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THE MAGAZINE OF COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG

CELEBRATING the 250TH

GOOGLING HISTORY

ON SACRED GROUND

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YEARS of HISTORY

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A Century in the Making: An Exhibition Celebrating Colonial Williamsburg’s First 100 Years In 2026, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation celebrates its one hundredth anniversary. A new exhibition, Colonial Williamsburg: The First 100 Years, explores the origins and evolution of the world’s largest U.S. history museum. Visitors to the exhibition can follow this fascinating story through the decades, discovering the people, events, and progress that has advanced Colonial Williamsburg to where we are today. It is as true today as it was in 1926 – “That the Future May Learn from the Past.” This exhibition, made possible through the generosity of Don and Elain Bogus, is on view in the Henry H. Weldon Gallery.

“Bodleian Plate,” possibly commissioned by William Byrd II, London, England, ca. 1740, copper. Gift of the Bodleian Library, 1938-196.

Visit the exhibition “Colonial Williamsburg: The First 100 Years” – Now Open OPEN DAILY

Enjoy free admission to the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg—open daily to the public.

@ArtMuseumsofCWF

301 S. Nassau St., Williamsburg, VA 23185

AUTUMN 2026

Table of Contents

BUILDING ON A FOUNDATION

ON THE WEB

IN REMEMBRANCE:

THE MAGAZINE OF COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG

GORDON S. WOOD

Examine the early days of the Foundation By Paul Aron 20

AUTUMN 2026

AUTUMN 2026 VOLUME 11 • NUMBER 4

A MILESTONE MEETING

The Virginia General Assembly gathers in Williamsburg

About Town 10

IN RETROSPECT

‘AMERICA, WELCOME HOME’

AT THE MUSEUMS

Relive Williamsburg’s Fourth of July celebration

FRAMING HISTORY

A CENTURY TO CELEBRATE

Colonial Williamsburg turns 100

Construction begins at the African Baptist Meeting House By Paul Aron

ON THE COVER: Celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation can only be done by recognizing the many people who have contributed to its success and longevity. PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

T HIS PAG E A ND O P P O SI T E : BR I A N NE W S O N

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION TRUSTEES Conrad Mercer Hall, Chair, Norfolk, Va. Carly Fiorina, CEO, Mason Neck, Va. Kendrick F. Ashton Jr., Arlington, Va. Frank Batten Jr., Norfolk, Va. Geoff Bennett, Fairfax, Va. Catharine Broderick, Lake Wales, Fla. William Casperson, Scottsdale, Ariz. Mark A. Coblitz, Wayne, Pa. Ted Decker, Atlanta, Ga. Walter B. Edgar, Columbia, S.C. Neil M. Gorsuch, Washington, D.C. Joseph P. Gromacki, Chicago, Ill. Antonia Hernandez, Pasadena, Calif. Walfrido J. Martinez, New York, N.Y. Leslie A. Miller, Philadelphia, Pa. Steven L. Miller, Houston, Texas Joseph W. Montgomery, Williamsburg, Va. Steve Netzley, Carlsbad, Calif. Wendy O’Neill, Longboat Key, Fla. Walter S. Robertson III, Richmond, Va. Gerald L. Shaheen, Scottsdale, Ariz. Larry W. Sonsini, Palo Alto, Calif. Sheldon M. Stone, Los Angeles, Calif. Y. Ping Sun, Houston, Texas Hon. John Charles Thomas, Richmond, Va. Graves Tompkins, New York, N.Y. Jeffrey B. Trammell, Washington, D.C. Alex Wallace, New York, N.Y.

26 A signature build

GOOGLING HISTORY

Williamsburg partners with Google Arts & Culture 34

MAGAZINE MAKEOVER

The Williamsburg Magazine gets a new 18th-century look By Paul Aron 38

PHILANTHROPY AT WORK

Digging into the Peter Scott site By Emily MacIntosh 43

CHAIRS EMERITI

MODERN HISTORY

Thurston R. Moore, Richmond, Va. Richard G. Tilghman, Richmond, Va. Henry C. Wolf, Williamsburg, Va.

