Markers of History

Cannonball Trail
Half Moone Fort, 1673

Location: West end of Town Point Park, just north of the Armed Forces Memorial, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 12:45pm

Transcription of marker: Hostilities between the British and the Dutch con­tin­ued for a num­ber of years after the British took New Amsterdam in 1664 and estab­lished the colony of New York. The effects were felt in Hampton Roads where Dutch ships destroyed a fleet of tobacco ships at the mouth of the James River in 1667 and another fleet in Lynnhaven Bay in 1673. Following the 1673 attack the Virginia Assembly autho­rized con­struc­tion of a fort in Lower Norfolk County to pro­tect British set­tle­ments from pos­si­ble future attacks by the Dutch. The new fort was built here, sev­eral years before the town of Norfolk was estab­lished, at a site then called Foure Farthing Pointe. The act spec­i­fied that “the model be in the form of a half moon.” It was armed with demi-cannons and cul­verins due to the broad expanse of the river at this loca­tion. The cul­verin was an early long can­non capa­ble of shoot­ing an 18 pound (5 inch) ball accu­rately for about 1300 yards. Building the fort cost Lower Norfolk County 35,000 pounds of tobacco.

My impres­sions: I guess I have two main thoughts after read­ing this…other than know­ing that New York had been under Dutch con­trol (“Even old New York was once New Amsterdam / Why’d they change it? I can’t say, / People just liked it bet­ter that way!”), I have no idea how else the Dutch were involved in the New World. I cer­tainly wouldn’t have expected any­thing related to them to hap­pen this far south in the US. These mark­ers keep turn­ing up gaps in what I know! (And rais­ing ques­tions I’ll have to research at some point!)

The other thing is the evi­dent use of “pounds of tobacco” as almost a stan­dard cur­rency. It seems so strange, when we’re used to dol­lars and cents.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Our trip away from Town Point Park will wait one more day, as I dis­cov­ered pho­tos of a cou­ple more mark­ers I found before leav­ing the park for lunch.

Cannonball Trail
The Cedar

Location: West end of Town Point Park, near Nauticus museum.

Visited: July 3, 2009, 12:40pm

Transcription of marker: A cedar tree near this loca­tion, then known as Foure Farthing Pointe, was described in the orig­i­nal patent describ­ing the west­ern bound­ary of the 50 acres that com­prised Norfolk Town. In August 1680 John Ferebee, sur­veyor for Lower Norfolk County, was instructed to sur­vey a town site on the Elizabeth River. This was com­pleted in October 1680, but it was not until August 1682 that the county, through its agents Anthony Lawson and William Robinson, bought the town site from Nicholas Wise, a ship­wright. The price was ten thou­sand pounds of tobacco. The sur­veyed town site extended east­ward from this point along Main Street, for­merly Front Street, on a ridge of high land to Dun-in-the-Mire, gen­er­ally where Harbor Park is now located. The other prin­ci­pal road, “the road that lead­eth out of town,” went north from the cur­rent inter­sec­tion of Main Street and St. Paul’s Boulevard. The orig­i­nal town site was laid out with half acre lots for houses and busi­ness. The lots were priced at 100 pounds of tobacco.

My impres­sions: This is a newer look at much of the same his­tory as was found in the Four Farthing or Town Point marker I posted about on Thursday. As some­body attempt­ing to tran­scribe mark­ers, one of the things it high­lights for me is how much eas­ier it is to fully under­stand a marker when it is writ­ten in mixed case. A case in point: it wasn’t until I read this marker that I was sure that I had cor­rectly tran­scribed “Lower Norfolk County” in the pre­vi­ous marker. In the ear­lier marker (writ­ten entirely in cap­i­tal let­ters) there was no way to know if this was just the lower part of Norfolk County or a sep­a­rate juris­dic­tion. It’s also nice to have the map illus­tra­tion on this marker, even though these mark­ers seem less per­ma­nent than those with raised letters.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.