Crafts-An introduction to the nation's most extensive pro­ gram of eighteenth-century working crafts. Contents Page 19 What Is Williamsburg?-A brief story of the restoration. The Historic Area-The large map (courtesy of the Na­ Page3 tional Geographic Society) offers convenient orientation to visitors and indicates adjoining facilities. Pages 22-23 Architecture and the Town Plan-A survey of the most important buildings, architectural style, and of the develop­ ment of one of America's first city plans. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation-Its organization, Page5 scope, and financial structure. Page 24 The Gardens-A description of the varied gardens, which occupy about half the city's area. Dining-Colonial Williamsburg's taverns, restaurants, cof­ Page 11 fee shop, and cafeteria. Page 29 The Collections-A guide to the large assemblage of early English and American furnishings, many of which are on display in the exhibition buildings. Shopping. Page 31 Page 15 - 'R.golution and 7J£volution What Is Williamsburg? The restoration of Virginia's surviVmg colonial capital began in 1926, when a rector of Bruton Parish Church im­ parted his dream of preserving the city's historic buildings to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The Reverend W. A. R. Goodwin saw that scores of buildings that figured in the life of the colony and the founding of the nation would soon disappear forever, but only after he had shared his vision of saving them with a kindred spirit did it become a reality. The two men began a modest project to preserve a few of the more important buildings-but the work progressed and expanded to include the major portion of the colonial city, and approximately 85 percent of eighteenth-century Williamsburg has been preserved. Mr. Rockefeller gave the project his personal leadership until his death in 1960, and it was his quiet generosity of spirit and uncompromising ethic of excellence that guided and still dominates its development. He donated funds not only for the preservation of original structures still standing and the reconstruction of important buildings that had Photograph from Ler;aqJ from the Past vanished, but also for the construction of public accom­ A sense of the past: Sunset on Dttke of J_;loucester Street, lao king past the Geddy modations. Silversmith Shop, where George Washington was once a customer, to Bruton Parish Church, one of America's oldest Episcopal churches. 'R..tfolution and evolutton 4 America 's Williamsburg Today' s restoration, one of the most extensive ever under­ taken, offers visitors the exciting experience of seeing a small eighteenth-century city much as it must have been in George Washington's time. A dozen major exhibition buildings and almost twenty busy craft shops are open the year round. A rcl1itecture Though Mr. Rockefeller engaged in many projects of preservation and conservation, he seemed to find particular and the Town Plan satisfaction in his work here, declaring that: "The restoration of Williamsburg ... offered an oppor­ tunity to restore a complete area and free it entirely from alien or inharmonious surroundings as well as to preserve the beauty and charm of the old buildings and gardens of the city and its historic significance. Thus it made a unique and irresistible appeal. The buildings along Williamsburg's streets and greens "As the work has progressed, I have come to feel that are among the most important historic structures in the perhaps an even greater value is the lesson that it teaches United States. Together, they form the basis of a unique of the patriotism, high purpose, and unselfish devotion of city-wide museum, set within a city plan virtually intact, our forefathers to the common good." though it was drawn in 1699. Of all the colonial capitals of British America, only Williamsburg may be seen today much as it was in the eighteenth century, free from most modern encroachments. More than one hundred major buildings and homes with their extensive dependencies stand in the district known as the Historic Area, which is approximately one mile long "The Founding Fathers": and half a mile wide. This area is recorded as a registered The Reverend W. A. R. Goodwin, left, and Mr. national landmark by the National Park Service of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., United States Department of the Interior, and as a historic in the early days of the landmark by the commonwealth of Virginia. The cupola of the Wren restoration of Many of the most significant buildings in this area are Williamsburg. Building of the College open to the public, while a number of them are occupied of William and Mary, by life tenants and by employees of Colonial Williamsburg, the oldest academic building in continuous who lead active professional and social lives within the use in America. "museum city" itself. The restoration of Williamsburg made possible the preservation