Live & Learn

TREND & TRADITION

HUNTING FOR HUNTING SHIRTS

A search for the ‘Emblem of the Revolution’ leads to Germany By Neal Hurst 56

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

How a petition from Prince Edward County led to broader religious freedom By Brent Tarter 63

BOOKS

GARDEN-TO-TABLE: CORN

By Angela Taormina 70

DECLARATION SIGNERS

A look at what Benjamin Harrison and Carter Braxton brought to the declaration By Paul Aron

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Catherine Whittenburg CREATIVE DIRECTOR

EDITORIAL MANAGER

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Katie Roy

Pete Van Vleet

Ashley Mingus

DESIGNERS

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Katherine Jordan Lauren Metzger

Paul Aron, Ronald L. Hurst, Eve Otmar, Rachel West

PUBLICATIONS COORDINATOR

PHOTOGRAPHER

COPY EDITORS

Brian Newson

Christopher Calnan, Amy Watson, Melanie Wynne

Grenda Greene

MEDIA COLLECTIONS

Tracey Gulden, Jenna Simpson, Brendan Sostak RESEARCH

Erin Lopater, Marianne Martin, Douglas Mayo DONORS Please address all donor correspondence, address changes and requests for our current financial statement to: Signe Foerster, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, P.O. Box 1776, Williamsburg, VA 23187-1776 or email sfoerster@cwf.org, telephone 888-293-1776. Donations support the programs and preservation efforts of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a not-for-profit, tax-exempt corporation organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, with principal offices in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Address changes & subscription questions: gifts@cwf.org or 888-293-1776 Editorial inquiries: editor@cwf.org Advertising: magazineadsales@cwf.org

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PUZZLES AND PRIZE

Trend & Tradition: The Magazine of Colonial Williamsburg (ISSN 2470-198X) is published quarterly in winter, spring, summer and autumn by the not-for-profit Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 301 First Street, Williamsburg, VA 23185. A one-year subscription is available to Foundation donors of $50 a year or more, of which $14 is reserved for a subscription. Periodical postage paid at Williamsburg, VA, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Trend & Tradition: The Magazine of Colonial Williamsburg, Attn: Signe Foerster, P.O. Box 1776, Williamsburg, VA 23187-1776. © 2026 The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. All rights reserved.

PARTING SHOT

NOTE Advertising in Trend & Tradition does not imply endorsement of products or services by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Building on a Foundation

American, Welcome Home

Semiquincentennial sparks a new season of civic renewal

America’s semiquincentennial has long been a guiding star for this Foundation. With the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence coinciding this historic year with Colonial Williamsburg’s own centennial, we have been working toward these milestones for some time: building and preserving, teaching and researching, convening and introducing millions to the power of this remarkable place. So that on July 4, we would be ready to lead the nation in commemorating the dawn of American independence. And when that day arrived at last, we truly made history. This year’s celebration — a partnership with the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission (VA250) — was our largest July 4 on record and by far our most spectacular. More than 70,000 people poured into the Historic Area while 5 million watched the live PBS broadcast of America: Made in Virginia, the star-studded show VA250 held that evening in Market Square. You can read more about this one-of-a-kind event on Page 10, from the phenomenal performances of musical legends Judy Collins and Michael Feinstein to those of our Nation Builders and the Fifes & Drums. This educational, entertaining and thoroughly inspiring evening closed with our largest fireworks display ever, complete with a special drone show. But we never envisioned July 4 as a finish line. To the contrary, it marked an audacious beginning, just as it did 250 years ago. In 1776, the adoption of our Declaration of Independence was the prologue to five years of war and sacrifice, culminating in the Battle of Yorktown. After a hard-won victory in battle, of course, came the harder work of self-governing. In 1787, following months of ferocious debate, Americans enshrined our founding principles in the U.S. Constitution, our enduring framework for self-government. It is this extraordinary founding chapter — this decade-long arc of history from independence to constitutional democracy — that we honor as the U.S. semiquincentennial continues to unfold. We have always been a fractious, noisy nation. But for many, America feels more fragmented than ever. History and civics education have waned and with it our collective

