Page 28 [28]
OCR
GARDENS OF WILLIAMSBURG o* Ph ath VEN the most skeptical person must admit that the oY BT narrow strip of land lying between the James and ®| the York rivers is America’s richest historical AY i] possession. Here are the tombs of those who risked their lives to build a nation. Here are old churches and courthouses standing as they stood in days long past and gone. This is the spot where Bacon planned his disastrous rebellion, and here is the college where Jetterson and Marshall first gained fame. Here, too, is the site of the famous Raleigh Tavern, where Jefferson danced with ‘Fair Belinda,” and the Apollo, where many jovial feasts were held among the great men of the Colony. The situation of Williamsburg, upon a ridge midway between the two rivers, was wisely chosen, and gave rise to the first name, "Middle Plantation." The town was impaled by Sir John Hervey, Governor of Virginia in 1632, and in 1699 succeeded Jamestown as the capital of Virginia. Architecturally, the little city is white and rambling and dormer-windowed, and wandering dreamily through these aisles of history one revels in the romantic houses, the oldest all being built along the same lines, in accordance with a law which considered the number of stories in its taxation. Williamsburg the quaint—so the old town has been called for years—is truly a place of many memories. On some of its streets there still stand aged trees that shaded Washington and Cornwallis, and about some of the houses the latter-day gardens are reminiscent of the time of the English Georges. One is prone to dream at the whispered name of Williamsburg, for it belongs to the picturesque Virginia of yesterday—the Virginia of feudal life and gallant living, of adventurous men and Watteau-like women; [19]
