Jamestown was low on the garish and silly scale. There were things that were still not quite truly authentic, mostly because the place is well-maintained and clean and not full of horse crap. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The didn’t have a midden heap*** just outside the town where on a hot day you could smell it and they shoveled up the horse crap and cleaned the chicken coops.
Well, as it turns out, there are a lot of local people who apparently like to visit this place over and over. When we gave our zip code for purchasing our tickets, we were asked if we wanted to purchase season passes. We declined—we weren’t quite sure what there was to do there that would merit more than one visit.
Naturally, as soon as we walked in, there was the “governor” walking towards us, tights and bloomers in bright red, shoe buckles shining in the dull sun. “What ho, faire citizens!” he calls out. “God bless the king!” And I would have instantly answered, except I was too busy trying to figure out if it was God Bless the King or he was still early and it should’ve been God Bless the Queen.****
By the time I had figure it out, the Governor had already passed by and we were heading into the Powhatan village.
It was made up of about 10 quonset huts that had been reconstructed as the Powhatan***** had made them. They were also recreated in the inside as well, complete with smell animal pelts and no lights.
We just sort of wandered in and out of these thing for a few and then headed down to the water front, where there were three ships sitting on the docks.
These were the re-creation of the first three ships to cross the Atlantic in search of place to colonize. They stopped at a place now called Hampton, but because there was no source of fresh water, they continued on up the James River until the finally found a good looking spot to settle in. Voila, Jamestown.
This is the Susan Constant, the largest of the three ships that made the crossing to the New World. She was captained by one Christopher Newport, and there were 103 people on her when she sailed up the James.
These are the Discovery and the Godspeed. One of these carried about 85 people and one of them carried 20 people and mostly supplies. Now you really can’t appreciate those numbers until you get on one of these things and find out damn tiny they are. I swear that that one of the small one was no large than my dad’s friend’s sailboat, and they shoved 20 people and supplies on that thing.
We wandered up to the fort settlement and wandered around there for a while. Again, you really have to go into these things to appreciate how small the living quarters were. There was a table, a dresser and a bed for the adults. The children slept in the hay loft, and the servants would usually sleep in the barn hayloft.
This was the Governor’s bed:
One of the powerful and influential guys in the Colonies slept on a hay stuffed mattress on a rope webbed bed. Now, here’s where the expression “Sleep tight” comes from. All natural ropes eventually stretch. After sleeping on this for about week, not only would the ropes stretch, but they would loosen in the frame. So at the end of that week, you would take this huge key looking thing, shove it in the one corner of the bed, and crank it taught again. You had to tighten the bed. So sleep tight. There you go.
We also came across the “natives” working on a burned out canoe. This is the way the Algonquin would make their version of the pervasive Native American canoe/kayak.
They are standing there pointing at it because someone left the fire up too hot and too close to the log. It screwed it up. The colonial lady was trying to douse the log so that it wasn’t completely lost, and she had called over the native to back her up that it wasn’t her mess she was trying to fix, it was someone else’s. I’m just amazed that they didn’t lose this art/skill somewhere along the way.
We also came across some sword lessons. This is an equal opportunity recreation, Jamestown is. There was a woman (in bloomers) with a sword getting lessons. I thought that was cool.
Also, to my unending delight, there was armor…
…but not a codpiece to be seen.
On the way out, we ran into Governor Shiny Buckles again, who bade us have a faire and pleasant day. And so we did.
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*There is another site just down the road call the Jamestown Historic Site and it is VASTLY different from the Settlement. It’s an archeological dig and we meant to go, but I think that we missed the season.**
**There are seasons in archeology—because you are outside the weather must cooperate. In Egypt, they only dig in the winter because it’s too damn hot in the summer. In places like Norway and Alaska, they can only dig in the summer.
***You remember the midden heap stuff, right? The archeologist’s treasure chest.
****He was right. Elizabeth died in 1603, and Jamestown was founded in 1607, when James was already King of England.
*****Powhatan is the name of the tribe, but a lot of people remember this name as the father of Pocahontas. Well, as it turns out, her father’s name wasn’t Powhatan, it was Wahunsenacawh (pronounced Wahunsunacock). He just like to call himself The Powhatan.
*please note-- this outing took place in late April*
