Virginia Wrap (a week late)

In real life we’ve moved on to North Carolina but in my virtual existence here in Blogsville I still need to put a fork in Virginia and recap our final two days there.

First of all, three general observations about Virginia.

First. Lots and lots and lots and lots of trees. Freaking trees everywhere. Great big green ones. Everything is green. Virginia is very, very green.

Also, second, Virginians seem to have an aversion to putting shoulders on their abundant narrow, winding roads.

This can be particularly problematic for my third observation which is an enormous amount of historic markers stuck beside the narrow, winding, busy roads with no plausible way to stop and read them.

What would he have done without our advice?

Jamestown, the first, tenuous toehold in the New World.

On our second-to-last full day in Virginia (last Tuesday) we returned to Yorktown to explore the excellent, newly refurbished revolutionary war museum there and then popped across the peninsula to Jamestown to see where it all began.

On Wednesday we visited St. John’s Church where Patrick Henry gave his famous Liberty or Death speech and paid our respects to some of those interred in the cemetery that surrounds the church, including George Wythe – law professor to Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall – and Edgar Allen Poe’s mother.

Richmond, not a bad town.

We also took in some of the waterfront along the James River before stopping by the First Freedom Center, a small museum on the site where the first state capitol in Richmond once stood. 

What a pair, huh?

The Center commemorates the concept of freedom of religion and conscience proclaimed in Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which was enacted into law there by the Virginia General Assembly on January 16, 1786; legislation shepherded by Assembly Delegate James Madison. On June 25, 1788 Madison was back at the same site as a member of the Virginia Ratifying Commission where he argued persuasively (determinatively in the view of many historians) in favor of ratification of the new Constitution against substantive opposition from “anti-Federalists” like Patrick Henry and George Mason, who opposed the creation of a strong central government. The vote was 89-79 in favor of ratification. Because Virginia was the largest and wealthiest state its vote in favor of ratification was, arguably, one of the most important decisions in U.S. history.

From there we walked up the hill for a late-in-the-day stop at the “new” state capitol (the Jefferson-designed building opened in 1788) where we lucked into an outstanding, personal tour from the tour supervisor.

It would be a significant understatement to say that Virginia is a state of great substance with a long, complex history. So “really getting to know” Virginia would take a lot more time than we had to give it. I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface. But we do feel like we got a good primer, particularly on the 18^th and early 19^th Centuries and got a pretty good feel for the Charlottesville, Richmond and tidewater areas.

Richmond in particular is a place we’ve each visited sporadically over the years and it’s kind of grown on us a bit.