COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK & MAP COLONIAL AMERICA VIRGINIA

SOFTBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH (1972)

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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia

Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia. Its 301-acre (122 ha) historic area includes several hundred restored or recreated buildings from the 18th century, when the city was the capital of the Colony of Virginia; 17th-century, 19th-century, and Colonial Revival structures; and more recent reconstructions. The historic area includes three main thoroughfares and their connecting side streets that attempt to suggest the atmosphere and the circumstances of 18th-century Americans. Costumed employees work and dress as people did in the era, sometimes using colonial grammar and diction.

In the late 1920s, the restoration of colonial Williamsburg was championed as a way to celebrate patriots and the early history of the United States. Proponents included the Reverend Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin and other community leaders; the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now called Preservation Virginia), the Colonial Dames of America, the Daughters of the Confederacy, the Chamber of Commerce, and other organizations; and John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.

Colonial Williamsburg is part of the Historic Triangle of Virginia, along with Jamestown and Yorktown and the Colonial Parkway. The site was once used for conferences by world leaders and heads of state. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1960.

Overview

The core of Colonial Williamsburg runs along Duke of Gloucester Street and the Palace Green that extends north and south perpendicular to it. This area is largely flat, with ravines and streams branching off on the periphery. Duke of Gloucester Street and other historic area thoroughfares are closed to motorized vehicles during the day, in favor of pedestrians, bicyclists, joggers, dog walkers, and animal-drawn vehicles.

Surviving colonial structures have been restored as close as possible to their 18th-century appearance, with traces removed of later buildings and improvements. Many of the once missing colonial structures were reconstructed on their original sites beginning in the 1930s. Animals, gardens, and dependencies add to the environment, such as kitchens, smokehouses, and privies. Some buildings and most gardens are open to tourists, with the exception of buildings serving as residences for Colonial Williamsburg employees, large donors, the occasional city official, and sometimes College of William & Mary associates.

Prominent buildings include the Raleigh Tavern, the Capitol, the Governor's Palace (all reconstructed), as well as the Courthouse, the Wythe House, the Peyton Randolph House, the Magazine, and the independently owned and functioning Bruton Parish Church (all originals). Colonial Williamsburg's portion of the historic area begins east of the College of William & Mary's College Yard.

Four taverns have been reconstructed for use as restaurants and two for inns. There are craftsmen's workshops for period trades, including a printing shop, a shoemaker, a blacksmith, a cooperage, a cabinetmaker, a gunsmith, a wigmaker, and a silversmith. There are merchants selling tourist souvenirs, books, reproduction toys, pewterware, pottery, scented soap, etc. Some houses are open to tourists, including the Peyton Randolph House, the Geddy House, the Wythe House, and the Everard House, as are such public buildings as the Courthouse, the Capitol, the Magazine, the Public Hospital, and the Public Gaol. Former notorious inmates of the Gaol include pirate Blackbeard's crew who were kept there while they awaited trial.

Colonial Williamsburg operations extend to Merchants Square, a Colonial Revival commercial area designated a historic district in its own right. Nearby are the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, operated by Colonial Williamsburg as part of its curatorial efforts.

History of Williamsburg

The "Frenchman's Map" showing Williamsburg in 1782; the map was a key piece of evidence in the restoration project

The Jamestown statehouse housed Virginia's government in the 1600s, but it burned on October 20, 1698. The legislators consequently moved their meetings to the College of William & Mary in Virginia at Middle Plantation, putting an end to Jamestown's 92-year history as Virginia's capital. In 1699, a group of College of William & Mary students delivered addresses during graduation exercises endorsing proposals to move the capital to Middle Plantation, ostensibly to escape the malaria and the mosquitoes at the Jamestown Island site. Interested Middle Plantation landowners donated some of their holdings to advance the plan.

Middle Plantation was renamed Williamsburg by Governor Francis Nicholson in honor of William III of England.[failed verification] Nicholson said that "clear and crystal springs burst from the champagne soil" of Williamsburg. He had the city surveyed and a grid laid out by Theodorick Bland taking into consideration the brick College Building and the then decaying Bruton Parish Church buildings. The grid seems to have obliterated all but the remnants of an earlier plan that laid out the streets in the monogram of William and Mary, a W superimposed on an M. The main street was named Duke of Gloucester after the eldest son of Queen Anne. Nicholson named the street north of it Nicholson Street, for himself, and the one south of it Francis Street.

