2019 in-between – part 5: return to Williamsburg for the Palace, the wheelwright, the Wythe home, and the cooper

Even though we’ve been home for almost a month from our Canada trip, we decided to return to Williamsburg in December for 1-1/2 days to enjoy the Christmas season in this remarkable city since we had an annual pass. In these final posts on Williamsburg, we’ll include some new pictures and information we learned from this trip.

We anticipated seeing lights and decorations at Williamsburg, but since electricity wasn’t available in the 1770s for the lights and since Christmas was a religious day at that time (Santa Clause didn’t arrive on the scene for the sake of children until the 1820s), Williamsburg’s only seasonal decorations were wreaths that had to be made out of greens, fruits, and nuts and candles in the windows. We’ll be showing you a number of wreaths that caught our eye.

While we didn’t get to see decorations at Williamsburg, we did enjoy them at the local Best Western that was only about 5 minutes away. Even the complimentary breakfast was a treat.

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timeline of costumes for Colonial Williamsburg

Our hotel provided us with a welcome magazine, 2019 Visitor’s Guide for Williamsburg, Jamestown, & Yorktown, when we checked in. The very last page had this following information on costume design since staff walking around in costume so added to our experience.

• In the 1930s, Colonial Williamsburg was restored enough that visitors were starting to come to visit. Beginning with President Franklin Roosevelt’s visit to Raleigh Tavern on October 20, 1934, staff has worn period costumes to help get visitors into the mood of what life was like on the eve of the American Revolution.
• In the 1940s, costumes became more authentic as they began depicting the lifestyles of the 18th century residents.
• Starting in the 1950s, interpreters working in trade exhibits dressed more appropriately for their class, while wealthy colonists dressed in over-the-top coats and dresses that were more theatrical than authentic.
• By the 1970s costumes for the upper class became more historically accurate.
• In 1983, everyone got a new costume when President Ronald Reagan came to visit.
• Starting in the 1990s, historical interpreters were individually fitted in their colonial costumes at the Costume Design Center. From then on the costumes in Colonial Williamsburg have helped tell the stories of noblemen, trades people, free people, and enslaved people.
• In 2009 the story of Native Americans started being told.

First we’ll start out in the yellow section of the map, starting with the Governor’s Palace (top left). Since this is such a pivotal building in the city’s history, we decided to tour it again.

Governor’s Palace – A Symbol of Royal Authority

While waiting in the building on the right in the previous picture, we saw the following map on the wall from the mid-1700s that intrigued us.

But this map is just from the British point of view, and while the lines between the colonies look clear-cut, they weren’t. The colonies had disputes between each other on the boundaries. And other countries had drawn their own maps.

In this entryway and the hallway leading to the stairs and the ballroom, around 500 arms and swords greet visitors to emphasize the might of Great Britain. When Governor Dunford carted away the gunpowder in the middle of the night, he left all of the arms in place—even in the palace.

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(The rest of this story is in the posts from our first visit to Williamsburg.)

family living areas

As the last British governor at Williamsburg, Governor Dunmore and his wife had 6 of their 7 children with them while in Virginia.

On the chairs are dresses like what the daughters would have worn. Notice the carpet around the bed (on the right). See the border just under the end of the bed? It surrounds a “hole” in the carpet that is under the bed; maybe this was a cost-savings method for bedroom carpets.

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The governor and his wife’s middle-school age sons boarded at William and Mary’s schools less than a mile away. The youngest, a daughter named Virginia to honor the colony, was born while the family lived here.

Next to the daughters’ room was a large room that was used by the family, as well as serving as a dressing room for Mrs. Dunford.

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Behind this large room was the parent’s bedroom (not shown) and Governor’s Dunford’s dressing area.

Close by was his office.

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Back downstairs we walked by a room behind the butler’s office where wigs and other items were stored.

ballroom

Opposite the entryway to the Palace is the grand ballroom for the many dances held here.

