Williamsburg/Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

In an area known as the 'historical triangle' of Virginia that includes Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown, Williamsburg, Virginia today is a center for historical research and preservation of America in the Colonial and Revolutionary War period. The complex today includes a resort with elegant places to stay, the old center of Williamsburg that is now a living museum, two museums dedicated to artifacts and art during the Colonial period, a restoration center, and a visitor center. Today's Colonial Williamsburg is the result of over 75 years of effort to identify, preserve and rebuilt the structures and buildings that were once part of Williamsburg at or near the time of the Revolutionary War. Their extensive web site provides information about Colonial Williamsburg, including places to stay, places to eat, and an interactive map that describes each building open to the public.

The American Guide Series Text

The American Guides Series for the Virgina provides a great description of Williamsburg around 1940, just six years after the historical portion of Williamsburg was first opened to the public with great fanfare, and a visit from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Below is an excerpt about the entire city of Williamsburg, though it is dominated by the historical part. Historical parts have been condensed to reduce the size of the quote. The link to the text is provided below for further reading.

Williamsburg

Railroad Station: N. end of Boundary St. for Chesapeake and Ohio Ry.

Bus Station: College Shop, Duke of Gloucester and Boundary Sts., for Greyhound and Peninsula Transit Corp. Lines.

Taxis: Fare $0.25 within city.

Traffic Regulations: Half-hour parking limit on Duke of Gloucester St.; large public parking lots adjoining business area; speed limit on Duke of Gloucester St. and around college, 15 m.p.h., elsewhere 25 m.p.h.

Accommodations: 2 large, 10 small inns, numerous guest houses; seasonal rates.

Information Service: Information Bureau of the Restoration, Craft House, S.England St. beside Williamsburg Inn; Chamber of Commerce, New Shop Buildings, W. end Duke of Gloucester St.; booth on Richmond Rd. during tourist season.

Motion Picture Houses: One.

Golf: Yorktown Golf Course, 13 m. SE. on Colonial National Parkway, 18 holes, greens fee $1.

Swimming: Yorktown Beach, 13 m. SE. on Colonial National Parkway, suit $0.25, bath house $0.25.

Annual Events: Garden Week, late Apr. or May; Alumni Day at College of William and Mary, early June; General Assembly of Virginia meets in Colonial Capitol once during each biennial legislative session.

WILLIAMSBURG (78 to 84 alt., 3,778 pop.), capital of Virginia from 1699 to 1780 and now the showplace among Colonial restorations, is spread upon a ridge in the peninsula between the James and York Rivers. Queen's Creek and College Creek (called in early days Archer's Hope) partly encircle the city. Round about, fields roll toward the water or stretch inland to meet pine woods. On the outskirts are new houses of brick or wood. East-west Duke of Gloucester Street, wide, straight, and tree-shaded, bisects the little city from the college to the capitol.

Eighteenth-century Williamsburg, lately a straggling, dusty ghost, is today a lively reincarnation of the busy and important Colonial capital. Bordering deep sidewalks, with benches at the curbs, are shops behind facades of eighteenth-century design and signs in flowing script. Set close to the street, most of the dwellings have green shutters and gambrel or gabled roofs pierced by a line of dormer windows. Those of frame are small, with vast single-buttressed brick chimneys; a few, built of brick, are large and formally designed, while many have rambling additions. But whether of pink brick or white clapboard they appear old in pattern only. In the interiors, paneling and wainscoting are freshly painted or of polished natural woods, and walls are tinted 'Williamsburg blue' or covered with fresh paper. Gardens, where old-fashioned flowers bloom from early spring till late fall, have great boxwood trees or hedges of dwarf box planted in intricate patterns.

The past constitutes Williamsburg's livelihood, its present, and its future. The colonists' homes and taverns, where all classes of Virginians lived and assembled, and the palace and its gardens, where royal governors surrounded themselves with such splendor as would make their 'barbarous exile' more endurable, illustrate like a picture book the long fight waged by liberty-loving people against privileged aristocracy. Today boys and girls in college clothes and tourists hurrying from house to house contrast ludicrously with Negro guides and attendants in eighteenth-century costumes. Williamsburg-without patina-is the only Colonial city that appears today much as it did before the Revolution. Old and new buildings, in about equal proportion, glisten with pristine freshness; and now, as always, handicrafts represent the only local industries.

The 'Act for the Seatinge of the Middle Plantation,' passed in 1633, encouraged settlement in the area where Dr. John Pott was living. Middle Plantation stood just within the six-mile palisade built across the peninsula to protect settlers from a repetition of the Massacre of 1622...

The choice of Middle Plantation by the assembly in 1693 as the site of 'a free schoole & college' to be known as William and Mary and the burning of the State House in Jamestown caused Middle Plantation, still only a loose concentration of plantation dwellings, to be designated in 1699 as the new capital, renamed Williamsburg in honor of William III...

The new capital rapidly attained the size and appearance it presents today...

Incorporated in 1722, Williamsburg became the political and educational center of Virginia and the scene of the most 'fashionable' social life in Colonial America...

The tranquillity of this scene was broken in 1765 when Patrick Henry, undeterred by cries of 'Treason!' incited the burgesses to pass resolutions against the Stamp Act. Here in 1773 were developed the intercolonial activities of a committee of correspondence that grew out of the standing committee originated in 1759 to communicate with the colony's London agents...

Williamsburg began to decline when the capital was moved to Richmond in 1780 to escape the invading British...