For 81 years of the 18th century, Williamsburg was the center of government, education, and culture in the Colony of Virginia. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Monroe, James Madison, George Wythe, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, and others furthered the forms of British government in the Commonwealth of Virginia and later helped adapt its preferred features to the needs of the new United States. The government moved to Richmond on the James River in 1780, under the leadership of Governor Thomas Jefferson, to be more central and accessible from western counties and less susceptible to British attack. There it remains today.

History of Colonial Williamsburg

Restored Courthouse

With the seat of government removed, Williamsburg's businesses floundered or migrated to Richmond, and the city entered a long, slow period of stagnation and decay, although the town maintained much of its 18th-century aspect. It was captured by General George McClellan in 1862 and garrisoned during the Civil War, so the town escaped the devastation experienced by other Southern cities.

Williamsburg relied for jobs on The College of William & Mary, the Courthouse, and the Eastern Lunatic Asylum (now Eastern State Hospital); it was said that the "500 Crazies" of the asylum supported the "500 Lazies" of the college and town. Colonial-era buildings were modified, modernized, neglected, or destroyed. Development that accompanied construction of a World War I gun cotton plant at nearby Penniman and the coming of the automobile blighted the community, but the town kept its appeal to tourists. By the early 20th century, many older structures were in poor condition, no longer in use, or were occupied by squatters.

Dr. Goodwin and the Rockefellers

Print of the Bodleian Plate, a mid-18th-century engraving plate depicting several major buildings from Williamsburg, used to reconstruct the Capitol, Governor's Palace, and to restore the Wren Building.

The Reverend Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin became rector of Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Church in 1903 for the first of two periods. He was born in 1869 at Richmond to a Confederate veteran and his well-to-do wife and reared in rural Nelson County at Norwood. He was educated at Roanoke College, the University of Virginia, the University of Richmond, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. He first visited Williamsburg as a seminarian sent to recruit William & Mary students. He became rector at age 34 of the Bruton Parish Church that was riven by factions. He helped harmonize the congregation and assumed leadership of a flagging campaign to restore the 1711 church building. Goodwin and New York ecclesiastical architect J. Stewart Barney completed the church restoration in time for the 300th anniversary of the founding of America's Anglican Church at nearby Jamestown, Virginia, in 1907. Goodwin traveled the East Coast raising money for the project and establishing philanthropic contacts. Among the 1907 anniversary guests was J. P. Morgan, president of the Episcopal church's General Convention meeting that year in Richmond.

Goodwin accepted a call from wealthy St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Rochester, N.Y. in 1908, and pastored there until his return in 1923 to Williamsburg to become a College of William & Mary fund-raiser and religious studies professor, as well as pastor of Yorktown's Episcopal church and a chapel at Toano. He had maintained his Williamsburg ties, periodically visiting the graves of his first wife and their son, using William & Mary's library for historical research, and vacationing. He saw the ongoing deterioration of colonial-era buildings.

He renewed his connections with the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, whose membership included prominent and wealthy Virginians, and he helped to protect and repair the Magazine. He and other William & Mary professors saved the John Blair House from demolition to make way for a gasoline station, and they turned it into a faculty club. In 1924, the college launched a building and fund-raising drive, and Goodwin adopted Barney's proposal for saving other houses in the historic section of the town for use as student and faculty housing. He worked for two years to interest individuals such as Henry Ford and organizations such as the Dames of Colonial America to invest. He eventually obtained the support and financial commitment of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the wealthy son of the founder of Standard Oil. Rockefeller's wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller also played a role. Goodwin returned to the Bruton Parish pulpit in 1926, keeping his college positions.

Rockefeller's first investment in a Williamsburg house had been a contribution to Goodwin's acquisition of the George Wythe House for next-door Bruton Church's parish house. Rockefeller's second investment was the purchase of the Ludwell-Paradise house in early 1927. Goodwin persuaded him to buy it on behalf of the college for housing in the event that Rockefeller should decide to restore the town. Rockefeller had agreed to pay for college restoration plans and drawings. He later considered limiting his restoration involvement to the college and an exhibition enclave, and he did not commit to the town's large scale restoration until November 22, 1927.