Walking through the door at the end of the ballroom we entered into the “green room.” The first time we toured the palace, the tour guide said they didn’t know much about this room other than the color. Today’s tour guide said the room was used for refreshments when dancers needed a break. This made sense to us.

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outside buildings

A couple of mornings during the week, staff demonstrate how they made chocolate for hot drinks during the 1770s. We stopped by early in the morning but they were just getting the fire going for roasting the cocoa beans. What we hadn’t figured out the first time we saw the demonstration was why they rolled out the roasted beans like they’re doing here.

scullery

Scullions and scullery maids held the lowest ranking, lowest paid, and least desirable job in an English household.

Cooks working next door needed help preparing food for the family and guests. Here in this building the workers killed, plucked, and gutted birds; gutted and scaled fish; peeled, cored, and prepped vegetables; roasted coffee and chestnuts; and even brewed beer for the servants and slaves.

Behind the kitchen and scullery is the vegetable garden that supplied food for the family and their many guests.

larder

When we first saw this building, we thought of the ice house at the Louisbourg fortress on he eastern side of Nova Scotia that the French occupied in the middle of the 1700s. While the same principal applies for cooling the larder, this one is for storing food and not ice.

wheelwright’s shop – Keeping Things Rolling

First though, on our way to the wheelwright’s shop, we saw this home (not available for touring) with the lovely wreath and greenery.

Now here’s the description of the wheelwright’s shop from the website:

“Wheels kept things rolling in the 18th century – from carriages of the wealthy to farm wagons, ox carts, and cannons. Designed to meet the stresses of unpaved roads, wheels were feats of good engineering and careful craftsmanship. Come see how the wheelwright combines several different types of wood, iron tires and bands, and sophisticated construction to make their functional, but elegant wheels and vehicles.”

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inside the shop

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These 2 finished wheels were leaning against the wall. What was interesting was that they were exactly the same height and they “leaned” out rather than being straight up and down. Why you ask?

Their apprenticeship is for 6 years before they come journeymen. Since Colonial Williamsburg is the largest living history museum in the world, especially for this time period, these men can expect to work here the rest of their lives unless they want to learn a new skill.

shed next to shop

use of wheels

You can see the slant of the back wheel in these pictures.

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George Wythe’s house

This elegant house and its outbuildings were home for the prominent attorney and thinker George Wythe who was the first Virginian to sign the Declaration of Independence. But here’s what is interesting. While the declaration was approved on July 4, it wasn’t ready for signatures until August 2. By this time Wythe and other Virginians had left Philadelphia to come home. Since he was so highly respected by his fellow Virginians that the remaining delegates left a space above their signatures so his signature would appear first.

More than likely, important discussions that led to the ideas that shaped the Revolution and our lives today happened here.

George Wythe was a tutor and friend of Thomas Jefferson, and so Wythe’s signature on the Declaration of Independence would have been like an endorsement of what Jefferson had written. Wythe was also the tutor of John Marshall, perhaps the greatest chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Early on, Wythe was the first professor of law at William and Mary College, the second oldest institution of higher learning in the United States (Harvard is the oldest).

Wythe was elected a burgess for Williamsburg in 1754, and soon he married Elizabeth Taliaferro (pronounced “Tolliver”). She was the daughter of planter and builder Richard Taliaferro, who built what is now called “the George Wythe House” around 1755 (Taliaferro also made substantial repairs and additions to the Governor’s Palace around 1752). Taliaferro gave his daughter and her husband rights to the house as long as they lived (remember this fact; we’ll talk about it later).

first floor of the house

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This bedroom on the first floor was probably for guests.

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The sitting area on the first floor was probably the location of many of the meetings that led to the Revolution.

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The room was the formal dining room. The floral prints on the wall caught our eye. Our tour guide said they were from seed brochures that had been turned into wall prints. Sounds like a good use of these beautiful prints.

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second floor

On the second floor were rooms that Wythe used for tutoring law students. He accepted law students as boarders in his home and treated them as if they were the sons he never had. His kindness was returned by admiring pupils like Jefferson, who called him “my faithful and beloved Mentor in youth, and my most affectionate friend through life.”