Except for brief revivals brought about by two wars [War of 1812? and Civil War], Williamsburg dozed for a century and a half as shopping center for the surrounding country. After 1889, when the college reopened, a slow recovery began and continued until the little community was aroused suddenly in 1917 by the location on its outskirts of a munitions factory with nearly 15,000 workers. Hastily constructed cheap buildings disfigured the Colonial city.

In its newborn ugliness Williamsburg dozed again. In 1926 John D. Rockefeller, Jr., came to Williamsburg at the invitation of Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, who had been responsible for the restoration of Bruton Paris[h] Church, of which he was rector, and of the Wythe House. Mr. Rockefeller was enthusiastic over Dr. Goodwin's plan for restoring the city to its eighteenth-century appearance. On Mr. Rockefeller's authorization most of the property in the Colonial area was acquired by Colonial Williamsburg, Inc., and within a decade most of the research and restoration was completed. Research covered Colonial documents and records in libraries, museums, and family archives in America, England, and France. Buildings totaling 459 were torn down, 91 of the Colonial period rebuilt, 67 restored, and a new shopping center in Colonial style was provided. Six new houses were built in the Negro section in 1929. Negroes, 23 per cent of the local population, whose ancestors raised the Colonial structures, are chiefly employed as domestics or as costumed attendants at Colonial buildings.

Nearly 200,000 tourists come annually to Williamsburg and the little city has a rapidly widening influence throughout America. The eighteenth century as mirrored in Williamsburg inspires styles of dress, furniture, interior decorations, and domestic architecture.

--American Guide Series: Virginia - A Guide to the Old Dominion State, p. 313-328.



Williamsburg Today, Demographics

The City of Williamsburg today is a bustling little city that can be described as a 'college town.' According to the Wikipedia web site for the city, here are some demographics:

Population [2008 Census]: 12,481
Racial Makeup [2008 Census]: 79.54% White, 13.34% Black/African-American; 4.58% Asian-American, 2.52% Hispanic/Latin-American, 0.27% Native American, and the rest is 'Other.'
Local Government Type: Independent city.

Williamsburg is well connected by transportation networks. Nearby, is Interstate 64 that connects it with Richmond and Newport News. Amtrak has trains that stop right at town, likely at the same railroad station mentioned in the text (there are many historical pictures that include President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the station). There are taxies still available to take you to your hotel or elsewhere, however, there is also free shuttle service to the Colonial Williamsburg inns. Also, there is a free bus that rings Colonial Williamsburg that has designated bus stops to pick up tourists. Air access, however, is less convenient. Richmond is the closest with an airport, and Washington, DC and Norfolk are the closest major airport.

Colonial Williamsburg Today

The text in the American Guide Series book seems condescending at times concerning Colonial Williamsburg, especially concerning the authenticity of its restorations and portrail of Colonial Era life. Around 2009, a book was published: Colonial Williamsburg: The First 75 Years, which has an account of the history of Colonial Williamsburg and includes chapters on the evolution of the restoration and reconstruction of buildings, how guides are clothed and provide tours of the buildings, and the continued research that is happening to learn even more about the buildings and the lives of the people who lived there. General topics will be covered here, while topics specific to other buildings will be covered in other waymarks. Waymarking visitors can also add their impressions and facts that they learned!

The Grounds -

One of the main changes from the book is that the entire Colonial Williamsburg museum area is closed to car traffic for the day and much of the night. There are barriers that have signs stating this. Though there are cars parked in many of the houses on the fringes, no modern vehicles are present in the main roads. Most, if not all the buildings in the main area are owned by the museum. People do dwell in many of the houses - these are not open for tours. Many of the inhabitants are museum workers.

The Buildings -

There is so much to tell about the preservation of the buildings. The web site for Colonial Williamsburg provides a lot of information about the buildings that they keep. Several structures do date back to the Colonial times, but still had to undergo a lot of work to restore them. Example buildings are the eight-sided Powderhouse, Bassett Hall, and the Old Courthouse. Other buildings, such as the Governor's Palace and the Capitol Building (still visited by the Virginia Legislature once a year), were totally rebuilt on their foundations based on the best drawings, paintings and other documentation available. Building continues today, with a new 'coffee house' opened in late November 2009, and plans to build a middle class plantation house by the visitor center.

The 'Inhabitants'- Guides and Actors Portraying Life There -

The people who work there are in period clothing. The Anniversary book has an entire chapter devoted to this. In 1936, six women who worked as "hostesses" provided the tours. Two years later over 50 men and women worked in costumes. If the American Series book implied that in 1940 most workers were African-American, today, the make up is much more diverse, with both men and women in both races there. Presently, the guides are in the modern times, but have a vast knowledge of the past and are trying to demonstrate crafts and chores as best as they understand how they were done in Colonial times. From 3-5 pm, there is a program called "Revolutionary City" where actors play out scenes from the lives of people affected by the Revolutionary War, slave labor in Colonial times, and the changing social interactions in the town.

Restoring or changing buildings and interpretations are certainly not without their controversies. However, it appears that Colonial Williamsburg is doing its best to strike the best course between authenticity to the period and providing accommodations to the present. To me, it was a very worthwhile trip to visit, and I will return some time to visit what I missed, and, perhaps, see additional changes to the place.

Sources

XRoads, University of Virginia (American Guide Series: Virginia - A Guide to the Old Dominion):
Visit Site

Wikipedia (Williamsburg, VA):
Visit Site

City of Williamsburg Official Site:
Visit Site

Colonial Williamsburg Official Site:
Visit Site

Book: Theobald, Mary Miley. Colonial Williamsburg: The First 75 YearsThe Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: Williamsburg, VA.

Book: Virginia Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 313-328 Year Originally Published: 1940

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