Markers of History

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
The Isthmus

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:30pm

Transcription of  marker: This mod­ern road crosses to Jamestown about on line with a nat­ural isth­mus which existed in Colonial times. The sandy strip that made Jamestown a “semi-island” was washed away in the 1700’s.

My impres­sions: At last, we’re draw­ing near to Jamestown. It is inter­est­ing to see what water does to land, espe­cially so close to the coast. Having spent most of my life con­sid­er­ably inland from the ocean, I’m not quite used to the divi­sions between land and water being quite so change­able as they are around here (even if I’m largely talk­ing about events of hun­dreds of years ago). I also have to think: Don’t you think the word isth­mus is a funny-sounding word? It cer­tainly doesn’t roll off my tongue easily!

I’m also look­ing for­ward to this blog’s posts arriv­ing at Historic Jamestowne. It was an inter­est­ing place to walk around, though my sta­mina gave out before I ran out of mark­ers! A return trip is in the cards for the future, I’m sure.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Neck of Land near “James Citty”

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:25pm

Transcription of marker: This area, like a penin­sula and bounded on three sides by a marsh, is just across Back River from Jamestown Island. In 1625 there were a num­ber of houses and 25 peo­ple liv­ing here. The set­tle­ment had close com­mu­nity ties to “James Citty” and sent rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the General Assembly there.

My impres­sions: It’s funny, because it was not at all clear to me how Jamestown was an island when we were there, so one of the ben­e­fits of com­ing back at this is look­ing at the map and fit­ting it into my mem­o­ries of the day. Of course, by this time in the after­noon I was also tir­ing of the Parkway mark­ers (which, as a whole, were under­whelm­ing in the amount of infor­ma­tion they pro­vided) and was anx­ious to actu­ally arrive at Jamestown. With only one more marker from the Parkway to write about (of those we actu­ally stopped at that day), I have to say that these feel like they were put up because the park man­age­ment felt that they ought to have some sort of pro­gram­ming along the park­way, rather than because the par­tic­u­lar points cho­sen had com­pelling stories.

August will be a busy month for me, includ­ing mov­ing to a new apart­ment with my wife (our lease appli­ca­tion was approved on Friday), which means that the coin­ci­den­tal tim­ing of a marker titled Real Estate is remark­able. I hope our move won’t have too much effect on my post­ing here, and hope­fully the back­log of mark­ers I’ve vis­ited but not yet blogged about will not rise too much over the next month.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Real Estate

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:25pm

Transcription of marker: Early records tell of a land sale in 1636 being these 500 acres with “all howses…gardens, orchards, ten­e­ments.” The prop­erty passed from Thomas Crompe “of the Neck of Land” to Gershon Buck son of the Reverend Richard Buck who min­is­tered for more than a decade at Jamestown.

My impres­sions: It’s funny to see all sorts of ref­er­ences to land in areas of 500 acres, espe­cially given how large that seems to some­one who’s lived in mostly urban set­tings of one form or another. I also find it inter­est­ing how we have at least one per­son named on this marker who isn’t really known about: Gershon Buck. Looks like his only claim to fame is likely being the son of Richard Buck: Google only had four hits on the son’s name (and pre­sum­ably will have another once this is posted.

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.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Great Neck

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:15pm

Transcription of marker: When Richard Brewster, gen­tle­man, patented some 500 acres in this area on February 6, 1637 it was described as “the great Neck alias the bar­ren neck.” Cleared land then, the for­est has since grown back.

My impres­sions: This is another dis­ap­point­ing marker. It seems to come down to “this area is dif­fer­ent than it was almost 375 years ago.” I have no clue who Richard Brewster was, other than that he at one time owned 500 acres that included where I was stand­ing; there wasn’t much else for me to learn from this marker.

I did spend a cou­ple of moments yes­ter­day morn­ing, find­ing out about this verb patented, because I know it from the rights that are given to inven­tors, but that obvi­ously wasn’t what we were talk­ing about from the con­text of this marker. I did find a Wikipedia arti­cle on land patents that started to illu­mi­nate me. The arti­cle defined them as “evi­dence of right, title, and/or inter­est to a tract of land, usu­ally granted by a cen­tral, fed­eral, or state gov­ern­ment to an indi­vid­ual or pri­vate com­pany.” The arti­cle also explained that in the orig­i­nal 13 American Colonies, pro­pri­etors would grant land patents.

I also found another inter­est­ing tid­bit in the arti­cle on patents, where I learned that:

Certain grants made by the monarch in pur­suance of the royal pre­rog­a­tive were some­times called let­ters patent, which was a gov­ern­ment notice to the pub­lic of a grant of an exclu­sive right to own­er­ship and possession.

So the land patent was basi­cally a doc­u­ment (from the monarch or gov­ern­ment or pro­pri­etor) that granted an exclu­sive right to own and pos­sess land.

One last diver­sion, this time into the world of ety­mol­ogy: Wikipedia also men­tions that the word patent comes from the Latin word patere (“to lay open”). It comes from the avail­abil­ity of patent doc­u­ments for pub­lic inspection.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
The Palisades

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:15pm

Transcription of marker: For pro­tec­tion against the Indians, the set­tlers built a log pal­isade across the nar­rows of the penin­sula between the York and James rivers. This was about 1633. Middle Plantation (later Williamsburg) began as a set­tle­ment along this pal­isade which had its south­ern anchor where Paper Mill and College creeks join a half mile downstream.

