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Living History
at Colonial Williamsburg
By Susan Olling
We spent a few days at the largest living history museum in the world,
Colonial Williamsburg in mid-September. No matter how many times
we’ve been down there over the years, we’ve always learned
something.
There were the old reliables: To Hang a Pirate, the trial of one of
Edward Teach’s crew. We know him Mr. Teach as
Blackbeard. Fifteen of Blackbeard’s crew were tried in the
General Court in Williamsburg’s Capitol in 1719. Piracy was a felony.
Thirteen of the crew were hanged, one was determined to be too
young. Israel Hands was the fifteenth member tried, and he’s the
pirate on trial during the program. Mr. Hands was not hanged but
did disappear from history.
We spent more time in the art museums than we have in all the years
we’ve been going down there. Besides the wonderful exhibits of
china, porcelain, silver, portraits, textiles and furniture,
there are programs in the auditorium. General Washington, the
Marquis de Lafayette, General Rochambeau and Alexander Hamilton tell
the story of The Long Road to Yorktown. Words fail me. It’s
a five-star program. For eighteenth century music lovers, there’s
An Afternoon with the Governor’s Musick. A new program, Mental
Health, is a tour about mental health care in the eighteenth
century. The Public Hospital in Williamsburg, founded in 1773,
was the first such institution in North America for the care of people
deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. Part
of the tour mentions Patrick Henry’s first wife, Sarah Shelton, who
developed what may have been post-partum depression (she did bear six
children, a dangerous job in the eighteenth century, in a short period
of time). She was not sent to the Public Hospital. Instead,
she was kept in a locked room at Scotchtown, their plantation in
Hanover County.
Back in the restored area, you can’t get bored. A tour of the
Capitol gave me something new to think about. When Parliament
started taxing the colonies in the mid-1760s, New England was not going
to be able to pay the taxes. The growing season was
shorter. Virginians, while not happy with the situation, could
still pay the taxes (grow more tobacco). According to our
docent, there were two revolutions. The revolution in New England
was violent (the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party and Lexington and
Concord came to my mind). The revolution in Virginia was a
revolution of the mind. The greatest minds in the thirteen
colonies were in Virginia: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick
Henry, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee among others. I would
pretty much agree, there was one other great mind: Benjamin Franklin of
Pennsylvania.
One of my favorite buildings in the restored area is: Charlton’s
Coffeehouse. Coffeehouses in the eighteenth century were places
for men to go to talk and drink. There were so many coffeehouses
in London that some served as places to discuss specific subjects: one
might be for politics, another for science, another for shipping, as
examples. At Charlton’s, you must take yourself back to
1766. There’s a bit of scandal going on in Virginia: a member of
the gentry has been released after killing another man in a
tavern. The other scandal involved the death of the treasurer of
the colony who’s books showed some, er, discrepancies. These two
events did happen.
One of the buildings that doesn’t belong to the Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation is Bruton Parish Church. The parish was founded in
1674 (when what we know as Williamsburg was called Middle Plantation),
and the current church building dates from 1715, Candlelight Concerts
are a long-standing tradition, and we went to a glorious one featuring
the organ. We heard one of the last organ concerts in the
church, as the instrument was removed recently. A new organ will
be installed early next near.
In Trial of a Patriot, we had to decide whether John Fry was guilty or
innocent on the charge of treason. John Murray, Lord Dunmore, the
last Royal Governor of Virginia (left out the back door of the
Governor’s Palace in 1775) is still the Royal Governor. John
Randolph, a loyalist who went to England, is now Baron John Randolph
and the prosecutor of the case. (He was the brother of Peyton
Randolph, president of the First and Second Continental
Congresses. Peyton died of a stroke in 1775 in
Philadelphia. The Revolution divided families.)
In between all this activity, there was still time to sit and watch the
passing “fashion” parade. I use that term in its loosest
sense. When the “out loud” voice threatened to come out, it was
time to move on.
We did see a first: a car with a picture of Che Guevara on it.
From the Republic of Cuba. A bit ironic. Mr. History was
talking to a couple from Wilmington, North Carolina. There
neighborhood was, with all the rain, an island. When he heard
another couple talk about driving to Charleston, South Carolina, he
mentioned that quite a bit of I-95 was closed in both Carolinas.
They were curious as to how he knew this. Thank the Weather
Channel.
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