Showing posts with label John Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Smith. Show all posts

Friday, September 12, 2014

Jamestown Settlement, Jamestown Virginia




Some views from around the Jamestown Settlement.  This is a very extensive photo slideshow of the fort at the living museum.  Over 350 photos.  Gives you an idea of what is there if you have never visited the museum.  It's well worth your time.  This is only one area of the entire settlement.  We are all very fortunate to have so many incredible places to visit and enjoy in this area.  We know of no other area in the nation as rich as this area of Virginia.  Enjoy the show.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Gloucester, Sacred Va. Indian Site May Become National Park


RICHMOND – Land along the York River that archaeologists believe was the center of a vast Indian empire before the first Europeans settled in Virginia is gaining White House attention as a possible addition to the National Park System.


This could give the much needed reason to move forward with an up river crossing.  


As noted in the picture above of a Gloucester Map that we drew an overlay on that shows what looks to us like what the plans are for future development, the new park is right along the line where the up river crossing would be put in.  The yellow line is present route 17.  To the left is where the crossing would be put in across the York River.

  Present concerns are certain aspects of local politics that need to be adjusted in the proper directions in order for the funding to properly go through.  If certain aspects of local politics do not straighten out, then funding could be lost.

  What all of this means to everyone in Gloucester and surrounding areas is as follows, at present we have the historic triangle that includes Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown.  This would change to the Historic Circle if this funding goes through and an up river crossing is put in.  This would finally put Gloucester on the National map where it belongs.  That also means massive development throughout Gloucester that would eventually create something akin to what Williamsburg presently looks like and bring in all kinds of development and jobs.

  This also means that there is some very serious investments that anyone with the money can make now to profit from these future concepts, however, it's still prudent to wait and see how the funding for all of this works out and we are looking at long term investments.  Again we have leadership issues in this county that need to be corrected in order for this to happen though we seem to be in a somewhat better position today than we were last year thanks to the addition of 3 new board of supervisors that seem to be watching out for the people of the county that in our view was very much lacking in the past.

  This is an area everyone should keep a close eye on.

An email went out to top officials in this county and reads as follows:

The proposed Werowocomoco National Park will open the doors to a level of growth never before seen inGloucester County.  Along with the National Park also comes Gloucester’s inclusion in the Historic Tourism Triangle which will now become a circle. The triangle is currently made up by JamestownWilliamsburg andYorktown
 
Hotels, timeshares, restaurants, theaters, theme parks and more will soon become interested in bringing their businesses to Gloucester.  These types of businesses are not going to squabble over how much it will cost to cross Rt. 17 with water or sewer service; they will simply want permits issued as expeditiously as possible.  These businesses will not complain about landscape requirements as the public’s opinion on the appearance of their establishments is very important to their success.  If the park is truly realized, a second York River crossing will be constructed sooner than later to complete the transportation circle. 
 
This type of growth will be good for the County only if it is managed properly.  Growth of this nature is what was truly in mind when the Highway Corridor Overlay District (HCOD) was developed in 1991 due to the growth spurt that occurred during the few years in which there was no toll on the Coleman Bridge.  Many are now calling the HCOD a form of government regulation that is restricting business growth; when in fact it was concisely developed for growth management purposes.  All one needs to do to get a snap shot of Gloucester’s new found growth potential, is to take a look at Richmond Rd. and the surrounding area in Williamsburg, to include the Newtown and High Street mixed use developments.  This link to the Historic Tourism industry will provide Gloucester with the necessary anchor required to ensure the success of such mixed use developments.
 
Over the past several years there have been persons inGloucester County who have somehow known this scenario of growth was coming in the near future.  Some of these persons have used this information to secure lucrative future gains through calculated land acquisitions and purchases.  Some have also used the information to set a plan in motion to cause the rerouting of the connection of Rt. 17 to Rt. 14 through land owned or controlled by them or their associates.  These types of insider knowledge behaviors must be eradicated as part of enhancing the appearance of Gloucester as a good place to establish a business, visit, reside or raise a family.
 
There are numerous areas within the County’s administration and services departments that need immediate attention.  The Public Utilities Department is one of the primary areas in need of serious work. If this department is currently struggling to meet current demands and certain areas of the systems are inefficient and or near collapse; there is no way the demands of rapid growth will be met.  Gloucester’s water and sewer systems should be one of the top items on a list of areas that require immediate intervention, significant improvements and or complete overhaul.
 
