18 Nov

Jamestown Settlement, Historic Triangle

This is our second stop in the Historic Triangle (Yorktown, Jamestown, Williamsburg). Earlier this week, on Veterans Day, we honored our fallen heroes by learning about the battle of Yorktown at the Yorktown Battlefield NPS. Today we purchased a seven day pass to multiple museums in the Historic Triangle. The pass gives us access to Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown Battlefield NPS, American Revolution Museum, Jamestown Settlement, Historic Jamestown NPS. The Jamestown Settlement is a living history museum run by the state of Virginia. This is the description from their website.

Driving to the settlement they have historic signs marking relevant dates and people in history.

Archer's Hope, Local indians killed 1/4 of the population of Jamestown.

"Relive the experience of America's first permanent English colony."

"Near the site of the original colony, Jamestown Settlement tells the story of 17th-century Virginia; from the arrival of English colonists in Jamestown in 1607 to the cultural encounters and events that planted the seeds of a new nation. The world of Jamestown, America’s first permanent English colony, comes to life through film, gallery exhibits and outdoor living history."

The Jamestown Settlement has two parts, a museum and a living history area. We started at the museum. Because we got a late start to the day we skimmed over many exhibits at the museum. We wanted to get out to the living history area. The museum building was beautiful and the exhibits were well done. No pictures were allowed but I got a couple before I noticed the sign.

The museum seemed to elicit as many questions as it provided answers. Unfortunately, for as much documentation and artifacts that they have from the settlement, there are many gaps and missing pieces. Maybe one of our next stops might help us with some of those questions. We are heading to an ongoing archeological dig at Historic Jamestown NPS.

The Jamestown Settlement museum covered a timeline leading up to the Jamestown Settlement and beyond. They make an attempt to tie together English, Spanish, Portuguese and Angolan history dating back to the 1500s and the events leading up to the settlement of Jamestown. Unfortunately, we didn't experience these exhibits but hopefully we will return to them over the seven days.

We headed outside to James Fort, the living history reenactment. Sometimes, in living history museums, these people will not break character and talk to you as if they are part of the settlement. This was not the case, these characters were more informational about the voyage and settlement. They spoke of obstacles that the settlers had to overcome, what day to day life was like and how to use tools and weapons of the time.

James Fort left armor around for the kids to try on and wear around. We put these two to work straight away.

After visiting the fort we headed down to look at the ships. The Susan Constant and the Discovery were docked and we could board them. The Godspeed is still in use and was at dry dock being repaired.

The Discovery was a much smaller ship holding about 20 crew and passengers.

While we were on the ships, we were visited by a bunch of vultures, probably twenty all gliding around us. Well among the vultures were a couple of bald eagles. It was some sight.

So we wrapped up the Jamestown Settlement at the Powhatan Indian Village. Unfortunately the two people who were cast to the area had no interest in talking and when asked a couple of questions were quite rude. Oh well.