As the temperatures start to drop and the
leaves fall, reminds me of a town I enjoyed named Williamsburg. It was close
enough to take a quick bus ride to and had friends to share the adventure.
Williamsburg was a fantasy town as a get-a-way from college and the hometown
woes.
First a little history for those who have
not been there…
Williamsburg is an independent city in the
Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the
population was 14,068. In 2014, the population was estimated to be 14,691.
Located on the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg is in the northern part of the
Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is bordered by James City County and York
County.
Williamsburg was founded in 1632 as Middle
Plantation, a fortified settlement on high ground between the James and York
rivers. The city served as the capital of the Colony and Commonwealth of
Virginia from 1699 to 1780 and was the center of political events in Virginia
leading to the American Revolution. The College of William & Mary,
established in 1693, is the second-oldest institution of higher education in
the United States and the only one of the nine colonial colleges located in the
South; its alumni include three U.S. Presidents as well as many other important
figures in the nation's early history.
The city’s tourism-based economy is driven
by Colonial Williamsburg, the restored Historic Area of the city. Along with
nearby Jamestown and Yorktown, Williamsburg forms part of the Historic
Triangle, which attracts more than four million tourists each year. Modern
Williamsburg is also a college town, inhabited in large part by William &
Mary students and staff.
Prior to the arrival of the English
colonists at Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia in 1607, the area that became
Williamsburg was within the territory of the Powhatan Confederacy. By the
1630s, English settlements had grown to dominate the lower (eastern) portion of
the Virginia Peninsula, and the Powhatan tribes had abandoned their nearby
villages. Between 1630 and 1633, after the war that followed the Indian
Massacre of 1622, the English colonists constructed a defensive palisade across
the peninsula and a settlement named Middle Plantation as a primary guard
station along the palisade.
Jamestown was the original capital of
Virginia Colony, but was burned down during the events of Bacon’s Rebellion in
1676. As soon as Governor William Berkeley regained control, temporary
headquarters for the government to function were established about 12 miles
away on the high ground at Middle Plantation, while the Statehouse at Jamestown
was rebuilt. The members of the House of Burgesses discovered that the
‘temporary’ location was both safer and more pleasant environmentally than
Jamestown, which was humid and plagued with mosquitoes.
A school of higher education had long been
an aspiration of the colonists. An early attempt at Henricus failed after the
Indian Massacre of 1622. The location at the outskirts of the developed part of
the colony had left it more vulnerable to the attack. In the 1690s, the
colonists tried again to establish a school. They commissioned Reverend James
Blair, who spent several years in England lobbying, and finally obtained a
royal charter for the desired new school. It was to be named the College of
William & Mary in honor of the monarchs of the time. When Reverend Blair
returned to Virginia, the new school was founded in a safe place, Middle
Plantation in 1693. Classes began in temporary quarters in 1694, and the
College Building, a precursor to the Wren Building, was soon under
construction.
Four years later, in 1698, the rebuilt
Statehouse in Jamestown burned down again, this time accidentally. The
government again relocated ‘temporarily’ to Middle Plantation, and in addition
to the better climate now also enjoyed use of the College's facilities. The
College students made a presentation to the House of Burgesses, and it was
agreed in 1699 that the colonial capital should be permanently moved to Middle
Plantation. A village was laid out and Middle Plantation was renamed
Williamsburg in honor of King William III of England, befitting the town's
newly elevated status.
Following its designation as the Capital of
the Colony, immediate provision was made for construction of a capitol building
and for plotting out the new city according to the survey of Theodorick Bland.
His design utilized the extant sites of the College and the almost-new brick
Bruton Parish Church as focal points, and placed the new Capitol building
opposite the College, with Duke of Gloucester Street connecting them.
Alexander Spotswood, who arrived in
Virginia as lieutenant governor in 1710, had several ravines filled and streets
leveled, and assisted in erecting additional College buildings, a church, and a
magazine for the storage of arms. In 1722, the town of Williamsburg was granted
a royal charter as a “city incorporate” (now believed to be the oldest charter
in the United States). However, it was actually a borough.
Middle Plantation was included in James
City Shire when it was established in 1634, as the Colony reached a total
population of approximately 5,000. (James City and the other shires in Virginia
changed their names a few years later; James City Shire then became known as
James City County). However, the middle ground ridge line was essentially the
dividing line with Charles River Shire, which was renamed York County after
King Charles I fell out of favor with the citizens of England. As Middle
Plantation and later Williamsburg developed, the boundaries were adjusted
slightly. For most of the colonial period, the border between the two counties
ran down the center of Duke of Gloucester Street. During this time, and for
almost 100 years after the formation of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the
United States, despite practical complications, the town remained divided
between the two counties.
