Jamestown & Yorktown - 6/27/16

This morning we picked up an Enterprise rental car.  They pick you up and take you to their office to complete the paperwork.  Problem was they weren't allowed on the Naval Station so I had to get to the gate to meet them.  It's about a 3 mile walk so I started out.  I made it about 1/2 a mile when someone coming out of the campground gave me a ride the rest of the way.  Then we were off to Jamestown.

Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in America.  It was founded in 1604 by the Virginia Company of London and served as the capital of the Colony of Virginia from 1616 to 1699 when it was moved to Williamsburg.  The local Indian tribe was the Paspahegh Tribe who initially welcomed the colonists.  The colonists were not agriculturally inclined and spent a lot of their time looking for gold.  As a result they fell on hard times and over the winter of 1609 - 1610 over 80% of them died in what became know as the Starving Times.  In the spring a resupply ship brought essential goods and more colonists and the colony gradually prospered.  In 1698 the state house was accidentally burned down and then was relocated to what was known then as Middle Plantation and today is known as Williamsburg.  After this the town of Jamestown gradually declined and the land was used mostly for farming.

We were able to join a tour group led by one of the archaeologists that is researching the history and buildings.  They divided the area into 10 foot squares and they are digging in these squares 1 inch at a time and sifting the dirt they dig up to find artifacts.  Here are some photos we took.

This photo shows the lay out of the area.  It shows where the original fort was located in 1607 to the right and where the later larger settlement was established to the left.  At the time this drawing was made they thought that the tip of the fort was lost as the river eroded away the edge of the island.  More recent excavations has shown that all of the fort is still on dry land.

Due to accumulation of dust and wind borne dirt, the land builds up by about 1 inch for every 100 years.  However, the activities of man can increase this rate by many factors.  So in an area like Jamestown where there has been a lot of construction and farming activities over the years, you have to dig fairly far down as you can see in this photo.

Here you can see one of the 10 foot squares and worker digging down 1 inch at a time.  He places the dirt in a 5 gallon paint bucket which is then passed to the sifters.

Here you see one of the workers sifting the dirt for artifacts.  The girl in the background is measuring a piece of brick that was dug up.

Here you see them excavating right next to the foundation of the church that was built in 1907 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the building of Fort James which was the heart of the settlement.  Unfortunately, the folks who built the church didn't pay any attention to what was there previously so these workers are trying to find out about the original capital building that was in about the same location.

These crosses mark the location of burial sites from the Starving Time.  Only a couple of them have been excavated.

This excavation is of the original kitchen of the settlement.  If you look closely you can see the remains of the chimney for the original ovens.

This reconstruction is of the original chapel.  The construction method was one that was in common use in England at this time and was called post and mud.  Posts are set in the ground and then small strips of wood (wattles) are woven together and placed between the posts and then covered by mud.  The roof would have been thatch.

This photo is of the chancel area of the chapel and shows four graves that they have located under the chancel.  These are also from the Starving Time but were graves for high ranking individuals,

This is a reconstruction of the original barracks.  You can see part of the reconstructed wall of the fort behind the barracks.

This is the church that was built in 1907.

This area to the east is where the "New Town" was built in the later part of the 17th and early part of the 18th centuries.  There are pieces of foundation and some ruins in this area but as you can see it is mostly grass.

We then headed out to grab some lunch and then on to Yorktown.

Yorktown was a thriving seaport in the 18th century and was the site of the decisive victory of the Continental Army led by General George Washington and a French Army led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army led by Lt. Gen Lord Charles Cornwallis in 1781.  This was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.

Up until this point things had not been going very well for the Continual Army.  However, in 1780 a French Army landed at Rhode Island to assist the colonists.  The original plan had been for a combined American and French army to attack the British forces led by General Henry Clinton in New York.  However when they found out that Clinton had sent Cornwallis and a sizable contingent of forces to Virginia, they decided that was the best target.

When Cornwallis arrived at Yorktown his orders had been to establish a defensible seaport to support operations in the south and he was supposed to be reinforced by a British naval force led by Sir Thomas Graves.  However, the British ships were defeated and driven off in the Battle of the Chesapeake by a French naval force led by the Comte de Grasse.  In addition the land side was controlled by a contingent of the Continental Army led by the Marquis de Lafayette so Cornwallis and his forces were trapped in Yorktown.

