On Historical Ground

History was the main topic on Thursday. We left Norfolk for the Historic Triangle in the late morning. Distances aren't a big deal in the East, rather traffic!

First stop: The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, a rather new museum, we haven't seen before. It instructively tells story of the nation’s founding, from the  colonial period to the Constitution with exhibitions and films indoors and outdoors with a re-created Continental Army encampment (below) and demonstrations, as well as a Revolution-era farm of the18th-century family.

On the Colonial Parkway we drove on to Yorktown Battlefield, part of the National Park System. This was the site of the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.  In the fall of 1781, General George Washington, with allied American and French forces, besieged General Charles Lord Cornwallis’s British army.  In the Visitor Center interesting exhibitions and a film was to be seen. The battlefield itself offers a self-guided driving tour and it gives a good impression about the trenches they built and the landscape they were fighting on.

From war to early beginnings of the U.S.A.: Jamestown Settlement was the first permanent English settlement in America. With exhibitions and reconstructions of all kinds, visitors learn a lot about the fort (left ), the life in Jamestown, about the cooperation (and fights) with the local Powhatan tribe, about first industries (glassblowing, tobacco). 

There are costumed historical interpreters who demonstrate daily life in early Jamestown, a life-size recreation of a fort, an Indian village (far below) and of the three ships (below) which sailed from GB to Virginia in 1607.

Pocahontas who married British John Rolfe

Historic Jamestown is "the real deal", the original settlement. Archaeology continues here, and teams are still excavating parts of the island. The 1907 Memorial Church, the 1607 James Fort (photo), and the great Archeology Museum give a real great idea about the lay of the land and the happenings there, from African slaves (from Angola) living with the settlers to the Indians, to archeological recoveries and modern methods to reconstruct.

Superb museums today, and, we made 4 of 5 attractions, only Williamsburg (which we have seen before) missing. Walked about 8 miles, absorbed it all. Weather was great, too! In the evening we were tired when we checked into the great QUIRK Hotel in Richmond (room below).