John Trumbull.
VENING was approaching when I left Williamsburg for Yorktown, twelve miles distant. It was an exceedingly pleasant afternoon, so mild, that wild flowers peeped eautiously from the hedges, and a wasp and a grasshopper alighted on the splash-board of my wagon, while stopping on the margin of a clear stream. Soon after leaving Williamsburg, the road entered a pine forest; and all the way to Yorktown these solitudes form the principal feature in the landscape. The country is quite level, and the cultivated clearings are more frequent and extensive than further up toward the Chickahominy. The green foliage of the lofty pines, of the modest holly, and the spreading laurel, made the forest journey less gloomy than it would otherwise have been; for the verdure, the balmy air, and the occasional note of a bird, made me forget that the Christmas holidays were near at hand, and that the mountains of New England were probably white with snow.
I arrived at Yorktown at twilight,Dec. 20, 1848 and passed the night at the only inn in the plaee, whieh is owned by William Nelson, Esq., grandson of Governor Thomas Nelson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. To the kindness and intelligence of that gentleman, I am indebted for much of the pleasure and profit of my visit there. We supped together upon far-famed York River oysters just brought from their oozy bed, and it was near midnight before we parted company. Mr. Nelson resides in the fine old mansion which belonged to his grandfather, and which yet bears marks of the iron hail poured upon it during the siege of Yorktown.
Early the next morning I strolled over the village. It is situated upon a high bluff of concrete or stone marl, covered with a sandy soil, on the south side of the York River, about eleven miles from its mouth. The peninsula on whieh the town stands is level, and is embraced upon eaeh side by deep ravines, whieh almost meet in the rear. The ground is the highest upon either the York or James Rivers, below Richmond. Being the shire town of the county, it contains the publie buildings. * These, with about forty dwellings, some of them decaying, compose the village, which formerly was one of the most flourishing towns
* York is one of the original counties into which Virginia was divided in 1634. The village was established by law in 1705, and for a long time vied with Williamsburg, the capital. The average width of the river is here nearly two miles, but is narrowed to a mile opposite Yorktown, by the projecting cape on which Gloucester stands. The latter village was once a thriving place. It had considerable commerce, but, like Yorktown, the depreciation of the surrounding country for agricultural purposes paralyzed its enterprise, and made busy the fingers of decay.
Old Church at Yorktown—The Nelson Tombs.—Cornwallis's Cave.—An Imposition
on the peninsula. It contained about sixty houses at the time of the siege in 1781. A fire which occurred in 1814 destroyed much property there, and from that blow the village seems never to have recovered.