understanding of who we are and where we come from. At the same time, it has become too easy to disengage from civic life and retreat into our respective comfort zones and echo chambers. But on July 4, we saw how the power of our shared history unites us, allowing us to transcend our differences. We cannot let this moment pass. For 250 years, our nation has thrived on the commitment of its people to the founding principles we continue to hold so dear. Now it is our turn to recommit ourselves to those principles, to the promise of our country and to the precious responsibilities that come with the privilege of calling ourselves Americans. Once again, July 4 is the starting gun — and Williamsburg will once again lead the way. This next decade at the Foundation will be one of engagement, education and inspiration, launching a new season of civic renewal. In so doing, we will energize the never-ending work begun right here, in this crucible city of revolutionary thought and principle, to build a more perfect union. It is a cause that begins here, in Williamsburg, and for that reason we have summarized it in three words: America, welcome home. Williamsburg is a beloved touchstone, but it is much more than that. It is the original crucible city, the place where our forebears debated and developed the very concepts and principles that define our nation today. It does not matter where you have been or where you are going, how you started or what you look like, whether your ancestry reaches back to the first Americans or you became a citizen this morning. If you believe in individual liberty and equality before God; if you believe each of us has the right to dream our dreams and the duty to work to make them real; if you believe we all can and must do our part to form a more perfect union — then this is where you come from. It was here, in the capital city of the largest and most prosperous of the American colonies, that our forebears debated and argued over liberty, power, faith, loyalty and independence. Colonists divided over religion, politics, class, slavery and the treatment of Indigenous people.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Building on a Foundation work and passed the mission from one generation to the Those who backed independence risked property, standing, livelihood and life against the world’s strongest empire. next. To all of you: Thank you. Your work is present in every building, artifact, lesson, conversation and moment of Enslaved people faced an agonizing choice: fight with the discovery here. British for an uncertain promise of freedom or beside their The centennial celebration over the weekend of enslavers for the radical claim that all are created equal. Native Americans faced their own existential crisis, defend- Nov. 14 will include a full day of free public programming in the Historic Area and, of course, fireworks! I hope you ing their ways of life while weighing which side of the war will join us for this once-in-a-century occaoffered the best hope of preserving them. sion — you are among our special friends The arguments, ambitions, contradictions and choices made here belong to all of who brought Colonial Williamsburg to this us. They are us. Men and women of every seminal moment, and we look forward to celcolor and creed, free and enslaved, native ebrating you. We will dedicate the next day, and immigrant, rich and poor, famous and Nov. 15, to our employees, volunteers, retirunknown sustained the American cause. ees and their families. For one afternoon, we Ours has always been a restless and toowill close the Historic Area to the public for often divided nation. Still, enough people this gathering, something we have never done have repeatedly found common cause. before. There would be no Colonial WilliamsSome of us today may worry that we have burg without the people who turned an ambiCarly Fiorina become too jaded, or too fractured, as a tious idea into an institution approaching its people. Do we still have what it takes to overcome our difsecond century, and we want to celebrate them, too. ferences in service of our country? I know that we do. But A centennial asks us to look back. But the best way to true love of country means knowing it completely. Nostalhonor the past is to practice what it teaches us. Colonial gia is not history. Propaganda is not history. Only the full Williamsburg’s founders did not simply preserve old buildstory lets us see ourselves and one another more clearly. ings. They built a place where Americans could encounter As this issue of Trend & Tradition reaches you, we are the origins of their civic lives and consider their duties preparing our new strategic plan to present to our board in the present. Our job is to keep that idea useful for each of trustees. The plan treats the nation’s 250th annivernew generation. Colonial Williamsburg provides common sary and our own 100th as starting points, not concluground for all Americans: a place to examine the evidence, sions. We intend to carry the energy of 2026 into the years consider the context and engage in discussion without ahead, strengthening the Foundation and investing in insisting on easy agreement. Two hundred and fifty years future growth — adding to our scholarship and programago, we set aside doubt and division to choose self-government. Citizenship is a privilege, but it asks something of ming, reaching more people and cementing Colonial us in return. Williamsburg as a necessary place for learning and civic It is truly an honor to lead Colonial Williamsburg into participation. its second century. The work is not finished. It is only Renewal returns us to the mission that has guided this beginning. institution for a century: “That the future may learn from The Revolution is here. America, welcome home. the past.” We must invest in the people, places and daily practices that put those words to work. A century of experience should help us serve the next century with rigor, relSincerely, evance and a wider welcome. No institution reaches its 100th year alone. Colonial Williamsburg is here because generations of friends believed this place mattered. Donors, guests, scholars, educators, partners, trustees, employees, volunteers and neighbors have given time, talent, money and trust. They protected buildings and grounds, uncovered evidence, cared for colCarly Fiorina lections, interpreted lives, welcomed families, funded new CEO