Williamsburg was the site of the first
attempted canal in the United States. In 1771, Lord Dunmore, who would turn out
to be Virginia's last Royal Governor, announced plans to connect Archer’s
Creek, which leads to the James River with Queen’s Creek, leading to the York
River. It would have formed a water route across the Virginia Peninsula, but
was not completed. Remains of this canal are visible at the rear of the grounds
behind the Governor's Palace in Colonial Williamsburg.
The first purpose-built psychiatric
hospital in the United States was founded in the city in the 1770s: ‘Public
Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’. Known in modern times as
Eastern State Hospital, it was established by Act of the Virginia colonial
legislature on June 4, 1770. The Act to ‘Make Provision for the Support and
Maintenance of Ideots, Lunaticks, and other Persons of unsound Minds’
authorized the House of Burgesses to appoint a fifteen-man Court Of Directors
to oversee the future hospital’s operations and admissions. In 1771, contractor
Benjamin Powell constructed a two-story building on Francis Street near the
College, capable of housing twenty-four patients. The design of the grounds
included 'yards for patients to walk and take the Air in' as well as provisions
for a fence to keep the patients out of the nearby town.
The Gunpowder Incident began in April 1775
as a dispute between Governor Dunmore and Virginia colonists over gunpowder
stored in the Williamsburg magazine. Dunmore, fearing rebellion, ordered royal
marines to seize gunpowder from the magazine. Virginia militia led by Patrick
Henry responded to the ‘theft’ and marched on Williamsburg. A standoff ensued,
with Dunmore threatening to destroy the city if attacked by the militia. The
dispute was resolved when payment for the powder was arranged. This was an
important precursor in the run-up to the American Revolution.
Following the Declaration of Independence
from Britain, the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1776. During the War,
the capital of Virginia was moved again, in 1780, this time to Richmond at the
urging of then-Governor Thomas Jefferson, who feared Williamsburg’s location
made it vulnerable to a British attack. However, during the Revolutionary War
Williamsburg retained its status as a venue for many important conventions.
Williamsburg ceased to be the capital of
the new Commonwealth of Virginia in 1780 and went into decline, although not to
the degree Jamestown had previously experienced. Another factor was travel:
18th and early 19th century transportation in the Colony was largely by canals
and navigable rivers. As it had been built on ‘high ground’ Williamsburg was
not sited on a major water route, unlike many early communities in the United
States. The railroads, which began to be built from the 1830s, also did not yet
come through the city.
Despite the loss to Williamsburg of the
business activity involved in government, the College of William and Mary
continued and expanded, as did the Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and
Disordered Minds. The latter became known as Eastern State Hospital.
At the outset of the American Civil War
(1861–1865), enlistments in the Confederate Army depleted the student body of
the College of William and Mary and on May 10, 1861, the faculty voted to close
the College for the duration of the conflict. The College Building was used as
a Confederate barracks and later as a hospital, before being burned by Union
forces in 1862.
The Williamsburg area saw combat in the
spring of 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign, an effort to take Richmond from
the east from a base at Fort Monroe. Throughout late 1861 and early 1862, the
small contingent of Confederate defenders was known as the Army of the
Peninsula, and led by General John B. Magruder. He successfully created ruses
that fooled the invaders as to the size and strength of his forces, and
deterred their attack. Their subsequent slow movement up the peninsula gained
valuable time for defenses to be constructed at the Confederate capital at
Richmond.
In early May 1862, after holding the Union
troops off for over a month, the defenders withdrew quietly from the Warwick
Line (stretching across the Peninsula between Yorktown and Mulberry Island). As
General George McClellan's Union forces crept up the Peninsula to pursue the
retreating Confederate forces, a rear guard force led by General James
Longstreet and supported by General J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry blocked their
westward progression at the Williamsburg Line. This was a series of 14 redoubts
east of town, with earthen Fort Magruder at the crucial junction of the two
major roads leading to Williamsburg from the east. Benjamin S. Ewell, the
President of the College of William and Mary, had overseen the design and
construction. He owned a farm in James City County, and had been commissioned
as an officer in the Confederate Army after the College closed in 1861.
At the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5,
1862, the defenders succeeded in delaying the Union forces long enough for the
retreating Confederates to reach the outer defenses of Richmond.