In the summer of of 1781 the Continental and French armies united and decided to attack Cornwallis.  They marched south to Yorktown but left enough forces in the New York area to convince Gen. Clinton that New York was still their target,  On arriving they set up a siege line and started shelling Yorktown.  Blocking their further approach to Yorktown were to small forts know as Redoubts #9 and #10.  Here is a photo of Redoubt #10.

And here is Redoubt #9.

On October 14th, Gen. Washington sent two columns of forces to attack these redoubts, a French unit for #9 and an American unit for #10.  The American unit was led by Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton.  In order to make sure that surprise was complete the troops marched to the attack with unloaded guns but with bayonets attached.

Once this was complete, a second siege line only 400 yards from the British line was built.  Here is a photo of a recreation of a small section of that line.

They set up cannons, howitzers and mortars to bombard the British.  Here is a photo of a howitzer.

 With the second siege line established and in action, Cornwallis realized that his situation was hopeless and offered to surrender.  Here is a photo of the farm house where the negotiations took place.  This is the original house.

Here is a recreation of the table around which the negotiations took place.

Here is a photo of one of the bedrooms in the house.  Mattresses were straw filled and very lumpy.

Here is a view from the front of that farm house showing the York River.  Very pretty location.

Under terms of the surrender, all of the British forces had to march out of Yorktown to this field, now know as Surrender Field. place there guns and swords on the ground and then march back into Yorktown unarmed.  From there they were marched to POW camps to await the end of the war.

This is a photo of one of the walls of the monument at the Surrender Field with examples of cannons that were surrendered by the British.

The loss of Cornwallis and his forces prompted the British government to negotiate with the colonists and 2 years later in 1783 the war ended.

After our visit to Yorktown we headed in to Williamsburg to meet my niece Elizabeth Moonan for dinner at the King's Arms restaurant. Here is a photo of Elizabeth and Pat enjoying their dinner.

Tomorrow we will be back in Williamsburg for a day seeing the sites.

On the Road - Virginia - 6/26/16

Today was another driving day as we left North Carolina and drove to Williamsburg, VA.  Good drive except that on some stretches of the interstate the surface was so rough that I thought the RV was going to get shaken to pieces.  We arrived at the King's Creek FamCamp RV Park on Cheatham Annex of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station and set up at our camp site.  Very convenient location as we are right off of the Colonial Highway that connects Jamestown at one end and Yorktown at the other with Williamsburg in the middle.

Very nice campground with very recently built RV sites with concrete pads to park on, picnic tables, fire rings and modern hook up facilities.  They also have cabins to rent and areas for tent camping.  They have a pool, meeting rooms, showers, laundry facilities and a fishing pier.  Here are a couple of photos of the camp site.

Here we are set up on our camp site.

Here is a shot of the campground.

There were a lot of empty camp sites.  This was our first stay at a military FamCamp and we were impressed.  The only issue was that there was no WiFi available  at our location, we heard that it was available at the rec center but we didn't check that out and the cell phone signal was so week that we couldn't use it for an internet connection.  Hence this blog post is several days late.

Tomorrow, Monday, we will visit Jamestown and Yorktown and meet our niece Elizabeth for dinner in Williamsburg.  On Tuesday we will visit Williamsburg.

On the Road - North Carolina - 6/25/16

Today we drove to the little town of Advance, NC, just southwest of Winston-Salem.  Left Savannah around 9:45 AM and pulled into the campground about 4:15 PM.  We are spending the night at the Forest Lakes RV Campground on the banks of the Yadkin river.  This CG has 260 sites spread across 306 acres of woodland.  Best thing about it though was that it was free.  As part of the purchase of our RV, we received  14 days of free camping at certain campgrounds and this is one of them.

Very nice facilities.  There is an adults only pool, a family pool, clubhouse, miniature golf and a fishing pond.  Here are some photos.

Here we are set up in our campsite.

