Markers of History

We didn’t quite get fin­ished with the Colonial Parkway this week, but with a busy week­end of choir singing ahead, it’s time for me to step away from the key­board now. On Monday, the last three Parkway mark­ers should appear on these pages and then the blog will spend the rest of the week on mark­ers from Historic Jamestowne.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Mill Dam

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:15pm

Transcription of marker: The mound of earth in front of you was prob­a­bly part of the dam for William Parks’ paper mill. His mill was the first in Virginia for mak­ing paper and oper­ated six years or more begin­ning 1744. Parks estab­lished the first per­ma­nent press in Virginia at Williamsburg. His paper mill sup­plied other print­ers, too, includ­ing Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.

My impres­sions: This is kind of inter­est­ing. I mean, we’re not just talk­ing about a mound of earth, we’re talk­ing about links to his­tory and peo­ple and places we prob­a­bly already know. And has that “the first” thing, too. It cer­tainly makes me think about what sort of things would have been printed using the area’s trees.