A visit to Bruton Parish

Concluding a series of posts from a recent trip to Colonial Williamsburg, VA...

This past week was really busy, so I didn't get to finish up my posts on the recent trip to Williamsburg that Emily and I took. Let me just add this one, with a word about our visit to the Bruton Parish Church on the Sunday afternoon before we drove back to Durham.

Bruton Parish (nowadays a part of the Episcopal Church) was formed in 1674 when two smaller parishes in the colony of Virginia were combined. That actually makes it about 25 years older than the city of Williamsburg itself, which wasn't organized until a fire destroyed the colonial capital at Jamestown and a new capital was planned.

The church you see in the picture on the right was finished in 1715. It has gone through numerous renovations over the past 300 years, but the building is original to that time and it has always been a working parish church. It also contains a baptismal font that is about 100 years older than the current church building - a heavy stone font that looks a lot like medieval fonts I've seen in churches in Great Britain. I imagine it must be one of the oldest liturgical objects to have been produced specifically for use in British North America.

It was one of Bruton Parish's ministers, the Rev. William Archer Rutherfoord Goodwin, who served as the driving force behind the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg in the first half of the 20th century. Goodwin served as the rector at Bruton Parish from 1903 to 1909 and again from 1926 to 1938. During his long association with Williamsburg, he became acquainted with John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (heir to the Standard Oil fortune) and convinced Rockefeller of the potential for American history & culture that a restored Williamsburg would represent.

Visiting the Bruton Parish Church was a great way to round out our trip. If you have a chance to visit Colonial Williamsburg in the future, make sure to put it on your list.

Taverns & Churches

Continuing the posts from a recent trip to Colonial Williamsburg...

Supper at the James Shields Tavern
Emily and I rounded off our full Saturday with supper at the James Shields Tavern, one of the Colonial Williamsburg eateries that is based off of an actual 18th-century establishment. Both the menu and the ambiance are designed to give diners the feel of eating in Mr. Shields' restaurant, so we ate by candlelight and munched on fare typical of the time (for Emily, pork ribs and potatoes; for me, chicken and vegetables. Not everything has changed since then!).

The Apollo Room at the Raleigh Tavern
One of the main social hubs in 18th-century Williamsburg was a business called the Raleigh Tavern, where local residents and visitors alike gathered to eat, drink, and share news. This was a place I wanted to see in particular for its connections with the Phi Beta Kappa Society. PBK was founded by students at the College of William & Mary in 1776, and the early members reportedly used to gather in the Apollo Room at the Raleigh (a venue also used often by members of the House of Burgesses in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War). They had Sunday morning tours, so we went!

I mentioned in an earlier post that the character actors and tour guides in Colonial Williamsburg are good. Our guide at the Raleigh Tavern was particularly good - both in his knowledge of the tavern itself and in his ability to connect with our group. The Raleigh is a reconstruction (like most of the buildings in the old colonial town), but it has been built on the same spot and is supposedly a facsimile of the original.

Sunday Worship at an Historic Church
We had already planned to find the nearest United Methodist congregation to join for worship on Sunday morning, and it just so happened that Williamsburg UMC was less than a block from the Autumn Leaves B&B where we were staying. Great church. Great worship service. And historic, too! Check out the picture below that I took of a plaque hanging on the brick wall of the sanctuary.

Revolutionary Fever!

Continuing the posts of our recent trip to Williamsburg, Virginia...

Governor's Palace
After lunch, Emily and I toured the Governor's Palace in Colonial Williamsburg. Like most of the prominent historical buildings in town, the palace is a reconstruction. But like those other reconstructions, it was rebuilt on the original foundation and using historical evidence that allowed for a very close proximity to the original.

This was the home to the British governors of the colony of Virginia from Alexander Spotswood down to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. And it remained the official residence of the American governors during the war until the capital was moved to Richmond during Thomas Jefferson's period as governor (1779-1781).

