Williamsburg, VA

18-24 March 2013

By the time we left Augusta, I was suffering from a bad cold which affected my oomph for the next phase of the itinerary—Williamsburg, VA. Still, we spent several days at Colonial Williamsburg (our fifth time there) and had a fantastic time. We got to see Thomas Jefferson for the first time, loved hearing Patrick Henry speak behind the Governor’s Palace, and had a private audience with George Wythe at the St. George Tucker House. George Wythe is likely unknown to you, but he was an essential character to the nation’s founding because he was the barrister who taught young Jefferson and several other founding fathers, helped found the College of William and Mary, and invented the moot court system.

For the first time we got to tour Bassett Hall, the house of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and wife Abby, who were the money behind the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, starting in the 1920s. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. devoted his life to spending as much family Standard Oil fortune as he could, including paying for the restoration of the Palace of Versailles after World War II. The last living child of this pair is David Rockefeller, who is now 98, and who still comes occasionally to visit Williamsburg, saying, “I love to visit mother’s house.”

Another interesting tour was behind the scenes at Bruton Heights, where conservation and climate-controlled storage of all sorts occurs--furniture, fabrics, paintings, paper documents, etc. This time we learned about the delicate art and science of paper conservation on a tour of the paper conservation lab. One of the young interns was working on a contract signed by Thomas Jefferson, and one of the first things checked was whether the ink is oil-based or water-based. If oil-based the document is permanent enough to go undergo various baths and treatments. The intern was applying narrow strips of Japanese paper to the document, using fine wheat paste, and the purpose is to repair and strengthen the document.

Whenever Whistling Son was not busy with his work at Colonial Williamsburg, we spent our time with him. Unfortunately we missed by just one day the opportunity to play RevQuest, which has been an essential part of Whistling Son’s work at CW. RevQuest is an interactive game in which visitors solve clues about the Revolutionary Era, and interview reenactors on the streets of CW in the process. A new version of RevQuest comes out each summer.

Most evenings, we played the card game Quiddler with Whistling Son in the Escape or at his apartment. I’ve learned that my spelling skills are in serious decline.

On Saturday we went to the Mariner’s Museum and Monitor Center in Newport News. It’s an amazing place, and enough to fill a whole day. For the time being I’ve got the iron-clad ships the Monitor and the Virginia (former Merrimack) straight, but I don’t promise it to last. In contrast, Great Husband remembers everything!

On Sunday we went to Richmond for Mass. Fr. Novokowski, formerly assigned to our parish in Omaha, is now pastor at the FSSP’s St. Joseph’s Parish there. After Mass we went on an all-day driving tour which included the Petersburg National Military Park (siege and battle here critical to ending the Civil War), historic buildings in Petersburg itself (lots of potential here), Chippoke’s Plantation State Park (cancelled from our original camping plans due to my cold), a ride across the James River on the free ferry (takes only 20 minutes), and one hour at the Historic Jamestown visitor center.

It was a cold rainy day, and shortly after we returned to the camper, the rain turned to sleet and then to snow which accumulated on the grass, on the campers, and on the picnic tables. For many hours into the night, sloppy wet snow patties fell from the trees onto the roof the camper, startling us again and again as they landed. This is all in keeping with the theme of this trip—cold weather.  

At the Dewitt-Wallace Museum, there is a terrific exhibit of spinets, harpsichords,
and pianos, with listening devices so you can hear many of them played.
This is a spinet, which in contrast to a harpsichord, plucks only one string at a time.

Patrick Henry

Cooking in the Colonial days.
That's beef tongue in the lower right.

Bassett Hall.
Furnishings are eclectic and just as left by the Rockefeller family, down to a hairbrush.
The dining room table is set for the soup course, and the bowls are full of "mushroom soup",
accurate to historical records (as is everything at Colonial Williamsburg).

Bassett Hall.
Unlike what I expected from the outside, the house is quite small inside.
The servant's quarters are at least as spacious as the part occupied by the Rockefellers.
The servants were a Swedish couple who lived here year round,
but the Rockefellers came only in April and October.