Weekend Trip to Jamestown and Norfolk, Virginia

by admin

Second weekend of June 2021. With summer calling, I decided to make an overnight trip to Virginia Beach for some typical summer fun. On the way there, I would be visiting historic Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America and cradle of American civilization. It turned out that Virginia Beach was sort of underwhelming, so on the second day, I visited Chrysler Museum in downtown Norfolk instead.

Statue of John Smith

On the morning of June 12, I set off from my home in northern suburb of Washington DC and headed for Virginia. I left home just past 9am, which unfortunately meant I was greeted with the horrendous traffic on I95 between DC and Richmond. The interstate was packed the entire way, and 3 lanes per direction were woefully inadequate for DC traffic volume.
In the end, it took me almost 4 hours to reach Jamestown, one more than what I first planned. If there had to be an upside, Waze guided me on VA5 on the final leg to avoid slowdown on I64, and country roads of Virginia were scenic as ever.

Historic Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in America was established in May 1607. After landing in Cape Henry (First Landing State Park) in April, they explored the nearby waters and decided to set up camp 40 miles upstream along James River, at a defendable spot in current-day Jamestown.
The first few years of the colony were plagued by drought and conflicts with native people, yet the colony survived with help of supplies coming from England and later tobacco farming. In 1619, the first representative assembly in America was held in Jamestown Church, whose 17th century church tower was still standing till this day.

A brief note about visiting Jamestown as there were 2 sites of “historic Jamestown”. The first one (historicjamestowne.org), located on the James Island, is a partner between NPS and local organizations and contains the actual site of the first colony. It contains many archeology sites and feels more like history representation. The second one (historyisfun.org), located next to VA31, is run by local organizations and contained recreations of the colony together with the few ships that sailed across the Atlantic. It feels like history reenactment to me. I only had time to visit the former.

Wetland
A footbridge took visitors across this wetland to the site of historic Jamestown.

It’s a gloomy day with occasional drizzle at Jamestown. Probably due to its proximity to water, I was bothered by some bugs at first, but Deet seemed to work quite well against them.

A short walk from the parking lot, I was on the site of the original Jamestown colony. Historians used archaeological data and recreated most of the palisades around the colony. Unfortunately due to shore erosion, part of the original triangular colony was now in water.

I first visited Jamestown Church, the only standing structure on the site while all other buildings did not survive through time.

Jamestown Church
One of the few surviving structures at the site. The current structure was built in 1907.
Jamestown Church
One of the few surviving structures at the site. The current structure was built in 1907.
Church Foundations

The church had been rebuilt many times, each time a different size at slightly different locations. Underneath the glass were one of the original foundations, which was a size smaller than the current walls.
Church Interior
Church Interior
Church Interior
Churchyard

After that, I walked around the remaining part of this first colony, including an archaeology museum nearby. The entire site was a collaboration between National Park Service (NPS) and Preservation Virginia, a non-profit organization, with the latter in charge of the areas of the first colony, and former in charge of pretty much rest of James Island, including the nearby “New Town” where Jamestown expanded along the river in the 17th Century with ruins of townhouses. It felt to me that Preservation Virginia was doing a much better job at educating the public. Their workers/volunteers were roaming the grounds of the colony answering people’s questions or giving tours around, while on the NPS part everything seemed to be in a worse shape with old fences and broken information boards.

Reconstructed Entrance
Councillor’s Row Built on Burial Grounds

Archaeological excavations at this location uncovered the stone foundations that once supported the sills of two substantially built timber-frame structures. The cobble footings encompassed H-shaped brick chimney foundations indicating back-to-back fireplace locations in several rooms.
The buildings were likely constructed in 1611, at Virginia Company expense, as residences for Lieutenant Governor Sir Thomas Gates and other government officials. These buildings are unusually large, reflecting a greater Virginia Company investment in Jamestown
.Archaeological excavations here revealed over thirty grave shafts. Located beneath the remnants of the ca. 1611 “Councillors Row” building, the graves predate the construction of that structure. The first year was very harsh, out of the original 104 settlers, only 38 survived. Virginia Company instructions mandated that the dead and sick be concealed from the Indians, a possible reason for the burial ground being located here, inside the fort. A few of these burials have been investigated.
The archaeology team uses forensics, chemistry, and history to work towards an identification of these first settlers. Archaeologists can identify the age, sex, and origin of the remains. All of these clues — along with the location of the burials within the fort — confirm this to be the first burial ground of 1607.
Reconstructed Cannon by River

