Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown
May 30, 2024
For Memorial Day weekend, we headed to Newport News to review early American history. We gathered information at the Colonial Williamsburg visitor center and decided to tour the American Revolution Museum for several hours.
We spent a rainy day at the excellent museum, plus a tour of some period reenactments with characters from the military and farm life that included firing a flintlock.
Dried Tobacco leaves
Saturday was beautiful, so we visited Historic Jamestown and the Jamestown Settlement for most of the day.
Of course, we arrived early, and as we decided on the best parking spot, we noticed a sizeable fresh whole catfish on the pavement. Hmmm. The Settlement comprised a museum, village, fort, and three full-size replicas of the merchant ships that brought the colonists across the Atlantic. One of the period actors pointed out an active eagle nest in a loblolly pine tree in the Settlement, and suddenly, the fish in the parking lot made sense—it was probably accidentally dropped in flight!
The largest of the ships, the Susan Constant, is headed to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut in a few weeks for a re-fitting that will take several years. She may or may not arrive there before we do 😉. At Historic Jamestown, there was a museum on top of the original Statehouse ruins, Pocahontas and Captain John Smith statues, and some building foundations.
We toured Colonial Williamsburg on Sunday with period actors in some of the town’s buildings. A docent named Sean led a tour of the Governor’s Mansion, which was the highlight of our visit.
We also participated in a few mock trials at the Courthouse and toured the original Capitol.
At the Raleigh Tavern, we had a delicious molasses ginger cookie and then lunch at the DoG Street Cafe. This heat and humidity is brutal on us desert rats, so it was refreshing to eat and drink in air conditioning! On Memorial Day, we caught laundry very early before going to the Yorktown Monument, Museum, and historic Battlefield Drive.
This is a section of George Washington’s battlefield tent!
A diorama of the British surrender
The Battlefield had white flag markers visible from one location to another so you could envision the position of the British and American forces during the siege that won the Revolutionary War. It was a large area and more wooded than Vicksburg, so even after watching the movie at the museum it took a little more imagination to follow the battle. We toured the nearby Mariner’s Museum and Park, where artifacts and parts of the USS Monitor from the American Civil War were displayed, along with a full accounting of her history.
The museum includes ship figureheads and a fantastic collection of exquisite miniature ship models. There were several buildings to explore, including many different boat models from around the world, plus the Oracle Team USA 17, the yacht that won the 2013 America’s Cup.
Wouldn’t it be cool to ride around in a classic like this!
Afterwards, we drove down to First Landing State Park near Norfolk, Virginia, so named because this is where the Jamestown colonists first landed in 1607. We could easily walk to the beach on Chesapeake Bay from our campsite in the hammocks.
Although there is a military training center right next door, it was quiet when we were there. We spent Tuesday working on projects and planning the next day, where we drove 4 hours to visit our daughter and her family! I’d preordered and picked up a BBQ feast and also brought cupcakes from a nearby bakery to have a delightful picnic at a park where our granddaughter could play while we visited and held our new grandson. The drive back was on Cloud Nine, as spending time with family creates memories that bind us together! God Bless Larry for 8 hours of driving, though!
There are rare moments as we travel when I learn a backstory explaining something I previously accepted as vocabulary from a multigenerational military family. I had a relative who had little patience for indecision and would always say, “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” Now, thanks to the Mariner’s Museum, I know why!