A siege of Richmond ensued, culminating in
the Seven Days Battles. McClellan’s campaign failed to capture Richmond.
Meanwhile, on May 6, 1862, Williamsburg had fallen to the Union. The Brafferton
building of the College was used for a time as quarters for the commanding
officer of the Union garrison occupying the town. On September 9 that year,
drunken soldiers of the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry set fire to the College
Building, allegedly to prevent Confederate snipers from using it for cover.
Much damage was done to Williamsburg during the Union occupation, which lasted
until September 1865.
The restoration of Williamsburg is a
mammoth undertaking that began in 1927 and continues today. The prime mover
behind this enterprise was Dr. William A.R. Goodwin, then rector of Bruton
Parish Church. Dr. Goodwin had first come to Williamsburg in 1903. Fascinated
by the town’s old buildings and historic past, he launched a one-man campaign
to restore the old church, a feat that he successfully completed in 1907. In
commemoration, Goodwin published a short book titled Bruton Parish Church
Restored and Its Historic Environment. He expressed his concern for the
historical ambience of the entire town, pleading that citizens should halt what
he regarded as “the spirit of ruthless innovation which threatens to rob the
city of its distinction and charm.” Shortly afterward, he left Williamsburg to
accept the pastorate of St. Paul’s Church in Rochester, New York. However, in
1923 he returned to Williamsburg and was eventually reinstated as rector of
Bruton Parish Church.
In the years since his departure,
telephones, electricity, and worst of all, the automobile had arrived in
Williamsburg. Service stations and a string of utility poles down the center of
Duke of Gloucester Street had appeared as permanent fixtures in the townscape.
While these look harmless enough today, they must have multiplied Dr. Goodwin’s
fears that the old town’s charms were being sacrificed in the inexorable march
of progress. “Williamsburg,” he noted, is a “canvas [whose] tokens and symbols
of a glorious past” are rapidly disappearing. With an increased sense of
urgency, Goodwin began to search for a solution. During his sojourn in New
York, he had conceived of and nurtured a grand vision of restoring not just a
few key buildings, but all of Williamsburg to its eighteenth-century
appearance. Restoration on such a scale was unprecedented, and would require
enormous financial resources. Mindful of this, Goodwin solicited Henry Ford
about the possibility of funding such a project, pointing out that it was
Ford’s automobiles, after all, which were threatening to do the town in.
Evidently, Mr. Ford wasn’t impressed.
But John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was impressed.
Goodwin had met Rockefeller in 1924 at a meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa society
in New York City. It was two years later, though, when the society met in
Williamsburg, that Goodwin introduced Rockefeller to his adopted town.
Impressed with what he saw, Rockefeller
asked that he be left alone to stroll about the town. During the course of his
afternoon walk, Dr. Goodwin’s dream of a restored colonial town laid its grip
on Rockefeller. That night at dinner, Goodwin’s new patron authorized him to
hire an architect who would prepare sketches of Williamsburg as it might appear
following restoration.
As a result, Goodwin engaged the Boston
architectural firm of Perry, Shaw & Hepburn to begin the task. Working at
night to avoid alarming residents of the town, Dr. Goodwin assisted William G.
Perry in charting the town’s layout, property lines, and buildings. By 1927,
preliminary drawings illustrating restoration of the entire town were complete,
and Rockefeller instructed Goodwin to proceed with the acquisition of some key
properties. The restoration of Williamsburg was underway!
To the men and women involved, the task was
a labor of love. Immediately, they found it necessary to collect source
material on architectural precedents to be used in their work. Working on
weekends and holidays, eager draftsmen fanned out over the countryside to
collect data on Virginia’s eighteenth-century buildings. In many cases, the
fruits of these expeditions were put to immediate use. The rapid pace of work
in the drafting room demanded constant labor in the countryside.
Equally urgent was the need for information
on the history of the town and the individual buildings that were to be
restored or reconstructed. To meet this need, a small group of historians began
the mammoth job of culling the historical record for relevant information.
Through the efforts of these dedicated historians, an immense body of data, now
taken for granted, was assembled over an amazingly short period of time.
The importance of this research to the
restoration is clear when we consider the reconstruction of the Governors’
Palace that occurred over a four-year period between 1930 and 1934. As with
other buildings scheduled for restoration or reconstruction, voluminous
research notes were compiled relating to the Palace and the various governors
who lived there. While the entire picture of the Palace emerged only after
numerous bits of information had been assembled and analyzed, there were five
basic sources from which the essential form and appearance of the Governors’
Palace were determined.
