Williamsburg

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 18^th 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.