Here are a couple of photos of the fishing pond that we can see from our kitchen window.

Tomorrow we are on the road again.  Tomorrow evening, hopefully, we will be set up in a Navy campground at the Yorktown Naval Weapons System Station in Williamsburg, VA.  We will then spend the next 2 days visiting Williamsburg and the Yorktown Revolutionary War battleground.

Savannah Day 2 - 6/24/16

Today we went back into Savannah but this time we rode the tour trolley to a stop and then got off to visit a location and then got back on the trolley to ride it to the next location.  Here are the places and sights we visited.

This is the Independent Presbyterian Church.  It was originally built in 1819 but was destroyed by fire in 1889 and replaced by a new church built to the same design in 1891.  It has the tallest steeple in Savannah.  If you ever saw the movie "Forrest Gump" you might recognize it.  At the beginning of the movie a feather is floating down from a church steeple and this is that steeple.

As the feather floats down, Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump) is sitting on a park bench and he talks about life being like a box of chocolates because you never know what you are going to get.  For the movie, they set up a park bench on the edge of Chippewa Square right where the One Way sign is today.

When the plan for Savannah was laid out in the the 1730s, it was designed around 24 squares in a grid pattern.  22 of those squares still exist.  Chippewa above is one of them.  Here are others.

This one is Lafayette Square with just a simple fountain in it.

This is Reynolds Square and the memorial is to John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church.

This is Chippewa Square.  The statue is a memorial to General James Oglethorpe, founder of Savannah and Georgia.  What is confusing is that there is an Oglethorpe Square but this memorial isn't in it.

This memorial is in Franklin Square and is dedicated to a black military unit that came to Georgia from Haiti and fought with the Continental Army against the British in the battle of Savannah during the Revolutionary War.  The drummer boy on the left is Henri Christophe who later led the Haitian independence movement and became the King of Haiti.

Just east of Franklin Square is Market Place with lots of shops and restaurants.

One of the buildings we visited was the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.  Here is an outside view.

Here is a view down the main aisle of the church.

And a view of the main altar.

Lots of stained glass.  Here is the Rosette window over the main entrance.

This is the large stained glass window to the left of the altar.

And to the right of the altar.

This is another example of the streets lined with live oak trees.

This is the house where Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts was born.

And this building was the original headquarters of the Girl Scouts.

This is Colonial Park which was the second city cemetery.  It operated from 1750 to 1853.  It was also known as the Dueling Ground as gentlemen that wanted to settle affairs of honor would settle their arguments there.  It was convenient as the loser didn't have to go very far to get buried.

This house was owned by an iron merchant and he believed that anything you could make in wood, he could do better in iron.  All the white woodwork on the house is actually ironwork.  It is a very attractive house.

This is the oldest house in the state of Georgia and dates from 1734.  Now it is part of the dining room of a restaurant.

This is a row of shops and restaurants along the river bank.  These used to be cotton warehouses.  On the back side there are footbridges crossing over the road that runs behind the warehouses.  The cotton buyers would stand on these bridges and the cotton sellers would drive their wagons under so that the buyers could inspect the load.  For many years cotton was king in Savannah and at its peak there were only two places that set cotton prices: Savannah and Liverpool.

Savannah is still a major port city and here is a shot up the Savannah River.  You can see the bridge going over to South Carolina, a small ferry boat that takes travelers across to the hotel and convention site on Hutchison Island and one of the container ships that use the port of Savannah.  The river used to be 12 feet deep, it has been dredged to 42 feet to handle large ships and is in the process of being dredged to 46 feet to handle the larger ships that will be using the new Panama Canal.

This Georgian mansion was built in 1771 for one of Savannah's cotton merchants.  It is now a first class restaurant.

Tomorrow is a travel day.  We will flush out our holding tanks, then disconnect the sewer, water and electrical connection and then hit the road.  Tomorrow night we will be in Advance, NC for an overnight stay and then on to Williamsburg, VA.

Savannah has been a great city to visit.  Very picturesque with a lot of interesting sites and history.  Only real problem is that summer is not the right time to visit.  It hit 97 today and was very humid.  It's actually hotter here then what we see in Florida.