The original settler chose to sail upstream along James River to the current site to set up encampment, due to its geological location where the river wound, so that invading ships could be spotted well in advance and defended against.
The Barracks

Like this experimental frame structure before you, most buildings found at James Fort were of earthfast or post-in-ground construction.
Main structural posts were seated directly in the ground without the use of footings. Once the building disappeared, rotted posts and postholes remained. Based on the tell-tale patterns of these postholes, it is likely that the early structures were constructed in a style known as “Mud and Stud,” a way of building well recorded in 17th-century documentary sources and in centuries-old standing buildings in Lincolnshire.
This building had a cellar, which was the first major archaeological feature from the fort period to be identified by the Jamestown Rediscovery project. The cellar became a trash pit once the building above it fell into disrepair. Through careful excavation and water screening of the cellar fill, many thousands of late 16th- and early 17th-century artifacts were retrieved.
Statehouse Foundation
Museum

Built over the Statehouse foundation. Archaeologists finished excavations at the site before the museum was built, with foundation columns avoiding those of the original statehouse.
Museum
Unfortunately photography wasn’t permitted in the museum, so I didn’t have anything to show.
Archeology Site

Just as I was leaving, a guide was on site giving a tour, and he had the canvas open so we got to peek behind it, which consisted of more canvas.

Horse Trough

Set up in 1907 and donated by the Society of Colonial Wars to honor the 300th anniversary of Jamestown. In 1907, most visitors to Jamestown came by steamboat or by horse, so this horse trough provided needed water for the horses.
Jamestown Church Tower
That survived from the 17th Century.
Monument

Field of Geese
They were the most noticeable residents of the island.

After that, I headed east to “New Town”, the NPS part of the site, featuring ruins of a few buildings in the 17th Century. As Jamestown survived through its first few years of plight, it expanded along the waterfront into “New Town”. Here, the buildings weren’t of as much historical importance as the original James Fort, so I just took it as a casual walk in the park, with occasional information boards telling stories of their owners.

Ruins
Ambler House

The Ambler House was built by the Ambler family in the 1750s as the centerpiece of a fine plantation estate. A refined Georgian-style home, it was comparable to the elegant George Wythe House in Williamsburg. The house was burned in 2 wars, and after a third fire in 1895, was abandoned.
Ambler House

The Ambler House was built by the Ambler family in the 1750s as the centerpiece of a fine plantation estate. A refined Georgian-style home, it was comparable to the elegant George Wythe House in Williamsburg. The house was burned in 2 wars, and after a third fire in 1895, was abandoned.
Trees
Site of Swann’s Tavern

Councilman Colonel Thomas Swann resided across the James River at this Swann Point plantation, he also leased a Jamestown tavern that provided accommodations to colonists who attended the assembly and courts, or had business in town.

Island Loop Drive

After wrapping up my visit to the historic colony site, I decided to check out the nearby Island Drive Loop.
Which turned out to be a bit underwhelming as there’s really not much to see around the loop road. A few information boards scattered around the road, just like Yorktown Battlefield. But unlike Yorktown, they felt random and uncorrelated and unorganized.
At the far end of the loop there’s a 270m trail to Black Point, the edge of James Island, which turned out to be neither black nor with decent views (p1-p4 in the slideshow).

