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.