Rockefeller and Goodwin initially kept their acquisition plans secret because they were concerned that prices might rise if their purposes were known, quietly buying houses and lots and taking deeds in blank. Goodwin took Williamsburg attorney Vernon M. Geddy, Sr. into his confidence, without exposing Rockefeller as silent partner. Geddy did much of the title research and legal work related to properties in what became the restored area. He later drafted the Virginia corporate papers for the project, filed them with the Virginia State Corporation Commission, and served briefly as the first president of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

That much property changing hands was noticed by newspaper reporters. After 18 months of increasingly excited rumors, Goodwin and Rockefeller revealed their plans at county and town meetings on June 11 and 12, 1928. The purpose was to obtain the consent of the citizens and enlist them in the project. The restoration project required a new high school and two public greens. The city retained ownership of its streets, an arrangement that forestalled later proposals to raise revenue by charging an admission fee.

Some townsmen had qualms. Major S. D. Freeman, retired Army officer and school board president, said, "We will reap dollars, but will we own our town? Will you not be in the position of a butterfly pinned to a card in a glass cabinet, or like a mummy unearthed in the tomb of Tutankhamun?" To gain the cooperation of people reluctant to sell their homes to the Rockefeller organization, the restoration offered free life tenancies and maintenance in exchange for ownership. Freeman sold his house outright and moved to Virginia's Middle Peninsula.

Restoration and reconstruction

Rockefeller management decided against giving custody of the project to the state-run college, ostensibly to avoid political control by Virginia's Democratic Byrd Machine, but they restored the school's Wren Building, Brafferton House, and President's House. Colonial Williamsburg pursued a program of partial re-creation of some of the rest of the town. It featured shops, taverns, and open-air markets in a colonial style.

The first lead architect in the project was William G. Perry of Perry, Shaw & Hepburn, with Arthur Asahel Shurcliff as the chief landscape architect. An Advisory Board of Architects was selected to provide guidance for the project. Prominent architects who served on the advisory board included Robert P. Bellows, Fiske Kimball, A. Lawrence Kocher, Philip N. Stern, Merril C. Lee, W. Duncan Lee, Marcellus E. Wright Sr., Edmund S. Campbell, and R. E. Lee Taylor.

During the restoration, the project demolished 720 buildings that postdated 1790, many of which dated from the 19th century. Some decrepit 18th-century homes were demolished, leading to some controversy. The Governor's Palace and the Capitol building were reconstructed on their sites with the aid of period illustrations, written descriptions, early photographs, and informed guesswork. The grounds and gardens were almost all recreated in authentic Colonial Revival style.

The Capitol is a 1930s beaux arts approximation of the 1705 building at the east end of the historic area. It was designed by the architectural firm Perry, Shaw & Hepburn, who had it rebuilt as they thought it should have been, not as it was, despite objections and archaeological evidence to the contrary. The modern reconstruction is off-center, its floorplan is skewed, and its interior is overly elaborate.

The 1705 original was an H-shaped brick statehouse with double-apsed, oarsmen-circular southern facades, but it burned in the 1740s and was replaced by an H-shaped rectangular edifice.

In the second building, Patrick Henry protested against the Stamp Act and first spoke against King George. George Mason introduced the Virginia Bill of Rights there, and from it Virginia's government instructed its delegates to the Second Continental Congress to propose national independence. Its likeness only exists in a period woodcut and in architectural renderings considered but shelved by the Restoration.

The present building was dedicated with a ceremonial meeting of the Virginia General Assembly on February 24, 1934. Virginia's state legislators have reassembled for a day every other year in the Capitol.

Of the approximately 500 buildings reconstructed or restored, 88 are labelled original. They include outbuildings such as smokehouses, privies, and sheds. The foundation reconstructed the Capitol and Governor's Palace on their 18th-century foundations and preserved some below-ground 18th-century brickwork, classifying them as reconstructions. It rebuilt William & Mary's Wren Building on its original foundation, which burned four times in 230 years and was much modified; it saved some above-ground brickwork and classified the result as original.

On the western side of the city, beginning in the 1930s, retail shops were grouped under the name Merchants Square to accommodate and mollify displaced local merchants. Increasing rents and tourist-driven businesses eventually drove out all the old-line community enterprises except a dress shop. One of the last to be forced out was a locally popular drugstore complete with lunch counter.

Outlying landscapes and viewsheds

Beginning in the earliest period of the restoration, Colonial Williamsburg acquired acreage in Williamsburg and the two counties which adjoin it, notably to the north and east of the historic area to preserve natural views and facilitate the experience of as much of the late 18th-century environment as possible. This was described as a "rural, wooded sense of arrival" along corridors to the historic area.

