Sorry for the delay in posting part II of my spring break road trip: I came back with a nasty flu so re-entry and re-engagement have been stalled. I’m feeling a bit better today and I thought it would make me feel better yet by looking at my photos. From the Eastern Shore, we traveled over the scary Chesapeake Bay bridge/tunnel up to Williamsburg for a few days, then we visited my sisters-in-law in Richmond. It was a real treat to stay in the Williamsburg Inn, and I do like Williamsburg in general even if it has its “history disneyland” qualities, but its highlights on this particular trip were definitely the George Wythe House and the museums. On the way up to Richmond, we stopped at the Berkeley Plantation on the James River, a beautiful and very history-rich site. I always love the capital, and we also visited Monticello up in Charlottesville, which I haven’t been to since I was in college. On the long drive back myself this past Saturday, I stopped on Virginia’s northern neck to visit Menokin, a plantation ruin in the midst of an interpretive restoration. As I drove north from there, I started feeling a bit gray but was thinking mostly of green: as we drove down we saw increasing green and on my ride home I was seeing less. That’s one of the things I like most about my March break trips down south: we won’t see that green in Salem for a while.
Four plantations: Eyre Hall on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Berkeley and one of its “dependencies,”, Monticello & Menokin.
Eyre Hall, overlooking the Chesapeake on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, is a well-preserved, privately-owned 18th-century plantation whose owners open up its gardens to visitors, so we drove right in and I snuck a photograph of the house. The gardens are supposedly beautiful, but it was a a bit early for blooms. Berkeley has direct connections to the Harrison presidential family and to the Civil War, and is also a site rich in the history and documentation of slavery. There is also a claim to America’s “First Thanksgiving” in 1619, which I’m not going to explore because I’m from Massachusetts. Monticello was of course Thomas Jefferson’s beloved home, and he also has a tie to Berkeley and to the George Wythe house in Williamsburg. The Hemings family is also showcased at Monticello, which was the busiest site we visited by far: it was kind of difficult to take in the house on our packed tour. Menokin, as you can see, is currently a ruin, but its restorers have big plans. I took a lot of notes on interpretation over the week, but I haven’t really sorted them out and I’m not quite up to it, so I’m going to reserve my thoughts on inclusion/exclusion (and Thomas Jefferson!) for later.
Colonial Williamsburg: including the George Whythe (rhymes wth Smith) house, the Capitol and Governor’s Palace, and the museums.
And a view of the University of Virginia’s Lawn from the Rotunda (which I never knew you could spot from Monticello before last week).
