Williamsburg Day 2.
Nov. 27th, 2009 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaColin woke me around seven and we woke everyone else up shortly thereafter. We went downstairs for the hotel breakfast - not bad at all, for a free breakfast; there were even unsweetened instant oatmeal packets for Colin - and then set out for Colonial Williamsburg. Bought two-day passes for me and Michael (Alex and Colin are free) and took the shuttle bus to the historical area.
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bosssio's husband Andy suggested that we tour the Governor's Palace as early as possible, because apparently it gets pretty crowded later on. And indeed, we were able to walk right into a tour. The most remarkable sight was the antechamber, which had hundreds and hundreds of swords, rifles, and pistols mounted on the walls in decorative patterns. We also saw a couple of bedrooms, a private sitting room, the dining room, the ballroom, and the formal supper room off the ballroom. I was struck by how small the house was - especially the ballroom, which wasn't much larger than some living rooms I've seen. Everything was beautifully restored and decorated. Our guide was excellent, with a great sense of humor. Because today kicks off the Christmas season, he concentrated on explaining how Christmas was celebrated in the 18th century. He also talked a lot about differences between England and Virginia, and how things for the governor's family would be different from what they were used to.
After the tour we let the kids burn off steam running around and around the hedge maze for a while. Colin had fallen asleep in his carrier, so I sat in the sun and rested with him. Then we went on to the Palace kitchen. As was typical in the South at that time, the kitchen was a separate building. They were actually cooking in it, over a fire. The big table was covered with elaborate holiday dishes; he said they'd been cooking for several days and would keep the food on display until it didn't look or smell good anymore. So we watched for a while, and then poked through the kitchen garden and the smokehouses on our way out. (They actually had meat smoking in the smokehouse! It smelled amazing.)
We had lunch in one of the historical taverns and then split up for the afternoon.bosssio and family wanted to go shopping, and we wanted to stay in the historic area. We visited the silversmith and then the milliner's shop. At the silversmith, the young apprentice explained in great detail how she made spoons. She had samples of each stage of the process arrayed on the counter, from a plain silver bar to a finished, polished spoon, as well as some of the tools used in the process. Mixed in with her explanations of the craft were cultural and economic explanations of the place of silver (and particularly silver spoons) in colonial society. The master silversmith was also present, hammering away with tiny tools on the elaborate handle of a cream pitcher.
We spent a long time in the milliner's shop, admiring the wares and listening to the craftswomen lecturing and answering questions. We got to handle some baleen, which was used to make whalebone stays - although it's not actually bone, it's more related to hair or nails. I hadn't realized that colonial women's clothes were held together with straight pins. One of the things they showed Alex was a girl's dress made with several deep bands of tucks at the hem and more tucks in the bodice. They explained that these could be used to let the dress out as the girl grew.
One common note struck in both the silversmith's and the milliner's was how little labor was worth, compared to raw materials. The silversmith told us that about 80% of the value of silver products was the metal itself; the hours of artistry that went into crafting a coffeepot or whatever weren't especially valuable. And the milliner told us that it might cost two or three shillings to make up an everyday dress - but perhaps fifteen shillings for the cloth to make it. Rather backward, compared to how we're used to thinking of it.
While we were in the milliner's shop it started to rain. The forecast had been for partly cloudy weather in the low 50s, so we were utterly unprepared. That's partly why we stayed in there so long. Finally the weather broke and we tried to walk on, but soon found ourselves rained on again - and then dotted with little chips of ice. We ducked into the courthouse for shelter. The interpreter there was explaining the details of the colonial Virginia judicial system, not sparing any of the grisly bits. He said, for example, that when people were pilloried their ears were nailed to the pillory. He had a brand on display, used for non-capital felonies. Interestingly, there was no system of imprisonment as punishment. If you committed a serious crime, you were either branded or hanged. Minor crimes got you fined, whipped, or pilloried. We learned that when a slave was sentenced to death, the colony reimbursed the slave's owner for his lost property. He also told us that it was illegal to free your slaves in Virginia - it had to be done by the governor. This was actually supposed to provide protection to slaves - it prevented owners from freeing elderly or sick slaves and leaving them without care. Interesting, in a sick sort of way.
It rained and rained. We left the courthouse and toured a small family home and its attached foundry/gunsmith workshop. It was on the list of good places for kids, but wasn't really - the information presented in the tour were more pitched at adults. The foundry was interesting, though. The woman working there talked about making hunting rifles and had one on display. She demonstrated how they were loaded. And she had a brass mold she used to make pewter spoons, and some samples of untrimmed and trimmed spoons. Alex enjoyed that.
The rain had finally cleared when we left the foundry, but we were all pretty wet and tired. We took the shuttle bus back to our car and returned to the hotel. The kids played while the adults chatted. Colin figured out that when we left the door resting on the security latch he could actually open it and squeeze through into the hall. You can imagine how happy we are about this.
We'd made reservations for the same seafood feast we did last year. The food was amazing. Lobster bisque, amazing salads (including a spinach salad with feta cheese, red grapes, applewood bacon, and candied walnuts), cold platters of shrimp, oysters, and crab legs, various hot seafood and meat dishes, cheeses and breads, two kinds of smoked salmon, sushi rolls, and a chef station with the most marvelous pan-fried scallops. And about fifteen different desserts. Yum.