In fact, the palace reconstruction was not limited to the building itself. It includes a great deal of interior architecture and decoration. An inventory of the last British governor's household goods indicates that the walls were lined with over 500 weapons - flintlock muskets, swords, powder horns, etc. So the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation lined the reconstructed palace with the same number and type of weaponry. That kind of attention to detail adds a great deal to what would already be an impressive historical reconstruction.

Revolutionary Fever!
Following the tour of the Governor's Palace, we walked back down the Duke of Gloucester Street to take in the Saturday afternoon historical reenactment. It was a series of skits designed to show the social and political tension that existed in Williamsburg between 1773 and 1775.

At times funny and at times serious, these skits were done really well. There was a love story involving two of the wealthiest families in the colony, and there was a story about African slaves who ended up bitterly realizing that "freedom" didn't necessarily mean freedom for everyone. And of course, there were skits depicting the political machinations leading up to war. But the best part? The program concluded with a stunning performance by the Colonial Williamsburg Fifes & Drums, which is made up of high school-aged boys and girls from the area. The whole thing took two hours, and it was worth every minute.

A stroll through the 18th century

Continuing the posts on my family's recent trip to Williamsburg, VA ...

We got up on Saturday morning and made the 8-minute walk from our room at the Autumn Leaves B&B to the Merchants' Square area of Colonial Williamsburg. After buying tickets - expensive, but worth it - we went on a stroll down the Duke of Gloucester Street and took in some of the sites.

Our first stop was at the Capitol, which is an early 20th-century reconstruction on the foundation of the original building. The picture above is from the room where the House of Burgesses met. The tours of buildings in Colonial Williamsburg typically don't last more than a half-hour, which is ideal for taking in a particular site without going overboard. And the guides tend to be knowledgeable and interesting. (They often double as actors and you're likely to see them 'in character' later on around town.)

After the Capitol, we headed back up the Duke of Gloucester Street so we could grab a snack at the coffee shop behind the Raleigh Tavern. With coffee and hot tea in hand, we branched out onto some side roads, walking up Nicholson Street and then taking a right up North England. To make it back to Merchants' Square, we ended up wandering through some gardens and alongside some sheep enclosures before emerging from behind the Governor's Palace. It was about 65 degrees and sunny - as close to perfect as you could get for a November morning.

A brief visit to some shops in Merchants' Square left us sufficiently hungry that we decided to break for lunch. The day was warm enough to let us dine outdoors, which we did at a bistro called The Trellis. The picture below shows me pondering the history of the place (and the cheeseburger I was about to eat).

A weekend away...

... was just what Emily and I needed this past weekend.

My congregation had been telling me we needed to take a Sunday off, so we did! We drove 190 miles up the road to Williamsburg, which was the colonial capital of Virginia for about 100 years before it was moved to Richmond during the Revolutionary War. I went to Williamsburg with my family as a child, but I didn't remember a lot about it. In the next few posts, I'll share some details of our wonderful trip there last weekend.

We were only going to be in the area for a couple of days, so we wanted to stay somewhere that was within walking distance of both Colonial Williamsburg and the College of William & Mary. Turns out the Bed & Breakfast options are really pricey for the most part. But we managed to find a very reasonable B&B called Autumn Leaves. It was right across the street from William & Mary and only an 8-minute walk from the historic city!

The story of how the old historic district was rescued and restored is a fascinating one. I read about it in a book I picked up on Saturday, but the Wikipedia entry seems to get it mostly right. The part of town commonly called "Colonial Williamsburg," which has the old buildings (some original and others reconstructions), people in period costumes, and historical reenactments, is actually run by a private foundation. What you can go and see today is the fruit of an effort led by Rev. W.A.R. Goodwin in the early 20th-century to preserve the colonial site as an educational and heritage legacy of American history. Goodwin was a man of uncommon vision who attracted the support of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as a way to fund the beginnings of the non-profit foundation.

Williamsburg is designed for all ages of people, from kids up to adults. I'd highly recommend it for 2 days or a whole week. Emily and I bought the year-long pass and intend to go back at least one more time. There's way too much to see for just a weekend. And besides, I've got a conversation with Thomas Jefferson to finish.