Trip to Virginia, Jamestown

The second day of our vacation we decided to go to Jamestown.  There are two Jamestown's and I was really glad we did them in the order we did.  

We decdied to first visit Historic Jamestowne which is the original location of the Jamestown Settlement.  They had a museum that was full of information but unfortunately the layout was very confusing and it was a bit overwhelming.  What is cool about this site is that there are working archaeologists.  I actually remember seeing this program when I was in college.  I always thought it would have been a fun summer internship.  The archaeologists informed us that their goal was to find the evidence of the expansion of the fort  They had previously found the soil stains of the original palisades (the wood fence) and had already set up a replica palisade right over the original.  They knew the fort expanded in a certain area and they were digging to try to find the soil stains from the expanded palisades.  While doing so they uncovered several graves.  

The rest of the park had some brick remnants of foundations of houses and buildings.  Most of these were replicas after they dug up the area and recorded the information.  One mansion still had its original bricks but it was dated a little later than the original settlement. 

Near the graves was a fully articulated horse.  This was surprising because usually horses were not buried.

They found the foundation of a large house here (you can see the fireplace foundations) but dated earlier were graves.  They believe this matches the history where settlers were told to bury their dead inside the fort so that the Natives wouldn't find out.

Replica palisades mark the original boundary but the river has claimed one corner of it.

There was a slight drizzle when we arrived but we liked that because it didn't make it as humid.

We COULD NOT get away from the stinky scouts!  We figured they had come to the National Jamboree and were camping out and therefore hadn't had showers.  Saying it was BAD was a total understatement.  

We learned that John Smith was sort of a punk but I guess you had to be a little to be a great adventurer.

They had a nice loop around the island that you could drive and at the far side of the loop was a path to the water.  I couldn't help but think that the landscape I saw probably was similar to what the original settlers saw.  

Our last stop was a glass house that dated to the original settlement.  At a recreated site, they had workers there creating vessels that you could buy in the store.  We learned that the purpose of Jamestown was to find some sort of prosperous business that they could make money and then return to England.  They tried many different enterprises including making glass.  We of course know that only one ever stuck, tobacco.  The thing that stood out to me was why was the glass house so far away from the original settlement?

After seeing the orignal settlement we decided to pop down the street (litterally only a couple of minutes away) and see Jamestown Settlement, the replica of the fort and ships.  Also at the Settlement was a Powhatan village.  There were interpreters at all three sites.  This reminded me a lot of my visit to Plymouth.  However Plymouth was a little different because the interpreters in the fort were actors playing a person from the period and they wouldn't break character for nothing!  No actors at Jamestown but a lot of really knoweldge people.  

It was really neat seeing the actual buildings of what we only saw as foundations at the historic site.  This is why I liked the order we saw them in.  We recongized immediately the large building (where the graves were under) and saw the double fireplaces like we saw at the historic site.  We also saw two other buildings that the historic site had marked off.  

There were a lot of hands on activities where you could learn more about life in the settlement.  The ships were also available for exploration.  I was struck with how small they were, especially the smallest of the three.  

I worked a lot with conical ceramics at work so it was cool to see how they were actually used.

I thought their way of doing the fences was so interesting!

Not comfortable.

They had wild turkey's running around everywhere.  I don't know how "wild" they were.

This is what tobacco looks like.

The place where I was standing in this fort would have been in the portion that is now in the water at the original location.

Chickens were roaming free.

I really liked Jamestown and was so glad that we were able to see both sites.  We did both in a day with plenty of time to spare.  We really enjoyed our southern Virginia trip and look forward to another in the future to see the other things we weren't able to.