The image of the School Board and public school system is another primary area requiring immediate attention.  Residential growth associated with inclusion in the historic tourism circle will not flourish if Gloucester cannot or refuses to transform its public education system into one of being reputably and statistically successful.  The School Board’s only focus should be on ensuring that an above average, efficient and equal education opportunity is provided for all students. The division and dysfunction that currently exists between the School Board and the Board of Supervisors and the School Board and the Gloucester Community must be alleviated before any remarkable success will be achieved; as it will take both boards and the community working together to transform the public school system into all it can possibly be.
 
There are other areas within the County that will require varying levels of improvement or modification before substantial growth can take place.  Plans to accommodate this future growth should be established post-haste. Analysis of all County departments and functions relative to such growth plans should be conducted and appropriate steps taken to ensure each department can adequately manage and capitalize on future development of this magnitude.   
 
The new National Park and everything that will accompany it will provide substantial revenue and create many jobs for Gloucester’s adults and work eligible youth.  Personal property and real estate tax rates for citizens could actually decrease and property values could increase if future growth is managed properly.
 
Kenneth E. Hogge, Sr.
Gloucester Point
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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Governor McDonnell Issues Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

Berkeley Plantation, home of the Harrison fami...
Berkeley Plantation, home of the Harrison family (two Presidents), initial construction of Georgian mansion in 1726. In Charles City County, Virginia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
RICHMOND - In advance of Thursday’s holiday, Governor Bob McDonnell today issued an official proclamation recognizing November 28th as Thanksgiving Day in Virginia.  The Governor’s proclamation is below and can be found online here.


WHEREAS, the first permanent English speaking settlement in the New World was established in Virginia at Jamestown in 1607, as Captain John Smith led a group of settlers across the Atlantic on a voyage that would entail much hardship over the coming years, including disease and starvation; and

WHEREAS, to show their appreciation for the colony's success and to take stock and give thanks for their own gifts and blessings, and in spite of tremendous adversity, the settlers in Virginia found time to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in America at Berkeley Plantation on December 4, 1619; and

WHEREAS, a state historical marker commemorating “The first English Thanksgiving in Virginia” was dedicated on November 1, 2013 and was placed along Route 5 just west of the entrance to Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County; the marker states that on December 4, 1619, the ship Margaret arrived in Virginia carrying “Capt. John Woodlief, a member of the Virginia Company, with 35 men to take charge of Berkeley Hundred,” and Capt. John Woodlief “bore instructions that the day of his ship's arrival ‘be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to almighty God’”; and

WHEREAS, while reflecting upon the actions taken by the colonists at the first Thanksgiving, we also honor the Indian peoples, for without their presence, the survival of the colonists would have been ever more difficult; and

WHEREAS, American leaders and citizens have recognized a day of Thanksgiving since our first president, George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789, stating “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor”; and

WHEREAS, it is a Virginia tradition for our citizens to come together in unity on Thanksgiving Day and give thanks for the great level of serenity, harmony and abundance with which we, as citizens of a free nation, have been blessed; the rule of law by which we peaceably govern ourselves and by which our civil and religious liberties are guaranteed; and the brave servicemen and women of our armed forces who risk their lives to defend the freedoms and blessings we cherish;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert F. McDonnell, do hereby recognizeNovember 28, 2013 as A DAY OF THANKSGIVING in ourCOMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens; and

FURTHERMORE, I encourage all Virginians to give thanks to our Creator for our plentiful blessings, including the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well as the unwavering strength of our families and communities.
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Friday, August 16, 2013

Pocahontas - Super History



We are starting off the story of Pocahontas with the above video from Nova.  It explores in more detail the real story behind the legend.  We also have 2 e-books that are new editions in our collection of digital publishing.  One is more along the lines of a childrens story and the other covers more detail and geared more towards adults.  It's an overall well rounded view of the Princess.



To read this in an easier manner, please click on the icon at the bottom right hand side of the container to open the document to full screen view.  You are free to download a free copy from our SlideShare site by signing into SlideShare with your Facebook account or LinkedIn account or by signing up for a free account.



You can also pick up a free copy of this e-book as well.  We had another video scheduled to go along with all of these books, however, the video was taken down off of YouTube for copyright violations.  Animated Classic Hero's has an interesting albeit historically questionable version of Pocahontas we were going to show.  The owners of those videos had YouTube pull down all copies of their videos due to said copyright violations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animated_Hero_Classics  Here is more information on the video we are not able to show.  We guess money is more important than education?  DVD sales must come first.  We saw the film, it isn't worth buying anyway.


