Our new dock friends, Gayle & Bob from
Sea Buff, gave us a ride to the Victory Center in Yorktown. From there we boarded the Historic Triangle Shuttle bus, which took us to Colonial Williamsburg.
Colonial Williamsburg has been preserved for all us to enjoy because of people like the Rockefellers. At one point, they fought to keep a freeway from being built right through it. The freeway is there, but it is an underground tunnel. Score one for the 18th century!
The historical interpreters all stay in character and did an excellent job. We started the day by touring the Capitol. The court met her several times a year. The judges were the same exact people as the burgesses. And the burgesses were English aristocracy who passed their position along in the family. Whether they were qualified or not. The whole set up was ripe with corruption!
Quite a number of historical characters showed up on the street and spoke. Starting with Lafayette. The French general who came to our aid, despite his government’s disapproval in the beginning. He believed in the cause of freedom. It is doubtful we could have won our freedom without the French. Of course over the past several hundred years the French have been at war with English more than not. So why miss out on a good fight?
Here’s a short video clip of Lafayette.
We stopped in and checked out the apothecary. All medicines and herbs MUST be imported from England, and paid a tax on. And this shopkeeper informed us he only takes gold and silver for payment. No chickens!!!
Lady Martha Washington made an appearance and spoke to the crowd. Check out the layers of clothing they wore, and gloves!
This is the print shop from the mid 1700’s. Everything in it was required to be purchased from England, and taxed! The printer would set the individual metal letters in the print frame and then pound the ink on them for each copy. The ink is made of turpentine and very fine soot, also purchased from England.
He would lay a sheet of paper on top the inked letters, slide it in this printing press and pull on a lever that would press the paper down on the letters.
It was the printer’s apprentice that would be given the fun job of cleaning all the little letters and putting them back in the appropriate bin. Although the printer did suggest to us, it was preferable to being the soot maker’s apprentice!
Next door was the bookbinder. About 8 folded pages at a time are lined up along the vertical cords. A long silk thread from the coil at the left was hand stitched across. Then another 8 pages added until all pages in the book are sewn through with one continuous silk thread. Oh, and of course all his supplies had to come from England. Are you seeing a pattern here?
This drawing was done by Ben Franklin and published in his
Pennsylvania Gazette. It is thought to be the first political cartoon. He drew it so even if someone could not read, they would understand what the object was. At this time there was a superstition that a snake cut in pieces would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset.
Grabbed a sandwich at this vine-covered restaurant. The shade felt good.
George Washington showed up and informed all of us that he would not be seeking another term. He also spoke about his hopes for the future. He spoke to many points of the Constitution he was concerned would be abused. The crowd listening was much in agreement. There was a lot of clapping and shouting, especially when he spoke about the dangers of letting government get too big and have too much power. Even though the crowd knew it wasn’t really President Washington, hearing his words spoken was moving!
I was curious about Washington so read more about him on the Internet. I love early American history (in case you haven’t figured that out) I could go on and on about his military background and such, but won’t. Instead I’ll tell you about his teeth, or lack of.
He was 6 feet 2 inches tall, compared with John Adams at 5’7” or Ben Franklin at 5’9”. So an imposing man. In his younger days he survived smallpox, malaria, dengue fever and the flu. Besides blood letting as a treatment for pretty much every ailment (I wonder who thought up that dumb idea, Dr. Dracula??) another treatment was a powder called mercurous chloride. Something now known to damage teeth. He did brush his teeth. Even had a sterling silver toothbrush. At the time, they had powder dentifrices. But he suffered much pain and eventually bone loss of his jaw.
He never had wooden dentures! But he did have sets made of carved hippo horn and elephant tusk. The uppers and lowers were connected with a gold spring. Doesn’t sound very comfy.
We toured the Wetherburn Tavern. It is restored to what it would have looked like after its expansion in 1751. The price of room and board to the public was a set price in all taverns. They made their money by renting out private meeting space and having a better cook than the other taverns.
Women didn’t sleep at the taverns. But they would put 3 or 4 men in a bed! And the beds are maybe double size. They slept in their clothing but removed shoes and socks. Chamber pot under each bed. No thanks!
Not to worry, they aired out the sheets each day and washed them once a month!! I'm itchy just thinking about it.
The kitchen wasn’t connected to the Tavern. Kitchens were in separate buildings so in the event of fire, it was only the one building. I thought this was a clever invention. I forget what it was called, but the weight is connected to a pulley and that in turn rotates the meat over the fire.
The smokehouse with meats hanging from the rafters. I wonder if vermin were a problem? I forgot to ask. Salting and smoking was the best way they had for preserving meat.
Our final stop was the Governors Palace. Until the Revolutionary War, the Governor was always an Englishman appointed by the King. He was the law here. The local rabble was unfit to govern themselves after all.
The palace was beautiful. The entry way and all along the hallway and up the staircase, these weapons are displayed. They were displayed rather than stored in a magazine; the premise was to show how much power they had.
Close up of a flintlock.
There were exquisite marble carvings on the fireplaces.
We would have loved to have had more time and been able to see more. I think you could easily spend several days here. Coming back here is definitely on our “to do list”. But we had a shuttle bus to catch back to Yorktown.