Among the most important of these sources
was a dimensioned floor plan of the Palace made by Thomas Jefferson in 1779.
This sketch was discovered among Jefferson’s architectural drawings, and
associated with the Governor’s Palace prior to 1916. The plan allowed an
accurate interpretation of documentary and archaeological evidence and, as one
would expect, it provided a basis for the reconstructed plans of the building’s
first and second floors.
In December 1929, Mary Goodwin discovered
in England an eighteenth-century engraved copper plate depicting among other
things, the College of William and Mary, the first Capitol building, and the
Governor’s Palace. Because it afforded carefully drawn views of all three early
public buildings, this engraving remains one of the most important finds made
during the entire restoration effort. From it came nearly all information
available on the external appearance of the Palace, its advance buildings, and
the surrounding scheme of plantings.
Also discovered during the early stages of
research was a map of Williamsburg, made in 1782 by a French military
cartographer. Now referred to as the “Frenchman’s Map, this document offered
crucial information concerning the layout of the Palace grounds and
outbuildings. The gardens and major outbuildings visitors now see were
reconstructed in general accordance with this map.
Exciting new sources continued to turn up.
In September 1930, Ms. Goodwin located an estate inventory for the Governor’s
Palace made after Lord Botetourt’s death in 1770. Found among records at the
Virginia State Library, this minutely detailed document provided a room-by-room
listing of both his Lordship’s personal effects and of the building’s
publicly-owned contents. Assisted by the inventory, the architects were able to
identify more than twenty-five rooms and spaces on the site.
During the preceding summer, archaeologist
Prentice Duell had excavated the site of the Governor’s Palace, uncovering the
foundations of the main building and its immediate surroundings. These and
subsequent investigations permitted a synthesis of existing documentation and
provided valuable information bearing on the layout of the grounds and detailing
numerous architectural features.
From these five sources, architects
assembled the primary facts concerning the general form and appearance of the
Governor’s Palace.
Bringing together this evidence to recreate
the front elevation of the Palace was one of the really outstanding
achievements of the reconstruction project. The copper plate, of course, showed
the general appearance of the building. Because Thomas Jefferson included the
room heights of the first-and second-floors on his measured plan, it was
possible to establish the front facade’s vertical dimensions with an unusual
degree of accuracy. The exact elevation of the first floor, with respect to the
ground outside, was calculated using the rise of the steps at the building’s
west entrance. This floor elevation was then checked against the reconstructed
height of the cellar vaults, and proven correct.
Archaeology provided amazingly detailed
information about the character of the building’s brickwork. From intact
fragments of masonry, the architects deduced the bonding pattern, rubbing
details, and joint treatment used by Palace bricklayers more than 250 years
earlier.
By 1934, the College of William and Mary
had been restored, and the Governor’s Palace and Capitol had again risen from
their old foundations. As in the early years of the eighteenth century, these
great structures became the centerpieces of a new beginning—a first step that
would ensure the future of a brave new enterprise. Gradually, as surviving
houses were restored and missing buildings reconstructed, the street-fronts
between these monuments were transformed.
In many cases, surviving buildings had been
so radically altered over the years as to obscure their identity as colonial
period structures. One of which is the Margaret Hunter millinery shop. Only a
trained eye would have recognized the eighteenth-century brickwork of the
store’s sidewalls.
Quite often, the old buildings had been
enlarged in some fashion—in this case with an extension nearly as large as the
original house. When such extensions were early features, or unusually fine
examples of later work, they were allowed to remain as can be seen at the
Coke-Garrett House. The portion at the left was erected during the latter
decades of the eighteenth-century. Those in the center and to the right were
added shortly after 1837.
A few of the town’s eighteenth-century
dwellings had survived the centuries in nearly unaltered condition. Such was
the case with the house, once owned by the Reverend John Bracken, Rector of
Bruton Parish Church from 1773 to 1818. As can be seen this house was virtually
intact at the time of its restoration.
The house of Robert Nicholson belonged to a
tailor mentioned earlier as living among other tradesmen in the [Benjamin]
Waller suburb. This house had come through the nineteenth century with few
alterations, besides the installation of a window.
Most buildings, though, bore numerous
accretions, often dating from the Victorian era. At the Brush-Everard House,
was a veranda erected during that period with its characteristic jig-sawn
ornament. Porches of this kind usually provided a usable area on the upper
level of the house. As a result, it was common to find a second floor window
enlarged for access to the upper porch deck. In Williamsburg, this alteration
was almost universal among houses having an added porch. As one house after
another was restored, the porches and second floor doors began to disappear.