My impres­sions: This seems to me like a case of “we’re not in Kansas any­more,” or in this case not in Canada. At home, I’m fairly cer­tain that the word­ing would have been changed. There is almost no place where the Canadian gov­ern­ment uses the term Indians for the peo­ple whose ances­tors lived on this con­ti­nent before the Europeans arrived. (Ironically, about the only place it does is in the name of a gov­ern­ment depart­ment: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.) So to my ears, it seems almost point­edly vague and incor­rect now. Since “the Indians” are not a mono­lithic group, which Indians does the marker refer to? And why per­sist in using a term that was applied by some­body who didn’t know where he was?

The gram­mar­ian in me wants to re-work a cou­ple of sen­tences. It seems odd to have half-capitalized proper nouns, because of the ref­er­ences to mul­ti­ple rivers and mul­ti­ple creeks. At the least, I would have cap­i­tal­ized Rivers and Creeks, but I would much pre­fer a re-worded sen­tence that doesn’t read awkwardly.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Great Oaks

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:15pm

Transcription of marker: These oaks were sprout­ing acorns about 1750 and were grow­ing toward fair size dur­ing the time of Washington, Jefferson, Wythe and Marshall.

They are white oaks (Quercus alba) with a height near 90 feet and a spread together of some 150 feet.

My impres­sions: Back on the road after a stop in Williamsburg for lunch and con­tin­u­ing on our way toward Jamestown. This does seem like more of a link to the past than the mill pond (which was the last marker we saw before break­ing for lunch). I think it’s because trees grow with age and so the size of the trees adds to the link to the past, at least in my mind. That said, I was get­ting tired of stop­ping for these mark­ers (prob­a­bly because they con­tain so lit­tle his­tor­i­cal infor­ma­tion), and we grad­u­ally stopped at fewer and fewer pull-offs as we continued.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Jones Mill Pond

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 12:15pm

Transcription of marker: This mill pond and the mill dam (now cov­ered by the Colonial Parkway) show on Civil War maps, and may have existed in Colonial times.

My impres­sions: I find this marker dis­ap­point­ing. First of all, it’s sim­ply a “this was also here then” sign for two things (one of which is hid­den now). I don’t know if Jones Mill Pond is famous in some way that I haven’t yet learned, but this marker really didn’t illu­mi­nate me. If it was here, please tell me WHY it’s important!

Two pairs of mark­ers today. This marker and the next one (JONES MILL POND) are from one pull-off and then later today, from another pull-off along the Colonial Parkway, will be GREAT OAKS and THE PALISADES.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
A Union Advance

Location: Colo­­nial National His­­toric Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Vis­ited: July 4, 2009, 12:15pm

Tran­scrip­­tion of marker: On May 5, 1862 Lt. George A. Custer (who in 1867 made his “Last Stand” on the Little Bighorn River in Montana) led a detach­ment along a road­way here over “Club Dam Creek” to occupy the Confederate work on the bluff imme­di­ately beyond. This maneu­ver in the Battle of Williamsburg came as the Union Army advanced toward Richmond in the Peninsular Campaign.

My impres­sions: I like the bit of connection-making on this marker. I’m sure EVERYBODY has heard of Custer and his last stand, even non-Americans who may know noth­ing beyond the con­nec­tion between his name and that phrase, so it’s nice to take what peo­ple know already and link it to what you’re tech­ing them from the marker. I think it can also make a nice reminder that his­tory didn’t stop in this area at a cer­tain point in time. Because we’re trav­el­ing between Yorktown (where his­tory was made dur­ing the Revolution) and Jamestown (where his­tory was made much ear­lier). Here, we’ve got his­tory hap­pen­ing nearly a cen­tury after the Revolution. Of course, there’s plenty of time since the Civil War…so maybe my point is a lit­tle suspect.

Notes for future snar­fers: This marker and the next marker are from the same pull-off, but for ease of dri­ving, stay­ing in the car, and tak­ing pho­tos from the pas­sen­ger seat, they are in the reverse order from our usual direc­tion of travel. (So this one is closer to Williamsburg than the next marker I’ll post about, and that one is closer to Yorktown than this marker.) Nobody else prob­a­bly cares, since they’re at the same pull-off, but I feel bet­ter for explaining.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Cheatham Annex

Location: Colo­­nial National His­­toric Pkwy, York­­town, VA 23691

Vis­ited: July 4, 2009, 12:05pm

Tran­scrip­­tion of marker: The piers and struc­tures across the water are an exten­sion of the Naval Base at Norfolk. This takes advan­tage of the excel­lent York River deep water chan­nel as did Cornwallis when, in 1781, he chose Yorktown as his base.

My impres­sions: It is about this point where I decided (espe­cially with the dis­tance involved) not to worry too much about mil­i­tary stuff. I mean, the US wouldn’t be stu­pid enough to put some­thing sen­si­tive within site of a tourist attrac­tion that includes sig­nage point­ing out that the mil­i­tary is oper­at­ing there. Besides, how much can you tell from this far away anyway?