Guide Book to Williamsburg Old and New

by William Clinton Ewing

WILLIAMSBURG.

Shortly after the College began to function, a fire at Jamestown destroyed the government building. As that location was quite malarial, it was deemed best to establish a new capital on higher ground and it was decided to locate it near the College at Middle Plantation. Legislation was enacted setting off for such purpose approximately what is now known as The Restoration Area, together with approaches through Capitol Landing Road from Queen Mary’s Port on Queen’s Creek and through South Henry Street from Princess Anne Port on Archer’s Hope Creek. Since the receipt of the College charter in 1693, Queen Mary had died, leaving William III to reign alone; so the newly planned city was called Williamsburg.

This, the second planned city in America, was laid out in 1699 with the main street named for Princess Anne’s son, Duke of Gloucester Street. The center line of the street was laid out from the middle of the doorway of the Wren Building in an easterly direction so far as to make the whole length of the street exactly three-fourths of a mile long. The street’s width was fixed at six poles (99 feet) and all buildings were to be kept back six feet from the street. Governor Nicholson named two of the streets for himself: Francis and Nicholson. Other streets had such significant names as England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Nassau, Prince George and York. Williamsburg being on the crest of the York and James watersheds, there were many brooks or dry ravines crossing all the east-west streets. For years Duke of Gloucester Street spanned these ravines on bridges.

THE RALEIGH TAVERN

The first public building to be erected after the laying out of the city was, naturally, The Capitol. This was located on the easterly extension of the center line of Duke of Gloucester Street, thus balancing the Wren Building on the west. Until the completion of the Capitol, the General Assembly held its meetings in the Blue Room of the Wren Building. After the completion of the Capitol it became for three-quarters of a century, the center of public activity in the Virginia Colony, the training-school of democracy, the place where Americans contended against autocracy. Here Patrick Henry made his famous “Caesar-Brutus” speech; here George Washington received the thanks of the Colony; here Thomas Jefferson secured religious freedom for his State; here George Mason presented the first Bill of Rights. The rooms in this building are indeed hallowed for every lover of liberty!

BLAND-WETHERBURN TAVERN

Repeatedly, when the Royal Governor felt obliged to prorogue the Assembly for impertinence to the King, the entire membership withdrew to The Raleigh Tavern where rump sessions were held. In such gatherings, and in frequent less formal meetings at this famous tavern, many important decisions were reached in the growing contest between the Crown and its colonial subjects. This tavern appears to have been the most important informal social center in Virginia in the later years of the 18th century. In the earlier years of that century, certainly as early as 1709, this service was performed by the Bland-Wetherburn Tavern, directly across the street. This is the third oldest building now standing in Williamsburg. It was probably built by Richard Bland, Sr., about the year 1700 and was a meeting place for leading citizens after the completion of the Capitol. At various times the famous host, Henry Wetherburn, ran this hostelry and the Raleigh, opposite.

As Solomon did not build a house for himself until he had completed the Temple, so the colonial Virginians finished the building of the Capitol before beginning, in 1706, a residence for the Royal Governor. Like most great houses of the period, The Governor’s Palace was not built all at once. In 1706, £3,000 was appropriated for the erection of a “house” for the Governor. What with additions and furnishings, by 1718 it had become a “palace” and the House of Burgesses was complaining of the high-handed manner in which the Governor was “lavishing away the country’s money contrary to the intent of the law.” As in the case of many another public building, the extravagance of construction cost was forgotten by later generations in their pride in the product. A traveled Englishman considered this the finest building in America and exceeded by few in England, an opinion which has never required revision. From its completion, it was occupied by all the Royal Governors down to the Revolutionary War; and then by two Governors of the Commonwealth, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. After the removal of the Capital to Richmond in 1779, the Palace was used by the army as a hospital.

THE GOVERNOR’S PALACE

After providing a residence for the Governor, the next public building erected by order of the Assembly was a Public Magazine, familiarly called The Powder Horn. From 1714 to 1775 this octagonal brick structure was used for the storage of ammunition; and for reasons of safety it was placed in an open square. This building saw the beginning of the Revolutionary War, so far as Virginia was concerned. On the 20th of April, 1775, just one day after the Battle of Lexington, in Massachusetts, Governor Dunmore removed the powder so that it might not fall into the hands of the populace. Thereupon, Patrick Henry brought troops toward Williamsburg and secured the payment of £330 from the King’s Receiver General, with which substitute powder was purchased. The Governor withdrew to the comparative safety of a British warship and thus ended forever foreign dominance in Williamsburg.

THE POWDER HORN

While the Public Magazine was under construction the Colony and the Parish were proceeding with the erection of a fine new building to take the place of the antiquated structure of The Bruton Parish Church. The then-existing building, whose foundations are still in place under the sod of the churchyard, was adequate only for a small rural community. With the influx of large numbers of people for court seasons and with the necessity for dignity, if not grandeur, in the edifice of the Established Church of the Colonial Capital, the Governor, the Assembly and the Parish united in building a church which, from its completion in 1715 to the present time, has been one of the prides of Virginia, whether Colony or Commonwealth.

BRUTON PARISH CHURCH

It will probably be impossible for one to understand the helpful leadership of this church in the ecclesiastical life of Virginia without an appreciation of the great difficulty experienced in securing high-grade, or even fairly respectable, clergy in the country districts. In all church affairs Virginia was directly under the control of the Bishop of London. It is evident from the records that great pressure must have been exerted on him to send to Virginia the ne’er-do-well younger sons of British aristocrats or any other low-grade men who had been trained for the church as for any other occupation and who had at all costs to be got out of England. Governor Gooch, one of the best Royal Governors Virginia ever had, was active throughout his long and happy administration in raising the ministerial standards; it is impossible to read his letters to the Bishop of London without having the greatest sympathy for him in his Augean labors. Through all this sad experience, with the exception of the reported indictment of Dr. Dawson for drunkenness in 1760, Bruton Parish seems to have been blessed with such leadership as helped much to raise the whole colonial standard.

THE TRAVIS HOUSE

It is somewhat difficult in this generation to realize the unity of church with state in Colonial Virginia when the legislature might order sermons on special subjects. A most notable case was the setting apart by the Assembly of June 1, 1774, the day when the British were forcibly to close the Port of Boston, as a day of fasting and prayer. The enactment closed with these words: “Ordered, that the members of this house do attend in their Places, at the Hour of ten in the Forenoon, on the said first Day of June next, in order to proceed with the Speaker, and the Mace, to the Church in this City, for the Purposes aforesaid; and that the Reverend Mr. Price be appointed to read Prayers, and the Reverend Mr. Gwatkin, to preach a Sermon, suitable to the Occasion.”

GALT HOUSE