Markers of History

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?

The third and fourth mark­ers I’m post­ing today (this one and the “Cheatham Annex” marker to be posted later today) were both at the same pull-off along the Colonial Parkway.

Colo­nial Park­way mark­ers
Bellfield Plantation

Loca­tion: Colo­nial National His­toric Pkwy, York­town, VA 23691

Vis­ited: July 4, 2009, 12:05pm

Tran­scrip­tion of marker: The Bellfield house site and grave­yard are located some 300 yards to the east. This was the home of two early Virginia gov­er­nors, Captain John West in 1632 and Edward Digges who bought the prop­erty from West in 1650. Here Digges pro­duced supe­rior tobacco and led attempts to develop silk cul­ture in the colony.

My impres­sions: I will admit that I did not under­take a thor­ough search, but one of my dis­ap­point­ments with this marker is that it men­tions the prox­im­ity of the home site and grave­yard but doesn’t spec­ify if they are vis­i­ble or not from the road, etc. And on a curv­ing park­way, some hints as to how to face east would have been appre­ci­ated. That said, I do find it inter­est­ing that we have two gov­er­nors own­ing the same home. I won­der how often that sort of thing has led to the cre­ation of “offi­cial res­i­dences” where a cou­ple of office­hold­ers liv­ing in the same home, and at some point it is sold or willed to be a res­i­dence for the holder of the same office.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
York River

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Yorktown, VA 23691

Visited: July 4, 12:00 noon

Transcription of marker: Known to the Indians as the Pamunkey, the colonists named it first Charles and then York, both in honor of the Duke of York. While only 26 miles in length, the tidal waters of the York River flow over the deep­est nat­ural chan­nel of any Chesapeake Bay tributary.

My impres­sions: There is a lot of over­lap in the con­tent of this marker and the “Z marker” for York County we found ear­lier in the day, in the his­tory of the York River. This marker, though, extends the his­tory back before Europeans arrived and includes the sci­ence tid­bits about the length and depth of the river. (And my apolo­gies for the qual­ity of the photo; the text is blur­rier than I would have liked.)

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Naval Weapons Station

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Yorktown, VA 23691

Visited: July 4, 2009, 11:55am

Transcription of marker: The piers extend­ing into the York River, just to the right, serve a major Navy instal­la­tion. Since its estab­lish­ment in 1918, then as a Mine Depot, it has served our coun­try in two World Wars and the Korean con­flict as well as in peace time.

My impres­sions: Not a whole lot to say about this, but it does always sur­prise me when his­toric sites and mark­ers are in close prox­im­ity to mil­i­tary areas. I made a def­i­nite deci­sion to forego any attempt at a photo of the sign and its sub­ject, given that. But that history/military com­bi­na­tion seems to come up a lot for the Colonial NHP. Not only does it hap­pen here along the Colonial Parkway, but also at the Cape Henry Memorial in Virginia Beach.

Museum
Colonial National Historical Park
Yorktown Visitor Center

Location: Foot of Colonial Parkway, Yorktown, VA 23690

Visited: July 4, 2009, 11:45am

My impres­sions: Not much in the way of pho­tog­ra­phy for this one: I don’t like to take pho­tographs (even flash-free) in muse­ums unless I’ve researched their pho­tog­ra­phy poli­cies ahead of time. Since I didn’t real­ize there was a museum here, I hadn’t done any research.

The main pur­pose of stop­ping here was, I think, to get my wife’s Access Pass to the National Parks. And we were both pleas­antly sur­prised at the ease with which that hap­pened. After that, we stopped at the gift shop and I got my National Parks expe­ri­ence off on the right foot with the pur­chase of an Explorer’s Edition parks pass­port. So, we duti­fully stamped my pass­port and then headed through the museum. It was inter­est­ing to see the cam­paign tent (pic­tured in the pre­vi­ous link) and some of the arti­facts, includ­ing part of a neat dis­play that tried to show the events that took place there, using a model of the bat­tle­field, lights, and narration.

We didn’t take in any of the bat­tle­field itself: being the 4th of July, the place was VERY busy. (In fact, we heard one of the NPS employ­ees tell another cou­ple who was ask­ing about the audio dri­ving tour that any other day, he would rec­om­mend it, but given the busy­ness that day and a cou­ple of road clo­sures, this was the one day of the year that he would not rec­om­mend it.)

But this was far from the end of our his­tory for the day. Tomorrow, we’ll start down the Colonial Parkway towards Williamsburg and Jamestown.

Markeroni sta­tus: Not yet logged.