Markers of History

Historic Jamestowne mark­ers
Swann’s Tavern, 1670s

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

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:55pm

Transcription of marker: Although coun­cil­man Colonel Thomas Swann resided across the James River at his Swann Point plan­ta­tion, he also leased a Jamestown tav­ern that pro­vided accom­mo­da­tions to colonists who attended the assem­bly and courts, or had busi­ness in town.

Documents and exca­va­tion of a large brick foun­da­tion iden­tify this struc­ture as pos­si­ble Col. Swann’s tav­ern. The elon­gated four-room ground floor was typ­i­cal of such estab­lish­ments. An abun­dance of bot­tle glass and a brass spigot from casks of beer or cider stored in the cel­lar, pro­vide addi­tional evi­dence of such use.

Because Col. Swann, nick­named “ye greate toad,” advised the rebel Nathaniel Bacon, his Swann’s Point plan­ta­tion remained undam­aged dur­ing Bacon’s Rebellion. Charred tim­bers here, how­ever, sug­gest that his tav­ern burned dur­ing the sack of Jamestown. Repaired by 1679, the tav­ern con­tin­ued to oper­ate along with the dozen oth­ers in the town.

My impres­sions: The first thing that started ring­ing bells from this marker for me is the name Nathaniel Bacon, because at about the time I was start­ing to snarf land­marks and log them on Markeroni (and later on this blog), my wife and I drove to a church retreat a cou­ple of hours away. And on the way, we passed numer­ous his­tor­i­cal mark­ers. On the way home, I counted about a dozen. But because of dis­tance, time, and the fact that we were dri­ving another mem­ber of our con­gre­ga­tion with us, we didn’t stop for any of them, but I def­i­nitely remem­ber the odd-sounding title of Bacon’s Castle. So, while I expect I’ll learn more when we make our next trip that way and I’m able to read the marker, I also know what name to research should I want to learn more in the interim.

The other thing, related to that, is to think about the influ­ence of being an insider. From the retelling on this marker, Swann was able to use his insider’s “pull” to keep his lands across the river safe from Bacon and his rebel­lion. But it also shows that the pull has lim­its, as the tav­ern here appar­ently burned. Some things seem to be with us for­ever, and insider influ­ence seems to be one of them!

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.

State Historical Marker
Virginia K-311
James River

Location: Just S of the James River Bridge on the E side of US 17/US 258/Carrollton Blvd, Carrollton, VA 23314

Visited: July 4, 2009, 10:15am

Transcription of marker: The James River flows about 340 miles from the junc­tion of the Jackson and Cowpasture rivers in Botetourt County to Hampton Roads at the Chesapeake Bay. In 1607 the first per­ma­nent English set­tle­ment in the New World was estab­lished on its banks at Jamestown. The colonists used the river as a path for explo­ration. With mod­ern cities and ship­yards as well as ancient plan­ta­tions lin­ing its banks, the James River remains one of Virginia’s most impor­tant nat­ural resources.

Department of Historic Resources, 1991

My impres­sions: On pre­vi­ous trips (which were all south­bound), we had seen the marker about the time we flew past it on the other side of the road, so this time, my wife was alert to find it (or, at least, a place to pull off the road before we reached the bridge, head­ing north). She cor­rectly guessed which signs were point­ing to a place to park, and was slow­ing down even before I spot­ted the marker.

There is some­thing about the James River. My wife has men­tioned to me a few times how, on her vis­its to my home­town, she found the Ottawa River sim­i­lar to the James. And now, I think I can see the sim­i­lar­i­ties. Both are fairly wide rivers (though the James, espe­cially at this point, is wider) and it can be miles between cross­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. And, look­ing at this marker, the Ottawa held an impor­tant role in Canada’s explo­ration at a sim­i­lar era (in fact, Samuel de Champlain is reputed to have lost his astro­labe near Cobden, ON in 1613).

Notes for future snar­fers: This is one marker you have to be pre­pared for, because you are mov­ing too quickly to stop in time once you’ve seen it (and it’s a long drive if you miss it, head­ing north and have to cross the whole bridge again). You’ll want to watch for signs for the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries area, called Ragged Island and use its park­ing lot. The marker is just S of the park­ing lot entrance.

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

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.

Path of History
Craney Island

Location: Crawford Pkwy, just west of Court St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:40pm

Transcription of marker:

Craney Island played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the War of 1812, fly­ing the Flag of 1795, with fif­teen stars and stripes. American defend­ers held off over­whelm­ing British forces there on June 22, 1813.

Two hun­dred British sol­diers were killed, thir­teen taken pris­oner and forty deserted. There were no American casu­al­ties. This suc­cess­ful bat­tle saved Norfolk, Portsmouth and the Gosport Shipyard from British occu­pa­tion and destruction.

The USS Merrimack (1856 – 1861) was at Norfolk Navy Yard in 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union. The Federal forces burned and sank the Merrimack as they with­drew from the Navy Yard.

The Confederates sal­vaged the ship and con­verted her to an iron­clad. She was com­mis­sioned the CSS Virginia in February 1862.

In May of 1862, as the Confederates aban­doned the Norfolk area, efforts were made to lighten the Virginia enough to allow her to move up the James River. Unable to do so, she was destroyed by her crew off Craney Island on May 11.

My impres­sions: More War of 1812. And I’ll con­fess that about all I remem­ber from what I learned of that war in his­tory class was “We won.” Oh yes, “and the Americans think they did.” I know the def­i­n­i­tion of “win” is what is impor­tant in fig­ur­ing out what one believes about the war, but as usual, I lack the knowl­edge of what hap­pened to even begin to under­stand it. Maybe a library trip is in my future, so I can pick up the his­tory that isn’t con­densed into only a few para­graphs on a marker here and there.

Given my under­stand­ing of the geog­ra­phy, this seems like a strange loca­tion for a marker about Craney Island, pre­sum­ably there because of the desire for the Path of History to be a walk­a­ble path.

I also received word, via a Flickr com­ment, that next month a his­tor­i­cal marker will be unveiled com­mem­o­rat­ing the Battle of Craney Island. (From fur­ther research, I believe that this will be a state his­tor­i­cal marker, but can’t con­firm that detail yet.) Unfortunately, it appears that my sched­ule won’t per­mit me to attend the unveil­ing, but I def­i­nitely hope to get there in the days after it’s unveiled.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting response on inclu­sion of Path of History.