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?