Jamestowne and Yorktown
The first is the beginning of the settling of our colonies; the
second, the semi-official beginning of the transformation of the colonies to a nation. They are separated by a mere twenty-three
miles of beautiful parkway. The Colonial
Parkway has no commercial ventures…no gas stations, no McDonalds or other food
gathering places, no gifts shops, no billboards, and not even painted lines in
the road (one needs to watch the signs at the side of the road to know whether
one can pass or not)…just beautiful wooded roadway and brick-arched bridges.
Both Jamestowne and Yorktown Battlefield are part of the
National Park Service. If you are not a “pass”
holder, $10.00 will get you into both places.
As a senior, however, my NPS pass was, as always, a freebie ($10.00 one-time
payment gets into all kinds of NPS venues...battlefields, forts, parks, etc. It is the deal of all deals!)
We started our venture by stopping at the Virginia Welcome
Station upon leaving North Carolina. We
told the extremely helpful gentleman what we had planned. He asked several times if we knew how to get
there. I answered that we had a
GPS. At this point he hauled out a map
and showed us a MUCH better way. There
is a FREEEEEEEEE ferry that leaves Surry, Virginia, every half hour. It traverses the James River where it docks
next the Jamestown Settlement (not to be confused with Jamestowne—the original. Scotland-Jamestown Ferry
The Jamestown Settlement is a Disney wannabe. It was recommended by some members of the
Park Service, but one volunteer said it with such distain that it was almost
scary. It is organized kind of like
Colonial Williamsburg as a commercial venture with people doing work and crafts
of the era. Indian Village. Costumed
characters. Replica Ships. We will probably visit it on another trip
north.
The ferry ride was quick.
A southbound ferry passes the northbound about midway in the river. They are rather large. When we got in the line to wait for the boat
to come, we thought that we were so far back that we would have to wait for a
second. I am thankfully glad that we
were WRONG. Each ferry has a rather
large capacity for a great number of vehicles.
We saw several trucks come off. I
never saw anything load and unload as quickly.
I did not realize that we had started across the river…thought that we
were still loading. But, then I saw the
pilings with the full crew of seagulls moving.
Oh, wait a minute, the pilings weren’t moving, WE were. Very smooth trip. We got out of our car and went up to the
passenger cabin at the top, but only to take pictures.
Since we left Florida that morning, we got a hotel room and
went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday. The next
morning, bright and early, we headed toward Yorktown. We were there much too early. The park was not yet open. A walking trail led us to the monument and
the actual town. Many buildings in the
town are privately owned. But several
are operated by NPS and open to the public.
We missed an opportunity her as we did not realize that until after we
had headed to Jamestowne.
We stopped in the gift shop where I bought a book (WOW, that’s
a surprise). It was about George and
Martha Washington. It was pretty good,
but I would rate it as a read for a novice person interested in history. Most of it was too simplistic for this
history crazy. Wish I had bought the
book for advanced readers about the Siege of Yorktown with lots of detail. Oh, well, I need to choose my books better. I
was really happy to see my friend James L Nelson’s book about Washington’s Navy
on the shelf. Go, Jim…NPS, yet.
The town was interesting.
Many of the buildings are original to the time period. There are many interpretive signs outside the
buildings around the town. There is a
driving tour, but it is on a CD. Steve’s
car is so old that it does not have the capacity to use a CD only a
cassette. But, they did not sell any
cassettes. The CD was $4.95 plus
tax. I would have liked very much to
have had one. But, since it would have
been ineffective, life moves on.
Shuttles and jitneys provide transportation.
A bronze of Washington accepting Cornwallis’ surrender is
located near the waterfront, which might be considered the center of the town,
I guess.
We watched a very good movie about the surrender and toured
the museum. This battle would not have
been won were it not for the French and their ships which blockaded the
English. We followed the arrows around
the park. With good interpretive signs,
we got the gist of the battle/siege.
Parked the car and walked a lot.
Then, we got on the Colonial Heritage Highway. It was so amazing not to see commercialism,
only natural beauty. We continued past
the Colonial Williamsburg exit to the NPS Jamestowne (the area of the original
colonial settlement).
JAMESTOWNE
For
a google map search or GPS, use the following address: 1368 Colonial Parkway,
Jamestown, Virginia 23081.
Apparently, no one knew for years exactly where the original
fort was located on the very swampy 1500 acres of the island. A man named Kelso made some very good
educated guesses and struck gold—not in literal sense, of course. But, he found lots of artifacts and many
other things that identified the exact area where the original fort was built
and the settlement begun. We had a very
good guide. Very direct. Has been a part of the “digs” for several
years. I listened to another guide after
we finished our tour. He was really
dramatic and almost scary. There is a larger
than life bronze statue of John Smith who stands at what has been proved “the
front door of the fort.”
The Natalie P and Alan M. Voorhees Archaearium, a “floating”
building over much of one of the cemeteries, houses many of the artifacts
discovered in the digs.
The Indians were friendly at the beginning and then turned
not so much. The English knew the
Spanish wanted the land, so they picked a deserted island upriver. The initial settlement was military. Eventually, the English realized that in order
to “colonize” there had to be women.
Over the early years the death rate was extreme. After the Indians turned against the
settlers, the settlers feared going outside the fort either by land or water
due to the Indian presence. Wells only
needed to be dug fourteen or less feet to obtain water. That seemed to be a godsend. But, no! The problem turned out to be (later
discovered) that the water supply drained from the swamps which had an
extremely high concentration of arsenic.
One might wonder why the settlers chose a place where the Indians did
not live. The natives lived upstream
several miles. Well, perhaps safely was
considered. But, as the Real Estate
people would say…everything is location, location, location. The worst drought in 800 years (discovered
by core pulls from the trees) came about during the first few years of
settlement. And, the first few winters
were colder than normal. The English
settlers, in addition to regular early diseases, had nothing going for them…cold,
drought, bad water, starvation, Indians…all challenges that were eventually
overcome to bring about a prosperous English settlement/colony.