Trail to Black Point

Black Point
Structure in James River

Certainly an artificial structure that had fallen into disrepair and got occupied by birds’ nests. I had no clue what it was.
James River
Fallen Branches at Shore
Site of Travis Family Cemetery

After Williamsburg became Virginia’s capital in 1699, Jamestown began a slow decline. The Reverend Hugh Jones I reported in 1747 that Jamestown consisted “of nothing but abundance of brick rubbish and three or four good inhabited houses.” By then, two prominent families controlled most of the island’s acreage — the Amblers (whose home stands in ruins in the townsite today) and the Travises. From the 1630s into the 19th century, the Travis family owned this part of Jamestown Island.
Revelers celebrating the founding of Jamestown accidentally burned the Travis home in May 1822. A newspaperman who witnessed the fire reported, “Heavens! Just as I am writing this, the old brick building belonging to Colonel Travis’ estate has taken fire and the roof is already in a blaze. It was an uninhabitable ruin, to be sure, but I am sorry, as it is one of the few remaining monuments of antiquity here, to see it disappearing from the scene.”
Wetland
Wetland

Glasshouse

On the way out I passed by the site of Jamestown Glasshouse, which consisted of ruins of the original glasshouse constructed around 1608, together with a modern recreation. As described by an information board nearby, the site had access to both sand and wood, ingredients and fuel for making glass that was in high demand in Europe. Unfortunately, the glasshouse didn’t stay operational for long before famine and conflicts with native people forced its closure.

Remnants of Original Glasshouse
Remnants of Original Glasshouse
Reconstructed Glass House

Now manned by local craftspeople demonstrating the process of making glass. It also sold various glassware as a souvenir shop here.

Jamestown Scotland Ferry

Originally, I planned to head for Virginia Beach for some cool time in the waters after visiting Jamestown. After seeing heavy traffic on I64 near Hampton on my phone, I decided to take the (free) ferry across James River to Scotland, then travel along more country roads before joining I664 around Norfolk which would take me to Virginia Beach.
This meant I got a boat tour of historic Jamestown on the ferry.

Ferry Boat
Another Ferry Boat
Two ferry boats served in the Jamestown – Scotland ferry.
Jamestown Historic Ship Museum
Featuring recreated ships of the 1607 English ships.
Bridge onto James Island
If not for this bridge James Island would be detached from the mainland.
Historic Jamestown
Historic Jamestown
James River
James River
Tip of James Island in the foreground.
James River
Approaching Scotland.

Virginia Beach

Unfortunately with traffic jam in the morning and difficulties in finding parking, it’s 6:20pm by the time I set foot on the sands of Virginia Beach, less than 2 hours before sunset. To make matters worse, it happened to be the coldest weekend of the month, with wind blowing from the sea making me feel a bit chilly. In addition, the waters at Virginia Beach weren’t as pristine as I’d like it to be, which I attributed to the industries nearby. As a result, I just set up my beach chair on the sand and pretended that I was enjoying this “vacation” while actually watching movies on my pad, and it turned out most other people were like me, enjoying the beach but not the water.

Vacation Mode on Virginia Beach

I set up my beach chair a few meters from the water, which was safe at first, until I witnessed tide rising and I had to move it back a few more meters in an hour.

Approaching sunset and with it getting even colder ~~and me running out of movies~~, I decided to call it a day. After washing my legs off sand at the nearby public foot wash, which was certainly harder than what it seemed, I drove back to Norfolk and checked into my overnight hotel in its southern suburb.

Hotel: Hyatt Place Chesapeake

It’s picked largely for being one of the few cat 1 Hyatt properties costing only 5000 Hyatt points per night. In addition, Hyatt was running a promotion of 2500 award points for every 2 nights in 2021Q2, and I had an odd number of nights before this, which quite contributed to my decision.

Hotel Room
As expected.
Hotel Room
As expected.
Cleanness Issue
Something sticky (candy?) on table’s edge.
Cleanness Issue
Hair on Towel
Breakfast

At least the breakfast brought some redemption. While it’s technically grab-and-go format, they didn’t seem to care if one wanted to consume it at the other end of the lobby. As for the food options, due to COVID there was only packaged options, but it’s certainly acceptable in my opinion.

