FROM FIELD TO KITCHEN

In the 17th and 18th centuries, herbs like rosemary, mint and lemon balm had culinary and medicinal value.  Visit the herb gardens at Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center, and discover the variety of herbs and their many uses.

Crops grown by the Powhatan Indians – corn, beans and squash – were adopted by European colonists, who also brought plants such as radishes, cucumbers, lettuce and cabbage to the New World.  Visitors can see these crops under cultivation seasonally at Jamestown Settlement’s re-created Powhatan village and colonial fort.

Farming was a way of life for the majority of Virginians at the time of the Revolution.  Most Tidewater Virginia farmers grew tobacco and corn for cash.  They also grew corn for food and animal fodder, and flax and cotton for cloth.  In addition to cultivating these crops, historical interpreters at the Yorktown Victory Center’s re-created 1780s farm grow several dozen varieties of vegetables and herbs.

Take a culinary tour of the re-created Powhatan Indian village at Jamestown Settlement.  Learn how the 17th-century Powhatan Indians relied on cultivated crops, wild plants, fish and game for their meals.  Visitors often encounter the aroma of baking pies and bread and simmering stews at the Yorktown Victory Center’s 1780s farm kitchen and on special occasions at Jamestown Settlement’s re-created colonial fort.  The techniques of open-hearth cooking are demonstrated at both museums.  An earthen “kitchen” for a company of soldiers is one of the features of the Yorktown Victory Center encampment.

RE-CREATING THE PAST

The objects used in the museums’ living-history programs – clothing, tools, furnishings and buildings – are crafted with painstaking attention to historical accuracy.  Journalists can arrange a behind-the-scenes visit to the costume shop, where doublets, breeches, cassocks, bodices, petticoats, coifs, leggings and mantles are custom-made of linen, wool and leather, or talk with museum carpenters who design, construct and repair buildings at Jamestown Settlement’s re-created fort and Powhatan Indian village and the Yorktown Victory Center’s 1780s farm.  Skilled work performed regularly and periodically in the living-history areas – blacksmithing, sail repair, carpentry, needlework, flint-knapping and basket- and pottery-making – provides visitors an opportunity to learn about pre-industrial technology and produces many of the objects used in re-creating authentic early 17th- and late-18th-century settings.     

FROM MANY CULTURES, A UNIQUE NATION

People from diverse social and economic backgrounds shaped the character of the United States.  Jamestown Settlement gallery exhibits delve into the “parent” cultures of 17th-century Virginia and explore the convergence of Powhatan Indian, English and west central African peoples.  Cultural interaction is interpreted at the museum’s outdoor living-history areas.

The Yorktown Victory Center’s Witnesses to Revolution Gallery provides firsthand narratives of the impact of the American Revolution on enslaved African Americans, American Indians and people of European ancestry.  Exhibits also detail the alliance with France that was critical to American victory and portray the diversity of people and nationalities involved in the decisive military encounter at Yorktown in 1781.  The “Legacy of Yorktown: Virginia Beckons” exhibition examines how people from many different cultures, those in Virginia before the 1607 founding of Jamestown and those who arrived later, formed a new society.

COMMEMORATING AMERICA’S BEGINNINGS

In 1957 Jamestown Settlement opened as a setting for the 350th anniversary of the founding in Virginia of America’s first permanent English colony.  The museum developed new facilities, exhibits and programs in time for the 400th anniversary in 2007 of this seminal event in American history.  Expansive exhibition galleries, an introductory film and revitalized living-history areas present the story of 17th-century Virginia and its Powhatan Indian, English and west central African cultural origins, drawing on a wealth of historical information revealed by late 20th- and early 21st-century archaeological and documentary research.  Jamestown Settlement continues to commemorate the anniversary of Jamestown’s founding with an annual event in May. 

