Markers of History

Historic Jamestowne mark­ers
Governor Harvey’s House, 1630s

Location: Colonial NHP, Jamestown, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:55pm

Transcription of marker: John Harvey served as a mem­ber of a royal com­mis­sion inves­ti­gat­ing con­di­tions in Virginia in 1624. As a reward, he received land at the east end of New Towne. There he prob­a­bly built a res­i­dence and a wharf.

A tem­pera­men­tal sea cap­tain, Harvey was twice charged with beat­ing oth­ers – a ser­vant for demand­ing his free­dom and Richard Stephens, a coun­cil­man and fre­quent Harvey opponent.

When newly knighted Sir John Harvey returned as the new gov­er­nor of Virginia in 1630, he acquired addi­tional prop­erty, the for­mer Governor Sir George Yeardley’s lot across Pitch and Tar Swamp and this prime New Towne lot. Here he built a fine house that often dou­bled as the state­house dur­ing the 1630s.

Although the crown replaced Harvey as gov­er­nor in 1639, his house con­tin­ued in use as a state­house through the 1640s and 1650s. When Sir William Berkeley arrived in 1642, it again dou­bled as a town res­i­dence for the gov­er­nor. After Bacon’s rebels sacked and burned Jamestown in 1676, the house was rebuilt for a final time.

My impres­sions: I don’t know what is more sur­pris­ing to me: a pri­vate home being used as a state­house or the fact that it con­tin­ued that way after the owner was no longer gov­er­nor. I guess, think­ing about it a lit­tle more, it is less sur­pris­ing than it ini­tially seems, because the gov­er­nor was an appointed posi­tion at the time. I won­der if Governor Harvey returned to England after he was replaced. If so, he wouldn’t have needed it any longer, at least for a while. (I mean, he did leave in the 1920s and return to serve as governor.

I won­der what qual­i­ties there were that led the crown to decide that a “tem­pera­men­tal for­mer sea cap­tain” was suit­able to gov­ern the colony. Was his style a help or a hin­drance? Or was he tem­pera­men­tal enough that the English were just as happy to see him on the other side of the ocean from them?

Monuments, Statues, and Memorials
Jamestown Tercentenary Monument

Location: Historic Jamestowne, Colonial NHP, Jamestown, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:45pm

Transcription of monument:

[north side]

Virginia Company
of London
Chartered April 10, 1606
Founded
Jamestown
and sus­tained
Virginia
1607 — 1624

[west side]

This mon­u­ment
was erected by
the United States
A.D. 1907
to com­mem­o­rate
the three hun­dredth
anniver­sary of
the set­tle­ment here

[south side, at same level as other engrav­ings]

Jamestown
The first per­ma­nent
colony of the
English peo­ple
The birth­place of
Virginia
and of
the United States
 – May 13 — 1607 -

[south side, on the base]

“Lastly and chiefly the way to pros­per and achieve good suc­cess is to make your­selves all of one mind for the good of your coun­try, and your own, and to serve and fear God, the giver of all good­ness, for every plan­ta­tion which our heav­enly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out.”

Advice of London Council for Virginia to the colony — 1606

[east side]

Representative
gov­ern­ment in
America
began in the
first House of
Burgesses
assem­bled here
July 30, 1619

My impres­sions: This is a very tall and impres­sive mon­u­ment. There seems to me to be some­thing very American about the obelisk: I don’t recall any off the top of my head that I saw in Canada, but this is the third sig­nif­i­cant one I’ve seen in the U.S. (The other two were in my pre-snarfing days: the Washington Monument in Washington, DC and the Masonic mon­u­ment to Washington in Alexandria, VA.) I don’t know what that says that the United States adopted the obelisk so often as a symbol.

Coming, as it does, as you are enter­ing Historic Jamestowne, the mon­u­ment is a great intro­duc­tory reminder to how much his­tory the place holds. It also chal­lenged a bit of my faulty mem­o­ries of his­tory. I had it in my head that Nova Scotia was the birth­place of rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment in the British Empire, but the Internet tells me I’m mis­taken. Nova Scotia saw the start of rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment in Canada, but that came in 1758, well over a cen­tury later than the estab­lish­ment of the House of Burgesses here. (In fact, Nova Scotia cel­e­brated the 250th anniver­sary of its estab­lish­ment there just last year.)

It also awes me to see a mon­u­ment like this and know that it was made early in the 20th cen­tury and that it was erected with­out all of the tech­nol­ogy we have today. And to think of the num­ber of hours it would have taken for all that lettering…what patience and ded­i­ca­tion and craftsmanship!

Historic Jamestowne
Governor Yeardly’s Lot, 1620s

Location: Historic Jamestowne, Colonial NHP, Jamestown, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:40pm

Transcription of marker:

George Yeardly arrived in Jamestown in 1610, was appointed cap­tain of the guard, and even­tu­ally lieu­tenant gov­er­nor. Later knighted and appointed gov­er­nor of Virginia in 1618, he issued the Great Charter in 1619, estab­lish­ing the first rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment in Virginia.

In 1620, Yeardly acquired a seven-and-a-quarter acre lot extend­ing east from this loca­tion. A 1625 muster roll listed the mem­bers of Yeardly’s large house­hold: Yeardly; his wife Lady Temperance Yeardly; their three chil­dren; and 24 ser­vants, includ­ing three African men and five African women (eight of the first nine Africans doc­u­mented at Jamestown). The muster also lists 50 cat­tle, 40 swine, and 11 goats and kids on Yeardly’s lot. In addi­tion to three dwellings, Yeardly owned three boats — a bar­que, four-ton shal­lop, and skiff.

At this loca­tion, archae­ol­o­gists exca­vated the brick foun­da­tions of a struc­ture that may have been Yeardly’s. Scattered build­ing mate­ri­als along Back River sug­gest that two addi­tional dwellings, per­haps for ser­vants, may have been located at the east­ern end of his lot.

My impres­sions: After writ­ing about the mark­ers on the Colonial Parkway, it’s nice to get to a marker that has a bit of meat to it. And after being in Yorktown, where Americans fought to gain con­trol of their coun­try from the British, it’s a bit of a start to remem­ber that, oh yes, the British were in charge here. I like that this marker both explains who Governor Yeardly was as well as gives a link to the place you are stand­ing when you see it.

It is also stag­ger­ing to see a fam­ily of five requir­ing two dozen ser­vants. It was a dif­fer­ent age, that’s for sure! And more than 100 animals…well, I guess I can see how they would keep many ser­vants busy, since that seems like the type of work a gov­er­nor would not want to sully his hands with.

Notes for future snar­fers: This marker is on the path behind the vis­i­tor cen­ter, after you’ve paid your admis­sion or shown your National Parks pass.

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.