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Friday, June 21, 2013

Virginia to preserve Pocahontas home


by Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

Pocahontas, Capt. John Smith and Chief Powhatan get their due Friday in a dedication ceremony that preserves the village site that made them famous.
Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell and Native American tribal officials will dedicate the Werowocomoco (WER-ruh-wo-KOM-uh-ko) site near Gloucester, Va., in a day-long event. Now an archaeological site, the village appears to have held a longhouse, judging from postholes, where Smith famously encountered Powhatan after the founding of Jamestown in 1607.

"One of the most significant archaeological sites in North America, it is where settlers and Native Americans first encountered each other," says archaeologist Martin Gallivan of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
A renowned part of colonial-era folklore (and a Disney movie), the rescue of Capt. John Smith by Pocahontas would have occurred at the site, if it really happened, which historians largely doubt. First recounted in a 1624 book, the story goes that after capturing Smith and bringing him to their chief's longhouse, Powhatan's tribesmen were ready to "beate out his braines," when Pocahontas took his head in her own arms to stop his execution. Smith didn't write about the rescue in his earliest accounts of the colony, but he did provide a description of the location of Chief Powhatan's village and longhouse in later accounts that match Werowocomoco. Already on the National Register of Historic Places, the village was the capital of Powhatan's kingship over Virginia's Tidewater region and will be precluded from residential or business development.

"It's a tip of the hat to the first 15,000 years of the American story," says Charles Mann, author of 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. "Powhatan and the empire he put together were major players in 16th- and 17th-century East Coast history - important in their own right and not just because they were unlucky enough to be descended upon by the English."
In Smith's accounts of his capture by Powhatan's tribe, he describes a chief's longhouse that in its floor layout matches the 72-foot-long-by-20-foot-wide floor plan seen at the site. A longhouse was typically built with trees bent over in a semicircle with woven mats fixed across the top and sides. Some historians say Smith mistook a tribal induction ceremony as a near-brush with beheading in his account of his capture in 1607.

Gallivan and his team have uncovered more than a dozen copper scraps at the longhouse site, ones that chemically match European trade items used by Jamestown's colonists and also found at that site, which was about 16 miles away from Werowocomoco. Werowocomoco was located on a shallow bay on the York River, while Jamestown was on swampy ground on the James River. "Only chiefs controlled copper at the time. Its red color was ritually significant in their mythology," says Gallivan, who will speak at the dedication ceremony.
In 2001, landowners Lynn and George Ripley had collected artifacts on their farm, which led to excavation of the site. "They have been very generous and put up with us ripping up their front yard for 10 years," Gallivan says. The archaeological work was conducted with the input of six Native American tribes related to the Algonquin group descended from Powhatan's tribe.

After 1609, which was a very hard year - "the Starving Time" for Jamestown - fewer and fewer Native Americans appear to have lived at Werowocomoco. Powhatan relocated to villages farther west, for example. The ultimate goal would be to see the site become a national park, Gallivan says. "Jamestown and Williamsburg only tell one part of the story from the colonial era, we could tell another side at Werowocomoco."

http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/2442547  Link back to original story site.





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Thursday, June 20, 2013

Pocahontas, John Smith, Rescue Site In Spotlight, Gloucester, VA

Written by
Steve Szkotak
Associated Press
English: Plate 10 of an illustration based on ...
English: Plate 10 of an illustration based on the work of John White, however, this is used by John Smith and Strachey at Jamestown to document Virginia Indian communities. #3 is described as a tomahawk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



GLOUCESTER, VA. — A farm field overlooking the York River in Tidewater Virginia is believed to be where Pocahontas interceded with her powerful father Powhatan to rescue English Capt. John Smith from death.

That’s a fanciful footnote for many Virginia Indians, historians and archaeologists, who say the real story is that this land was the center of a complex, sprawling empire ruled by Powhatan long before the first permanent English settlement in America was founded in 1607.

It was called Werowocomoco, which roughly translates to a “place of chiefs.”

“This is like our Washington,” said Kevin Brown, chief of the Pamunkey tribe. “History didn’t begin in 1607, and there are a lot of people who overlook that.”

On loan to archaeologists for more than a decade, these 57 privately owned acres will be preserved forever under an agreement years in the making and to be officially announced Friday.

The deal is important for Native Americans because they believe their story has been overshadowed for centuries by the narrative of Smith and his fellow Europeans. In a departure from past digs involving native sites, archaeologists sought the counsel of Indian leaders before and during the exploration, honoring their wishes that burial grounds not be disturbed and helping interpret what was discovered.