Just 20 miles away from where Jamestown was established in 1607, the outcome of the American Revolution was determined at the 1781 Siege of Yorktown.  The Yorktown Victory Center, founded in 1976 in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence, holds a “Liberty Celebration” event every July and participates in an annual townwide celebration in October of the momentous American victory at Yorktown five years after the Declaration was adopted.

ARTIFACTS ENRICH MUSEUM EXPERIENCE

The Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s collection of objects, mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, has been developed to support exhibit themes at Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center.  The Jamestown Settlement galleries provide a setting for one of the most varied collections relating to the nation’s beginnings in 17th-century Virginia.  Non-archaeological items, mostly from Europe and Africa, include ceremonial and decorative objects, portraits, maps, books, engravings, furniture, ceramics, glassware, cookware, navigational instruments, apparel, toys, tools, and weapons and military accouterments.  Archaeological items from Virginia Indian and 17th-century English colonial sites also are among the more than 500 artifacts exhibited in the galleries.  Maps, military equipment, engravings, documents including a Declaration of Independence broadside printed in July 1776, furnishings and personal effects exhibited at the Yorktown Victory Center – including artifacts from the British troop ship Betsy, one of many vessels lost or scuttled in the York River during the 1781 Siege of Yorktown – are representative of the American Revolution and the development of the new nation.
                   

WOMEN OF NOTE

Gallery exhibits at Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center present the fascinating stories of women who made a difference in the 17th and 18th centuries:  Cesellye Sherley West, Lady de la Warr, one of a few women investors in the joint-stock company that founded America’s first permanent English colony; Pocahontas, the legendary Powhatan Indian chief’s daughter who befriended the colonists at Jamestown; Queen Njinga, ruler from 1624 to 1663 of the kingdom of Ndongo in Angola, homeland of the first documented Africans in Virginia; Mary Johnson, who arrived in Virginia from Africa in the early 1620s as a servant or slave and with her husband Anthony became a free person and landowner by the mid-1600s; Mary Jemison, captured and adopted by the Seneca tribe, who survived difficult times on the frontier during the American Revolution; Frances Bland Tucker, who operated a plantation in her husband’s absence during the Revolution; and Sarah Osborn Benjamin, who traveled with her Continental Army soldier husband and cooked, mended and washed for the troops at Yorktown.

At Jamestown Settlement’s re-created Powhatan Indian village and colonial fort, compare the status and work roles of English and Powhatan Indian women in the early 17th century.  At the Yorktown Victory Center’s re-created Continental Army encampment, learn about women who accompanied their husbands and earned wages by performing domestic chores, and at the 1780s farm, the important role of women in operating a family business.      

OFF-SEASON TRAVEL

Winter can be a wonderful time to experience Virginia’s Historic Triangle.  The weather is often mild, and many attractions remain open.  Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center are open year-round except Christmas and New Year’s days, and offer holiday theme programs in December. “From Africa to Virginia” is the theme of interpretive programs in February.

VALUE VACATIONS

There’s something for every family member to love in a variety of options for exploring the Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown area.  The History is Fun! combination ticket for Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory offers a 20 percent savings over individual admission and is good for seven days of unlimited admission when purchased online.  The “America’s Historic Triangle” ticket features the two museums plus Historic Jamestowne, Colonial Williamsburg’s Revolutionary City and Art Museums and Yorktown Battlefield.  The summertime Williamsburg Flex ticket adds Busch Gardens® and Water Country USA®.  All of the tickets are available in packages with lodging.

HISTORICAL SHOPPING

The Williamsburg area is known for unique and varied shopping opportunities, among them museum stores.  The gift shops at Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center complement and extend the museum experience with a comprehensive selection of books, prints, artifact reproductions, educational toys and games, jewelry and mementos.  Take a look at www.shophistoryisfun.com.

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For more information about any of these subjects, contact Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation Media Relations at 757-253-4175 (deborah.padgett@jyf.virginia.gov), 757-253-4114 (tracy.perkins@jyf.virginia.gov) or 757-253-4138 (susan.bak@jyf.virginia.gov).       

1/2013