Chrysler Museum

After checking it out the previous afternoon, I found I didn’t quite like the waters off Virginia Beach, so instead of going to the beach today I decided to try something different, which ended up being Chrysler Museum, an art museum with free admission in downtown Norfolk.

It turned out that I quite enjoyed the few hours I spent in it. It got a decent collection of classical arts with good descriptions and wasn’t too crowded. Here are a few highlights picked by me:

Facade
Canvases in Atrium
Chess Set

By Italian artist Gianni Toso in 1985. Here different characters have various drastic composures and facial expressions. A closer looked revealed this depicted a religion war between Christianity and Islam.
Chess Set

By Italian artist Gianni Toso in 1985. Here different characters have various drastic composures and facial expressions. A closer looked revealed this depicted a religion war between Christianity and Islam.
Chess Set

By Italian artist Gianni Toso in 1985. Here different characters have various drastic composures and facial expressions. A closer looked revealed this depicted a religion war between Christianity and Islam.
Chess Set

By Italian artist Gianni Toso in 1985. Here different characters have various drastic composures and facial expressions. A closer looked revealed this depicted a religion war between Christianity and Islam.
Chess Set

By Italian artist Gianni Toso in 1985. Here different characters have various drastic composures and facial expressions. A closer looked revealed this depicted a religion war between Christianity and Islam.
War Time

Briton Riviere.English, 1840-1920
War Time, 1874.Oil on canvas
Briton Riviere achieved fame for his heartfelt depictions of dogs, and it is the devoted dogs in this painting that tell us there is something amiss with their master. Like them, we look at the old sheepherder, wondering why he has abandoned his distant flock and retreated to his farmyard. The newspaper in his hand provides the grim answer. It reports the death of his son in battle.
The Neophyte

Gustave Doré.French, 1832-1883
The Neophyte (First Experience of the Monastery), Ca. 1866-68.Oil on canvas
New to the monastery, a young man gazes woefully at the viewer. He clearly regrets his vows. Anxious images like this one were a staple of Romantic art, and Gustave Dore was a master of the genre. He took his subject from George Sand’s contemporary novel Spiridion, in which a young novice, Brother Angel, bemoans his isolation behind the cloister wall. Dore heightens the youth’s desolation by contrasting his tense posture and youthfulness with the row of bent and decrepit old men. Dore himself noted the grim humor of the young man’s predicament and quipped, “He will be over the wall tonight.”
Natural Bridge

Oscar Edmund Berninghaus.American, 1874-1952
Natural Bridge, ca.1914.Oil on board laid on panel
How do you make a rock formation that is millions of years old seem new again? Oscar Edmund Berninghaus likely created this view of Virginia’s iconic natural wonder as part of an advertising campaign for the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company. Natural Bridge, a sacred site to the Monacan Indian Nation, was once owned by Thomas Jefferson and had been a popular subject for artists in the nineteenth century. Berninghaus pictured the area as it appeared in the twentieth century, with tiny tourists dotting the valley floor. He employed a bold style well-suited to modern advertising, though it is not certain if this image was ever used in any ads.
Ganymede and the Eagle

Bertel Thorvaldsen.Danish, 1770-1844
Ganymede and the Eagle, ca. 1815-17.Marble
According to Greek myth, Ganymede, the beautiful prince of Troy, caught the eye of the great god Zeus, who fell in love with the boy. Disguising himself as an eagle, Zeus carried the young prince off to Olympus, where he served as cupbearer to the gods. The contrast seen here between the boy’s soft skin and the bird’s rugged feathers enhances the story’s theme of innocence in the grip of cosmic cunning. With suave, psychologically intense works like this one, Bertel Thorvaldsen influenced a generation of Neoclassical sculptors.
Lunch

The museum had a small cafeteria with limited selections of cold food. I decided to try out this Asian salad bowl, which turned out to be great. In particular, the Mochi in the upper-right brought back a taste that I had been missing for years.

