Carriage passing the Governor’s Mansion in Williamsburg.
Fife and drum regiments in Colonial Williamsburg.
Williamsburg’s Art Museums, all under one roof, are well worth a visit to see 18th-and 19th-century architectural fragments like etched window panels and wood shingles, and folk art, silver, and Delft and Chinese dinner sets. There are pianos, harpsichords, and smaller spinets. Don’t miss the original Gilbert Stuart portraits of Washington, Jefferson and presidents James Madison and James Monroe. Trade shops were a part of everyday 18th-century life— blacksmiths, cabinet makers, tailors, and printers. In the apothecary, an interpreter shows me 18th-century antacids made from ground oyster shells and chalk. “We can flavor them with cinnamon or sugar,” he quips. The wigmaker’s shop displays powdered white wigs and others made from human, horse, yak, and goat hair. And silversmiths demonstrate how such colonial-era workshops made common everyday wares. “They were making small things like spoons, cups, and bowls,” says journeyman silversmith Preston Jones amidst the background scraping sounds of filing metal. “It was work from sunup to sundown.”
Replica of Continental Army encampment with cook at a cooking pit.
A Powhatan reconstructed village, part of living history in Jamestown Settlement.
FOR MORE INFORMATION www.colonialwilliamsburg.com www.historicjamestowne.org • www.nps.gov/colo
COLONIAL LIVING HISTORY
COAST TO COAST FALL MAGAZINE 2018
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