In 2006, announcing a conservation easement on acreage north of the Visitor Center, Colonial Williamsburg President and Chairman Colin G. Campbell said its restrictions protected the view and preserved other features: "This viewshed helps to set the stage for visitors in their journey from modern day life into the 18th-century setting. At the same time, this preserves the natural environment around Queen's Creek and protects a significant archaeological site. It is a tangible and important example of how the Foundation is protecting the vital greenbelt surrounding Colonial Williamsburg's historic area for future generations". The Colonial Parkway, which includes a tunnel running beneath the historic area, was planned and is maintained to reduce modern intrusions.

Near the principal planned roadway approach to Colonial Williamsburg, similar design priorities were employed for the relocated U.S. Route 60 near the intersection of Bypass Road and North Henry Street. Prior to the restoration, U.S. Route 60 ran down Duke of Gloucester Street through town. To shift the traffic away from the historic area, Bypass Road was planned and built through farmland and woods about a mile north of town. Shortly thereafter, when Route 143 was built as the Merrimack Trail (originally designated State Route 168) in the 1930s, the protected vista was extended along Route 132 in York County to the new road, and two new bridges were built across Queen's Creek.

Goodwin, who served as a liaison with the community, as well as with state and local officials, was instrumental in such efforts. Nevertheless, some in the Rockefeller organization, regarding him as meddlesome, gradually pushed Goodwin to the periphery of the Restoration and by the time of his death in 1939 Colonial Williamsburg's administrator, Kenneth Chorley of New York, was indiscreetly at loggerheads with the local reverend. Goodwin's relationship with Rockefeller remained warm, however, and his interest in the project remained keen. Colonial Williamsburg dedicated its headquarters in 1940, naming it The Goodwin Building.

About 30 years later, when Interstate 64 was planned and built in the 1960s and early 1970s, from the designated "Colonial Williamsburg" exit, the additional land along Merrimack Trail to Route 132 was similarly protected from development. Today, visitors encounter no commercial properties before they reach the Visitor's Center.

In addition to considerations regarding highway travel, Williamsburg's brick Chesapeake and Ohio Railway passenger station was less than 20 years old and one of the newer ones along the rail line, it was replaced with a larger station in Colonial style that was located just out of sight and within walking distance of the historic area, on the northern edge of Peacock Hill.

Farther afield was Carter's Grove Plantation. It was begun by a grandson of wealthy planter Robert "King" Carter. For over 200 years, it had gone through a succession of owners and modifications. In the 1960s after the death of its last resident, Ms. Molly McRae, Carter's Grove Plantation came under the control of Winthrop Rockefeller's Sealantic Foundation, which gave it to Colonial Williamsburg as a gift. Archaeologist Ivor Noel Hume discovered in its grounds the remains of 1620s Wolstenholme Towne, a downriver outpost of Jamestown. The Winthrop Rockefeller Archaeology Museum, built just above the site, showcased artifacts from the dig. Colonial Williamsburg operated Carter's Grove until 2003 as a satellite facility of Colonial Williamsburg, with interpretive programs. The property has since been sold.

Kingsmill

Between Carter's Grove and the Historic District was the largely vacant Kingsmill tract, as well as a small military outpost of Fort Eustis known as Camp Wallace (CW). In the mid-1960s, CW owned land that extended from the historic district to Skiffe's Creek, at the edge of Newport News near Lee Hall. Distant from the historic area and not along the protected sight paths, it was developed in the early 1970s, under CW Chairman Winthrop Rockefeller.

Rockefeller, a son of Abby and John D. Rockeller Jr., was a frequent visitor and was particularly fond of Carter's Grove in the late 1960s. He became aware of some expansion plans elsewhere on the Peninsula of his St. Louis-based neighbor, August Anheuser Busch, Jr., head of Anheuser-Busch. By the time Rockefeller and Busch completed their discussions, the biggest changes in the Williamsburg area were underway since the restoration began 40 years before. Among the goals were to complement Colonial Williamsburg attractions and enhance the local economy.

The large tract consisting primarily of the Kingsmill land was sold by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to Anheuser-Busch for planned development. The Anheuser-Busch investment included building a large brewery, the Busch Gardens Williamsburg theme park, the Kingsmill planned resort community, and McLaws Circle, an office park. Anheuser-Busch and related entities from that development plan comprise the area's largest employment base, surpassing both Colonial Williamsburg and the local military bases.