The Sun Vow

Hermon Atkins MacNeil.American, 1866-1947
The Sun Vow, modeled 1898-99, cast Ca. 1925.Bronze cast by Roman Bronze Works, White Plains, New York
With grace and confidence, an Indian boy aims his arrow directly into the sun. His teacher squints to judge whether the shot’s precision will earn the young archer official passage into manhood. The detailed hairstyles, headdress, and moccasins attest to sculptor Hermon MacNeil’s knowledge of Native American costume. Meanwhile, the smooth curves of the nude bodies, echoing the elegant form of the raised bow, reveal admiration for the graceful naturalism of Auguste Rodin’s bronzes.
The Orphans

Léon-Bazile Perrault’s seductive image of a beggar-girl holding a baby continues a tradition of 19th-century realist art that stresses the plight of the poor and dispossessed.
Portrait of Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell

Sir William Beechey.English, 1753-1839
Portrait of Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, ca. 1838.Oil on canvas
This formally dressed British nobleman sits in his grand study, yet the colonnade curiously opens onto the mountainous wilds of Australia. By including the distant mountains, the portrait painter William Beechey highlights the sitter’s crowning achievement. As surveyor-general of the British colony of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell explored the Australian interior and mapped the Darling and Glenelg Rivers. Beechey further commends Mitchell by placing the title page of his book on the writing table. Called Survey of Glenelg, it features Mitchell’s map of New South Wales.
Holiday

By American born artist Christopher Ries in 1998
Notice the near-perfect transparency of this sculpture. The surface has one small area of decorative cutting, which is reflected throughout the sculpture. The polished sides act like facing mirrors, creating additional internal forms by means of “hinge reflections” that bounce light back and forth endlessly, allowing Ries to essentially sculpt with light. The result is a highly simple sculptural form that is deeply complex in its expression.
Holiday

By American born artist Christopher Ries in 1998
Notice the near-perfect transparency of this sculpture. The surface has one small area of decorative cutting, which is reflected throughout the sculpture. The polished sides act like facing mirrors, creating additional internal forms by means of “hinge reflections” that bounce light back and forth endlessly, allowing Ries to essentially sculpt with light. The result is a highly simple sculptural form that is deeply complex in its expression.
Glassware
Buddha Sheltered by a Naga

Cambodian, Khmer Empire,.1181-1218 C.E
Stone
After the Buddha attained enlightenment, he spent several weeks contemplating his newfound awareness. When a downpour threatened to interrupt his meditation, the naga Muchilinda, a cobra deity, sheltered him from the weeklong monsoon. As depicted here, the Buddha maintains his serene expression while the naga energetically splays his hood overhead. Associated with healing and protection, nagas inspired an independent cult of veneration in the Khmer Empire during King Jayavarman VII’s rule, when this sculpture was made.

Town Point Park

Speaking of Norfolk, one would most likely associate the city with the largest naval base in the world, with navy ships lined up throughout the banks of Elizabeth River. So before I headed home, I decided to drive to the nearby Town Point Park and caught a glimpse of it.

Town Point Park
Urban green space on the waterfront, with family picnics scattered around.

While it’s not directly next to Naval Station Norfolk which housed many aircraft carriers, there were a few repair yards along Elizabeth River for me to catch a few glimpses.

Naval Ships at BAE Systems Norfolk
Naval Ships at NASSCO Norfolk
USS Bataan
LHD-5, amphibious assault ship.
Naval Ships at NASSCO Portsmouth

Elizabeth River from Town Point Park

After that, I started my drive back home. With traffic jam in I64 tunnel and a few errands here and there, it took me another 4.5 hours to get back home in Northern DC suburb. But at least I enjoyed my cruise along US17, my favorite country road in Virginia.

END

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