of eighty-eight original buildings that were 5 The harmony of design and setting that lends an air of openness and repose to Williamsburg is not accidental-but stems from the far­ sighted restrictions in the city plan of 1699. still standing when the work commenced. They range from a college building even older than the city to modest homes of craftsmen, from a prison to dairies, from a powder mag­ azine to smokehouses, from elegant town residences and a public records office to well houses. These surviving buildings of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are preserved by Colonial Williamsburg in trust for future generations of Americans. The older buildings are not merely museum settings. Most of them were standing in Thomas Jefferson's days as a student, when he exercised by running through the city at dawn. Many were old when Washington came here as a bridegroom for his first session in the House of Burgesses­ and the town as a whole would be strikingly familiar to men who thronged the Capitol to hear Patrick Henry de­ nounce the Stamp Act in 1765. Williamsburg was the training ground for Virginia's revolutionary leaders, where they learned the ways of politics, law, and trade that prepared them for key roles in the struggle for independence. This small city was truly The simple treatment of among the important cradles of American independence. dormers, rakeboards, and The restoration of the city also included replacing im­ weatherboards adds The George Wythe House was designed by Richard Taliaferro, who gave it to his portant buildings that had disappeared by fire and neglect dignity to the most son-in-law, George Wythe, first professor of law at the College of William and Mary and after the capital was moved to Richmond in 1780. Without modest house. Thomas Jefferson's law tutor. Wythe lived here until1790. This original house owes much of its distinction to its geometrical system of proportion. House, outbuildings, and gardens form a plantation layout in miniature. 6 7 America's Williamsburg 9 Those who enter the Historic Area fresh from the hectic pace of life in today' s cities quickly sense the intentions of the planners of Williamsburg. One of Colonial Williams­ burg's primary concerns is to preserve the sense of order and tranquility lent by the original city plan, and to shield the spacious landscape from twentieth-century intrusions. Observant visitors will note the endless variety of detail in the buildings-the varying pitch and shape of roofs, the frequent use of dormers for the sake of economy, the de­ signs of chimneys, here tall and slender, there massive and ornately decorated. Early builders were attentive to the smallest details. The beaded edge of weatherboards on frame houses, for example, were not merely decorative; the tiny hand-cut bead helped prevent warping and splintering of the wood. The ends of shingles were sometimes rounded, rather than square, so that they would not curl. Photograph from The Gardens of Williamsburg Spring dawn: The Capitol, seen across a nearby pasture on a foggy morning. them, the visitor's grasp of decisive events in Williamsburg's past would have been lessened. Where possible these build­ ings were reconstructed on original foundations, after ex­ haustive documentary research and archaeological study. Williamsburg's houses and public buildings mirror their British inheritances, with adaptations to suit the Virginia Richness of detail as climate. The kinship of design, scale, and even atmosphere revealed in glazed brick headers, ornate between buildings, fences, streets, and greens is a heritage ironwork, and handmade from two remarkable early governors and planners, Francis windowpanes of the Nicholson and Alexander Spotswood. Allen-Byrd House. Nicholson, who had laid out the city plan of Annapolis a few years before, developed the plan of Williamsburg in 1699, and Spotswood expanded and refined it about fifteen years later. Together, they gave the city its sense of repose, an open, uncrowded appearance that endures to this day. 8 The Gardens Williamsburg is a city within a vast garden. Virtually every building in the Historic Area is surrounded by lawns, shrubs, trees, flower borders, or vistas of open greens. More than one hundred gardens and greens lie within the small city, occupying 90 of its 175 acres. The re-created gardens of the city were included by Peter Coats, the noted British writer, among the half dozen from North America selected for his Great Gardens of the Western World. Coats praised the formal design of the Governor's Palace gardens as both "masterly" and "imposing," and he noted the high degree of authenticity in type achieved using the evidence existing at the time of reconstruction. Joan Parry Dutton, in Enjoying America's Gardens, described the Palace garden as a "great outdoor museum" of garden styles, where one can see what fashion has since retained or discarded.