For Ashley Atkins, a College of William & Mary doctoral candidate who has worked at the site since 2005, “recovering things out of the ground” was secondary to working with her fellow Pamunkey.

“Unfortunately, native people in the past have had no involvement at all in the way that their history has been investigated, uncovered and presented to the public,” said Atkins, who is 28. “Most people would think, ‘They wouldn’t be involved in uncovering your own history?’ But the reality is that has not been the common practice.”

Jeff Brown, a Pamunkey and Kevin Brown’s brother, worked at the site for years. He recalled Indians visiting the sweeping expanse overlooking the York River and being overcome.



“It gets emotional,” he said. “And when you’re digging you can really feel it.”

Martin Gallivan, a William & Mary anthropologist, said the involvement of native people “enhanced the project immensely.”

Only a fraction of Werewocomoco has been explored, perhaps just 2 percent.

After decades of research, archaeologists used the writings of Smith and others, ancient maps and detective work to conclude with near-certainty that this was Powhatan’s seat of power about 15 miles from Jamestown.

Powhatan’s chiefdom covered 30 political divisions and a population of 15,000 to 20,000 people while Jamestown settlers struggled to survive. Excavations have yielded the outline of the largest longhouse ever found in Virginia and a system of ditches that may have separated sacred and secular areas.

Randolph Turner, a retired state archaeologist whose hunt for Werewocomoco dates to the 1970s, said Powhatan’s empire was “one of the most complex political entities in all of eastern North America.”

The leader “had the power of life and death” and expanded his empire through warfare or the threat of warfare.

“He’s one of the most interesting political and military figures that I’ve ever read about,” Turner said. “And we’re just getting hints in the historical records of all he accomplished in his lifetime.”

The discovery of Werewocomoco can be credited to a purebred dog belonging to the land’s owners, Lynn and Robert Ripley.

Lynn Ripley used to walk around their land with her Chesapeake Bay Retriever, an American Kennel Club competitor named Mobjack Rhett Master Hunter.

She would remove debris that could cut her dog’s paws, and found arrowheads, spear tips, pipe stems and pottery shards.

“I just seemed to have an eye for it,” she said. “That’s how it all began, so our dog wouldn’t cut his feet. It’s like we were meant to be there and I was meant to find these things.”

The clincher was the discovery of copper, which was valued by the Indians as gold is today.

“I am absolutely convinced this is Werewocomoco,” Turner said. “It makes no sense for it to be anywhere else.”

That conclusion is supported by the U.S. Park Service, William & Mary, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

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Monday, May 6, 2013

Gloucester, VA - Where American History Really Begins



Did the history books get it wrong?  In the above file, we are arguing that if Pocahontas had not saved Captain John Smith from his death sentence, then it is a reasonable assumption to believe that Jamestown would have faced a similar fate to that of the Roanoke Island settlement.  Just another colony that vanished with little or no information as to what really happened and that this is what our present history books might read like today.

  With that argument presented, we further argue that American history really begins in Gloucester, Virginia then.  Can we really win that argument?  No, not really and would not expect to.  The piece is designed as an advertising piece for local businesses to take advantage of and help bring history and education to everyone.  With it, local businesses can advertise themselves by becoming ad sponsors and inserting their information into a space provided specifically for them on the ad.  There is no cost to local businesses to become ad sponsors other than downloading the ad file, inserting their information into the space provided and then printing costs.  One last step the businesses need to take is to post a link on their web sites for a free e-book download that is being hosted by us.

  So when someone visits the ad sponsors store, they can pick up one of these ads and if the purpose of the ad works, the shopper will later visit the ad sponsors web site to download the free e-book and seeing more reasons to come back and shop at the ad sponsors business again and maybe even recommend the shop or business to others.  Plus it puts a positive spin on the county and reasons for exploring the area.  So it's great for tourism.  The business gets to give away something of value and it does not cost the business anything to give this e-book away.

  We are developing an entire series of these that any business is free to take advantage of.  Each new ad will have a different free offer when the ad calls for one.  If a local business does not care for one ad but likes another one, then they are free to choose what they think will best help them.  There is no competition on these ads.  It does not matter if 30 other businesses are using this ad piece, it still does the same job for each one.  Businesses can also mix and match the ads as they become available, giving out different ones in a mix.

  Look for Free Tools For Local Businesses No 3 for the source files that is coming next and will be available on May 6th, 2013.


https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5NJpRCvjyV8Ym1NVFRJU29mZFk/edit?usp=sharing  Here is the link for the free e-book, "The Pocahontas - John Smith Story."  We will be putting this up on anther page here as well very soon.



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