All of the bookcases we saw as we walked around Williamsburg had this green cloth inside the doors. A guide told us the cloth was used to protect the books—perhaps because they didn’t have glass in the door panes?

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Here’s another view of the study room; across the hall was a bedroom with numerous beds for the boarding students.

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The other 2 rooms upstairs were decorated as bedrooms.

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gardens and outbuildings

The gardens would have provided food for Wythe, the students, and those who worked for Wythe. We noticed this pigeon roost in the corner and asked about it. Guess when the cook wanted to serve pigeon for dinner, she could go out to the roost and get what she needed.

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laundry

Since I love to iron (while watching movies on TV), I’m always interested in how laundry has been done over the years. The guide here showed us how the “hot” insert in her left hand could be inserted in the bottom of the iron. When it cooled off, the laundress could exchange the insert for another, hot one.

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In the picture on the right, the guide is holding a crimping iron the laundress would use for the fancy shirts George Wythe would have worn.

Our guide told us an interesting story about the laundry process at the Wythe home. Men’s shirts were washed, starched, and laid out to dry over lavender bushes around the laundry so the material would pick up the pleasant smell of the bushes and the sun could whiten the shirts. Clever. The main laundress, a slave, lived in the second room of the laundry (right-hand picture), and her helpers would have lived elsewhere on the property.

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Wythe and slavery

George Wythe’s father died when George was young, and George was raised by his mother who probably taught him and instilled a love of learning. Our guide told us that his mother had been a Quaker, so Wythe would have been raised to not support slavery.

When his wife, Elizabeth, died in 1787, Wythe no longer felt that he had to keep slaves so he freed several, including his cook, Lydia Broadnax, who chose to remain in Wythe’s service. He transferred other slaves to his wife’s relatives.

In a dispute with the college’s administration, Wythe resigned from William and Mary in 1789 and accepted an appointment as judge of Virginia’s Court of Chancery in Richmond. He moved there in 1791, turning his home over to Taliaferro’s heir.

Chancellor Wythe seized the opportunity of one of his cases to try to cripple the institution of slavery. He ruled that Virginia’s Declaration of Rights—written by Mason and adopted in 1776—included African Americans among the “all men” born free and equally independent. He said, “They should be considered free until proven otherwise.” His ruling did not survive appeals.

Wythe’s attempted murder

Near the end of his life, Wythe wrote his will in favor of a grandnephew, George Wythe Sweeney, but also gave generous bequests to his former slaves Michael Brown and Lydia Broadnax. Lazy and irresponsible, Sweeney forged checks against Wythe’s accounts to cover pressing debts. Hoping to avoid detection and inherit his great uncle’s entire estate, he resorted to murder using either strawberries or coffee to poison both his great uncle and Michael Brown, who died within days. Wythe, however, endured 2 weeks of agony, but as he lay dying, Sweeney’s forgeries were discovered, and Wythe revised his will.

A grand jury indicted Sweeney for murder, but Sweeney went free because a jury concluded the only-circumstantial evidence against him was too weak to support a conviction. No witness was able to testify to seeing Sweeney poison either the household’s food or drink. The cook, Lydia Broadnax, was thought to have been in the kitchen when Wythe’s breakfast coffee was poisoned and may have seen Sweeney throw evidence in the fire, but neither she nor any African American was allowed to testify against a white person in court.

Wythe is buried at St. John’s Church in Richmond, the church in which Patrick Henry made his “Liberty or Death” speech.

Cooper shop – Buckets, Piggins, Firkins, and Hogsheads

One of the buildings on the grounds now houses the cooper shop. What is a cooper? Coopers “transform flat boards into precisely shaped staves and join them—all by eye—into barrels of oddly-named sizes that are called buckets, piggins, firkins, and hogsheads.” (info from the website)

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Here’s the master cooper and some of his barrels.

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We’ve covered enough for this first post. In the next one we’ll tour the city’s church, explore another home, visit a tailor, and learn about a joinery.