30 June 2022--Spent almost 4 hours yesterday at Colonial Williamsburg. John D. Rockefeller was persuaded to buy this town and restore it to what downtown Williamsburg looked like in the times running up to the Revolution. It encompasses 301 acres of restored buildings, 600 of them, and opened to the public in 1932.
After going into the visitor center, we walked over this "bridge to the past", and then about a quarter mile to our 1st stop. The bridge was pretty cool, with markers in both directions telling you something about that era. There were a whole bunch of them, but here are just a few as we walk into the past.
Once over the bridge, we came to areas that look like you would expect--open farm land and old homesteads, but as we get to the town, we were quite surprised to see how developed it was.
Williamsburg was made the capital of VA in 1699--they took it away from Jamestown for lying about my beloved Pilgrims I think--this is the Governor's Palace, started in 1706 and finished in 1722. It sits on 10 acres of gardens. After the Revolution, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson were the 1st elected governors to live here.
The inside has been furnished to reflect the last royal governor's stay here. The foyer was where visitors conducting business would wait to see the governor, and traditionally lots of weapons would be displayed on the walls to reflect the power of his position.
We had to go on a tour of the place--you couldn't just roam randomly, which is how we like to sightsee. Most of the rooms you couldn't walk into, you had to take a pic across a railing. The 2nd pic shows a baby's bassinette--most people at that time would have stuffed the equivalent of a pillow case with straw or leaves for their bedding, but not the royal governor. And the last pic is of the parlor--when I was a kid we called the living room the parlor, but what we just learned was that parlor comes from the French "parlez", meaning to talk--so these were conversation rooms. Notice the velvet walls!
The blue room was the ballroom, and the green room the dining room, which was out the door of the ballroom in the back. A governor's ball was held often for all the movers and shakers of the community, and those that wanted something from the governor. So politicians and business owners, mostly. They generally had 7 course meals, where they would dance, eat a course, come back and dance, and then eat another course, etc. The guide said these balls could last well into the night and even well into the morning.
The portraits here are of King Charles and his wife, from Portugal. He was, of course, the head of the Church of England, while she was Roman Catholic. Because she was Catholic, many thought she was a spy for the pope...lol...so when he died she was shipped right back to Portugal. Conspiracy theories go back a long way.
Lastly, the guide pointed out that only the very wealthy could afford colored paint, so those who were wealthy used it to basically show off. (Blue and green walls.) God only knows why, but it's called the "macaroni" effect.
As you went out the back of the dining room you went into the gardens.
Down into the cellar, which had a quite a few rooms. Lots of wine stored here, but other stuff also. Most of the rooms had locked doors on them...I'm assuming they are to keep present-day people from stealing the wine, and probably not there a few hundred years ago.
Lots of buildings on the grounds. Here is a smokehouse.
And the kitchen--always a separate building back in those days because of potential fires. They had people in there actually cooking--the 1st dish here is roast PIDGEON, and then fried beetroot. (I thought they were small hamburgers--lol.)
This is George Wythe's house, who we 1st met in Richmond.
This church has been in continuous use since 1715. The pastor of this Episcopal church was the person who convinced Rockefeller to buy and restore this land. Again, we have gravesites so old that very few have markings left on them.
Up until 1779 the richest people in town sat in the front rows of churches, with men on the left and women on the right.
This podium was commissioned and donated to the church by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907. It's called the Angel of Peace, and when you look closely you'll see it has one foot in the old world and one foot in the new. It also has a lion (for England) and an eagle (for America).
Always loved a horse and carriage! Check out the houses--although built in the early to mid 1700s, they look like half the houses in America.
They had people working in the few stores that were open, and people performing or just walking the streets, in period garb.
This court house was built in 1771--there were too many inside, so even with masks we didn't want to go in. The 3rd pic shows a public punishment--you sat on the back board and had your legs thru to the front. The back board had a metal covering and would hurt like hell if you had to sit there for hours.
This 'magazine' was used to store guns and ammunition. The Royal Governor was found to have emptied the place before anyone in the town knew about the Battle of Lexington, touching off the Revolution here in VA.
Each afternoon they have an outdoor theatre performance--this day they had the Marquis de Lafayette speaking.
The capitol building is at the end of a mile-long road, and by the time we got here I was exhausted. lol Like the Governor's Palace, this building also required you to take a guided tour, but there were so many people in there we decided to skip it.
You really need a couple days to see all that is here to see--we probably only saw 1/3 of it in almost 4 hours--I'm way too old to be doing 2-3 days of this in a row. lol So today we left Williamsburg and arrived in Virginia Beach for a couple days. We'll visit with a friend who lives here, see just a couple things maybe, but what I really want to do is relax. lol
