The Birthplace of Our Country

This is a photo of Historic Jamestown just outside of Williamsburg, Virginia. I took this photo while on the ferry from Surry County to James City County crossing the James River. This is a rare view because if you are going to Jamestown you would come to it from the land behind this beautiful scene. Until 1994 it was believed and written in the history books that the original fort was located in the James River. Over the years they believed that the riverbanks had receded and the river overcame the fort. There was some remaining archeology on the land which included a church bell tower, which you can see in the photo as the only brick structure. There was ruins of the New Jamestown, a village of houses which is to the right of the photo also. Because the original fort remains were believed to be in the river the parks service created Jamestown Settlement about a mile away from the original site. There, they have recreated the fort, replicated the boats and made a mini Indian village also. There are reinactors who "work" in the village, sawing logs, building houses, working the boats. At the settlement there is a nice museum with some artifacts from that time period to help round out the history.

Back to Historic Jamestown. On the Historic Jamestown site there are two groups of people who own and control the land. Looking at the photo, everything to the east (right of the photo) of the white obelisk monument (Washington Monument looking thing) was owned and controlled by the National Parks Service. Everything basically left of the Obelisk including the church is controlled by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. For many years the National Parks Service felt they had the better deal. They controlled the few artifacts that had been found on the property. They had the New Jamestown Village and they controlled the small museum, gift shop, and theatre which they showed a 15 minute video on the settling of Jamestown. The APVA controlled and maintained the church bell tower (the oldest brick structure in Virginia and the east coast outside St. Augustine, FL), the church, and the Civil War earthworks. Yes, on top of all of this was a Civil War encampment of soldiers to watch for those Yankees coming up the James River. This was a perfect view of the James River and from that vantage point one could see far down the James. This also was the reason our settlers chose this point as well. The National Parks Service had rights to give tours all through the park including the APVA portion. They did a great job. They would have you imagine the land, the river, the fort. You had to imagine everything. Most people never toured the Historic Jamestown or the "real" Jamestown as I would tell my students. I had much success taking students there and they always seemed to have a good time. To me, it was sacred land. There was a different feeling that came over me there. I could almost hear the early settlers working, talking, cooking, panning for gold. I could see the fort, watch the people, search for Indians. I have yet to find anyone who gets as excited about this place as I do.

In 1994, after much research Dr. William Kelso from UVA had a hunch that the fort was still on land. He believed that some if not all of the fort was there. He convinced the APVA to let him dig some trial excavations. In literally his first shovel-full of dirt he found artifact dating back 400 years. He knew he was on to something. Much of his first couple years he dug alone or with his graduate students. They had anticipated finding maybe a couple hundred artifacts. 13 years later he and his team have uncovered over a million artifacts and all but 10 feet of a corner of the original fort. I was lucky enough to be allowed to go down there and spend a day with one of his archaeologists. I was with a group of teachers and we weren't able to dig but we learned so so much about the process and their discoveries thus far.

In the photo you can see the re-creation of the original fort and the beginnings of a re-creation of a longhouse inside the fort. The re-creation of the fort sits just off the lines of the original fort and is not completely enclosed as the original fort was. This way the new structure will not harm the evidence of the old structure beneath the ground. With the new evidence of the fort's location, the APVA has just opened a multimillion dollar museum which is located left of the photo. It is beautiful and it not only tells the story of the settlers but it tells the story of the archeology behind it. Now there is no reason why a tourist would skip over Historic Jamestown in lieu of Jamestown Settlement. It just makes me even more excited and I think the APVA has the better deal now.