Back East. Way back. VA & DC

In the gardens of the Governor's Palace, Williamsburg

June 19 saw us on our way from Raleigh-Durham to Jamestown and Williamsburg.  On the way we decided to take a shortcut and cross the James River to Jamestown via a ferry from the town of Scotland on the south shore.  The lowland country along the way was beautifully green.  Tall trees shaded the back roads.  It was a nice way to approach the historical sites.  For over 400 years the folks in these parts have taken pretty good care of the land, if not of each other. 

Why can't I get them to do this at home?  Mixing clay for bricks.

Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America.  In 1607 an intrepid party of men chose a little island at the side of the wide James River on which to establish a town that in many ways was the direct antecedent of the United States.  Though poorly sited in terms of fresh water and good soils, the flow of settlers was just strong enough to overcome the horrible early years of disease and starvation.  Jamestown was the capitol of Virginia from 1616 until 1699 when the government offices were moved to Williamsburg to make travel to and fro easier as settlement expanded west.  As the fastest news could travel to England and return in no less than 6 months, the Crown had provided for limited self-government.  The progression to full independence seems inevitable from that humble beginning.
 

Kate devours an historic Olde Turkey Legg at Williamsburg.
That bird must have stood 8' at the shoulder.

Williamsburg was a thriving town until 1780 when the capital was again moved, this time to Richmond.  Then-governor Thomas Jefferson worried that Williamsburg's location was vulnerable to attack by the British, but its location was already losing favor as the center of settlement moved westward and people relied more on rivers and canals for travel.  Jefferson was prescient, considering the final showdown of the Revolution occurred the next year at Yorktown, just a few miles away.  The town continued to thrive as a regional hub until the Civil War, when it suffered damage from the Union assault and occupation from 1862 to 1865.  Despite the reopening of William and Mary College after the war, the town snoozed until the early 1900's when several local leaders realized the value of protecting the many buildings that survived from the Revolutionary period.  Luckily, John D. Rockefeller and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller agreed, to the tune of $60 million.

We spent a day walking among the restored and rebuilt buildings in the historic area.  The broad gravel avenues and shady trees give a fine impression of what life was like at the time of the Revolution.  We were aware that there was a lot more work going on back then than there is now, and much of that work was being done by slaves.  The historical interpretation being done at Williamsburg emphasizes the role of slavery and the way in which it made its insidious conversion from indentured servitude - work for passage across the Atlantic - into "chattel slavery", the perpetual enslavement of people and their offspring that was in place in Virginia by the mid-1600's.  Like so many great wrongs, slavery was the product of many seemingly innocent adjustments in the 50 years after Jamestown was founded, such as recognition of different rights among English-born colonists, foreign-born colonists from different lands, Christian and non-Christians, and so-on.  Once the bonanza of tobacco production was in high gear, all niceties were set aside in favor of drawing in as much forced labor as possible.

Later, the emphasis on slavery continued at the US Capitol, where we were surprised to learn that the building was constructed largely by enslaved people, even as the Civil War was being fought.  President Lincoln believed continued construction would be good for morale.  Enslaved people continued to work on the Capitol at least until the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which, interestingly, didn't emancipate any slaves held outside lands controlled by the Confederacy. 

We hadn't planned that our trip's progress from Jamestown to Washington, D.C. would reflect the miniscule beginnings and rapid growth of the United States, but it was a good way to understand the phenomenal change that happened over the 400 years following the first settlement.  Jamestown was a pile of sticks.  DC is the capital of the most powerful nation in history.  Even the Romans would envy growth like that.

At the Archives

DC was the first of our Airbnb.com apartment rentals.  Our little studio apartment in Palisades, just outside Georgetown, was perfect.  We didn't use the car at all during the four days of our stay.  The bus stop was just across the street and there were numerous excellent restaurants in the neighborhood.  We spent June 22 at the Capitol, touring with a group and then hoofing around on our own.  We visited Senator Inouye's office in the Hart Office Building to pick up gallery tickets for the House and Senate.  While observing, we saw Henry Waxman in the House and Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander and Joe Lieberman in the Senate chamber.  We also popped across to the Library of Congress via the underground tunnel.  Everywhere was mobbed with people, and the heat could have been a tourist attraction all its own, if it weren't so miserable.

King Kamehameha I - Our Man in Washington

During our stay we learned to negotiate the Metro and the bus system to great advantage.  Unfortunately, the residents of Georgetown and the wealthy neighborhoods in the NW side of the city fought hard against having Metro service because they feared the unwashed would infiltrate their neighborhoods, so access is by bus.  Kate got a taste of urban mass transit and a whiff of some of the people who use it, but the experience was all very exciting and new.  Our second day we visited the National Archives, strolled around the Mall, and were dazzled by the Natural History Museum.  Once again, there were huge crowds but everyone was polite and friendly.  On the street near our rental, people greeted each other on the sidewalk, which was a surprise.  As our friend Randy Wellford put it, DC is still the South. 

We met Randy for lunch on our last day and spent the afternoon catching up and walking along the C&O Canal and the Great Falls of the Potomac.  I have to admit I was a little skeptical of what we might see.  My glimpses of the Potomac were confined to the placid tidal waters in D.C. and the Appalachian Trail crossing upriver at Harper's Ferry.  The Great Falls show a different side of the river and what it can do.  Very impressive.

Randy was a college roommate of mine at Bates and one of the smartest, funniest people I've ever known.  He spent the summer of 1983 at our farm in Maine and helped get Jenny and me together.  Randy could get my mother laughing hysterically with risque remarks that I would never have dared.  His secret was that the jokes were so clever that she couldn't disapprove.  They were great times.

On the Mall near the White House

Randy gave us the inside scoop on Washington politics as we whiled away the afternoon.  Luckily he had the evening free, so he accompanied us to dinner with Jenny's stepbrother Jim Dewar, who's another skilled raconteur.  The wait staff earned their tip but were also drawn into the silliness.  It was a fine way to end an all too short visit.  We headed for Pennsylvania the next morning, the 24th.