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.

A word of expla­na­tion about the blog over the next cou­ple of days.

This post will be the only one today, and it will be fol­lowed tomor­row with a spe­cial history-related (but not historical-marker-related) post. On Thursday, I’ll resume look­ing at mark­ers I found on a recent trip to Portsmouth, VA in a mega-post about Fort Nelson Park, which con­tains roughly a dozen mark­ers from Portsmouth’s Path of History, which I’ll com­bine in one post so we don’t have an entire week or two on the his­tory of the Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

Now on to the marker about Collier’s Raid:

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-G
Collier’s Raid

Location: Crawford Pkwy & Washington St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:55pm

Transcription of marker: A British fleet under Commodore Sir George Collier sailed up the Elizabeth River and shelled Fort Nelson in May 1779, dur­ing the Revolutionary War. A land­ing force of 1,800 infantry­men led by Brig. Gen. Edward Mathew cap­tured the fort on 10 May after a brief resis­tance. The British occu­pied Portsmouth, Gosport, and Norfolk, and burned Suffolk and the Gosport ship­yard. Collier also cap­tured or burned 137 ves­sels in Hampton Roads and dis­man­tled Fort Nelson. The British force then embarked and sailed to New York.

Department of Historic Resources, 1998

My impres­sions: As some­body from out­side the US, from a coun­try that peace­fully moved from colony to coun­try, it takes me aback to think that this was hap­pen­ing in 1779, three years after that “magic” date of 1776. Reading the marker it seems almost ran­dom: the British forces did a lot in this area and then the one cryp­tic sen­tence: The British force then embarked and sailed to New York.

It almost sounds like “Nothing left to destroy here, we might as well move along…want to catch a Broadway show?” This is actu­ally a tan­ta­liz­ing taste to me. That one sen­tence on its own seems so incon­gru­ous that it leaves me want­ing to research what actu­ally hap­pened. WHY did they leave here and sail to New York?

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-F
Cornwallis at Portsmouth

Location: Crawford Pkwy, west of Court Street, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:45pm

Transcription of marker: Lord Cornwallis, com­mand­ing the British troops in the south, reached Portsmouth, July, 1781. He pre­pared to send a por­tion of his force to New York. Before the move­ment was made, orders came for him to take up a posi­tion at Old Point. Cornwallis selected Yorktown, how­ever, and Portsmouth was abandoned.

Virginia Conservation Commission, 1948

My impres­sions: Terse to the point of being use­less, in my opin­ion: He came, he saw, he departed. Lord Cornwallis was here. Doesn’t tell me any­thing, and doesn’t tease me enough to excite me to learn more about Cornwallis. Oh, well.