In the years preceding the restoration, many buildings had disappeared
entirely. In such instances the findings of archaeologists and archivists
proved extremely useful. For some structures, such as Shields Tavern, there
were room-by-room probate inventories, which assisted in the interpretation of
architectural evidence.
In other cases, drawings, paintings, or
even photographs provided invaluable evidence about the appearance of
structures long since vanished. Sources of this kind were crucial in
reconstruction of the John Crump House.
Just up the street, was the Scrivener
House. It is what we call a side-passage dwelling, since the hallway runs down
its side, rather than through its middle. An old photograph was an important
source of information, enabling reconstruction of the dwelling as it appears
today . . .
Photos were also used in the reconstruction
of the Printing Office. Next time you are near the Printing Office, notice the
positioning of the building’s windows and doors—an arrangement that was typical
for structures serving as shops or stores. The right-hand door led into a
square, unheated room (the retail area) where stock was displayed and
transactions were handled. Through the left-hand door was a smaller, heated
space usually called the “counting room,” where the merchant kept ledgers and
account books? Two windows arranged symmetrically on either side of the main
door light the retail area; a single window lights the counting room. This
seemingly random jumble of doors and windows tells us, then, that the structure
was originally built for commercial use.
There were other ways of packaging this
same form. Often the long axis of the building was turned perpendicular to the
street, with the heated counting room behind—not beside—the retail area. As a
result, the chimney stands at the rear of these buildings. This is noted at the
Prentis Store, one of the best surviving eighteenth-century commercial
buildings in Virginia. Except for the front wall, the brickwork of this
structure, and most of its exterior trim, were more or less intact when
restoration began in 1932. At the time, this building was serving as a garage
and gas station. Seen in the light of an old photograph, Dr. Goodwin’s
objections to automobiles in Williamsburg would seem to carry greater credit.
Throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s,
the restoration work continued. During World War II, building activity came to
a temporary halt. At war’s end, however, the work was resumed, and has
continued to the present day.
There you have it. A small town feel and
yet a tourist attraction.
My smart friend who got accepted to W&M
and a dorm room with a roommate lived on this huge campus of bricks and
greenery. Take a left turn and you are now in the 18th century with
costumes and archeological correct buildings selling trinkets to tourist.
As I recall, Williamsburg was a quaint
place that would roll up the sidewalks at dark leaving a colonial Disneyland
(sans the rides) free for our tribe to explore and wander free of interruption
or distraction.
The colonial area was only a few blocks
long for easy walking while trying to entertain the Japanese tourist carrying
cameras and wearing tri-cornered hats. At one end of the street was a deli with
great roast beef subs and at the other end Beethoven’s Inn. Every visit had to
have a stop at Chowning’s Tavern for a big bowl of clam chowder. Even the watered
down beer tasted better in a pewter mug. The street was wide enough to form a
line and skip down with disturbing anyone or having to avoid traffic. It was a
fun town for late teens.
Did I also say, we were on drugs?
Instead of the dirty row houses and back
alley garage studios, W&M was massive and clean as would be expected from a
school that cost that much. At the same time, he taught me another reason not
to live in a dorm, so when I left home, I got an apartment. Still it was quiet
enough rather than an intercity noisy and crime ridden environment.
The college seemed like a place where you
had to study and root for the teams and celebrate Christmas with a Yule log
ceremony that went back generations. The place was dripping in history.
So why would I journey down the road to
sleep on a cramped sofa in a dorm with silly boys pouring trashcans of water
down the stairs listening to Led Zeppelin?
My friend’s entourage also had girls. One
of them even became my first wife. So enchanted by the town we got married in
the Wren Chapel.
But after awhile I’d return to Richmond
leaving the magic that was Williamsburg behind.
The tribe went their separate ways after
graduation and started new lives. Williamsburg became a scrapbook of wonderful
memories. Life was filled with
work and trying to find a spot in the world, leaving fantasy behind.
Years later, I met my next wife. We spent a
vacation in Williamsburg and the magic was back. Along with my credit card, she
fell in love with the place. Spending Christmas in a 5-star hotel with all the
amenities didn’t hurt either. Even got married there (again).
So this time of year when the leaves turn
colors and you put on a sweater to walk down the brick sidewalk to feed the
geese and pet the sheep then return to sit in front of the fireplace with a
warm cup of apple cider and gingerbread cookies being serenaded by wandering
musicians brings back some of the magic.
A few years ago I went back solo but the
magic was gone.
