christiana Campbell's Tavern and shut down it's big V8 I knew she was right. We'd done a lot on this trip, and would still do more before we headed back to California, but we'd missed Yorktown.
But it will be there when we come back.---JBW