After dinner, Michael took Alex down for a swim while I bathed Colin and got him to sleep. Then we read to her and managed to talk her into going quietly to bed herself whilebosssio and Andy came over to hang out and drink wine and chat. They went back to their room a little while ago, so I'm going to post this and go to sleep myself. Tomorrow's going to be another action-packed day.
bosssio's husband Andy suggested that we tour the Governor's Palace as early as possible, because apparently it gets pretty crowded later on. And indeed, we were able to walk right into a tour. The most remarkable sight was the antechamber, which had hundreds and hundreds of swords, rifles, and pistols mounted on the walls in decorative patterns. We also saw a couple of bedrooms, a private sitting room, the dining room, the ballroom, and the formal supper room off the ballroom. I was struck by how small the house was - especially the ballroom, which wasn't much larger than some living rooms I've seen. Everything was beautifully restored and decorated. Our guide was excellent, with a great sense of humor. Because today kicks off the Christmas season, he concentrated on explaining how Christmas was celebrated in the 18th century. He also talked a lot about differences between England and Virginia, and how things for the governor's family would be different from what they were used to.After the tour we let the kids burn off steam running around and around the hedge maze for a while. Colin had fallen asleep in his carrier, so I sat in the sun and rested with him. Then we went on to the Palace kitchen. As was typical in the South at that time, the kitchen was a separate building. They were actually cooking in it, over a fire. The big table was covered with elaborate holiday dishes; he said they'd been cooking for several days and would keep the food on display until it didn't look or smell good anymore. So we watched for a while, and then poked through the kitchen garden and the smokehouses on our way out. (They actually had meat smoking in the smokehouse! It smelled amazing.)
We had lunch in one of the historical taverns and then split up for the afternoon.
bosssio and family wanted to go shopping, and we wanted to stay in the historic area. We visited the silversmith and then the milliner's shop. At the silversmith, the young apprentice explained in great detail how she made spoons. She had samples of each stage of the process arrayed on the counter, from a plain silver bar to a finished, polished spoon, as well as some of the tools used in the process. Mixed in with her explanations of the craft were cultural and economic explanations of the place of silver (and particularly silver spoons) in colonial society. The master silversmith was also present, hammering away with tiny tools on the elaborate handle of a cream pitcher.We spent a long time in the milliner's shop, admiring the wares and listening to the craftswomen lecturing and answering questions. We got to handle some baleen, which was used to make whalebone stays - although it's not actually bone, it's more related to hair or nails. I hadn't realized that colonial women's clothes were held together with straight pins. One of the things they showed Alex was a girl's dress made with several deep bands of tucks at the hem and more tucks in the bodice. They explained that these could be used to let the dress out as the girl grew.
One common note struck in both the silversmith's and the milliner's was how little labor was worth, compared to raw materials. The silversmith told us that about 80% of the value of silver products was the metal itself; the hours of artistry that went into crafting a coffeepot or whatever weren't especially valuable. And the milliner told us that it might cost two or three shillings to make up an everyday dress - but perhaps fifteen shillings for the cloth to make it. Rather backward, compared to how we're used to thinking of it.
While we were in the milliner's shop it started to rain. The forecast had been for partly cloudy weather in the low 50s, so we were utterly unprepared. That's partly why we stayed in there so long. Finally the weather broke and we tried to walk on, but soon found ourselves rained on again - and then dotted with little chips of ice. We ducked into the courthouse for shelter. The interpreter there was explaining the details of the colonial Virginia judicial system, not sparing any of the grisly bits. He said, for example, that when people were pilloried their ears were nailed to the pillory. He had a brand on display, used for non-capital felonies. Interestingly, there was no system of imprisonment as punishment. If you committed a serious crime, you were either branded or hanged. Minor crimes got you fined, whipped, or pilloried. We learned that when a slave was sentenced to death, the colony reimbursed the slave's owner for his lost property. He also told us that it was illegal to free your slaves in Virginia - it had to be done by the governor. This was actually supposed to provide protection to slaves - it prevented owners from freeing elderly or sick slaves and leaving them without care. Interesting, in a sick sort of way.
It rained and rained. We left the courthouse and toured a small family home and its attached foundry/gunsmith workshop. It was on the list of good places for kids, but wasn't really - the information presented in the tour were more pitched at adults. The foundry was interesting, though. The woman working there talked about making hunting rifles and had one on display. She demonstrated how they were loaded. And she had a brass mold she used to make pewter spoons, and some samples of untrimmed and trimmed spoons. Alex enjoyed that.
The rain had finally cleared when we left the foundry, but we were all pretty wet and tired. We took the shuttle bus back to our car and returned to the hotel. The kids played while the adults chatted. Colin figured out that when we left the door resting on the security latch he could actually open it and squeeze through into the hall. You can imagine how happy we are about this.
We'd made reservations for the same seafood feast we did last year. The food was amazing. Lobster bisque, amazing salads (including a spinach salad with feta cheese, red grapes, applewood bacon, and candied walnuts), cold platters of shrimp, oysters, and crab legs, various hot seafood and meat dishes, cheeses and breads, two kinds of smoked salmon, sushi rolls, and a chef station with the most marvelous pan-fried scallops. And about fifteen different desserts. Yum.
After dinner, Michael took Alex down for a swim while I bathed Colin and got him to sleep. Then we read to her and managed to talk her into going quietly to bed herself while
bosssio and Andy came over to hang out and drink wine and chat. They went back to their room a little while ago, so I'm going to post this and go to sleep myself. Tomorrow's going to be another action-packed day.