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

On the Web

A Century in the Making Explore the history and hidden details of the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area

Dear Diary

Age-Old Delights

How historians use personal diaries to tell the greater story of history

Dive into 18th-century recipes and eat like a colonist

colonialwilliamsburg.org/diaries

colonialwilliamsburg.org/recipes

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

C L O C K WIS E F R O M B O T T O M L E F T: S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY; CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G FO UNDAT IO N; BR I A N NE W S O N

colonialwilliamsburg.org/ restoration

IN REMEMBR ANCE

DA R NE L L V E NNIE

Gordon S. Wood Gordon S. Wood, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian whose decades of dedicated service to Colonial Williamsburg’s mission were recognized with the Churchill Bell, one of the Foundation’s highest honors, died in June. He was 92. Wood served the Foundation in a variety of capacities, from his membership on the board of trustees from 1993 to 2005 to his stint in 2019 as a Revolutionary in Residence. His relationship with the Foundation began in 1964 when he received a fellowship to the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, which was cofounded by Colonial Williamsburg and William & Mary. “Gordon was a remarkably insightful trustee whose profound knowledge of our nation’s formative years repeatedly proved invaluable to our interpretive plans,” said Ron Hurst, the Foundation’s chief mission officer. “He was also a source of inspiration. Twenty years ago, I expressed to him my concern about the divided state of the nation. ‘The atmosphere around the election of 1800 was far worse than this,’ he said. ‘We got through that and we’ll get through this. Resiliency is in our DNA. Bank on it!’ And, of course, he was right.” Wood taught at Harvard University, the University of Michigan and then Brown University, where he

remained for the rest of his teaching career. Wood won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1993 for The Radicalism of the American Revolution, which one reviewer described as an attempt to rescue the Revolution from “interpretations that would water down its genuine radicalism by understanding it as either the transactions of a few gentlemen political philosophers or a failed class struggle.” Other books include The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, which won the Bancroft Prize and the AHA Prize in American History, then called the John H. Dunning Prize, and The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, which won the Julia Ward Howe Book Award. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Wood a National Humanities Medal. That same year, Colonial Williamsburg presented him with the Churchill Bell. “Dr. Wood’s integrity and his fidelity to factual research and historical truth were deeply aligned with Colonial Williamsburg’s educational mission,” Foundation CEO Carly Fiorina said. “His absence has been profoundly felt across the field of history and the nation and at this Foundation. We are grateful for his years of service and wise counsel and extend our deepest sympathies to his wife, Louise, and their family.”

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A historic celebration

L AY NE C H A P P E L L

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

‘America, Welcome Home’ Record crowds fill the Historic Area on July 4, as Williamsburg unites the nation

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

About Town

illiamsburg captivated the nation this Fourth of July as 70,000 people — the largest crowd ever — filled the Historic Area to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial anniversary, and millions more watched the PBS broadcast of America Made in Virginia: 250 Years Together, live from Market Square. “True to our mission, this collective effort resulted in an uplifting celebration of our story and its origins right here in

Williamsburg,” Carly Fiorina, the Foundation’s CEO and the national honorary chair of the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission (VA250), said after the event. “It also reinforced that when history is presented with honesty and humanity, it can be a positive and unifying experience. This is, of course, what Colonial Williamsburg does best. Here in Williamsburg, at a time when more civic dialogue and shared understanding are urgently needed, we helped bring the nation together through the power of history.” America Made in Virginia: 250 Years Together represented a collaboration between VA250 and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in association with PBS. The General Assembly established VA250 in 2020 to commemorate the anniversary of the American Revolution, and the production was the centerpiece of the yearlong commemoration. The star-filled show featured multiplatinum recording artist and Tony Award winner Michael Feinstein; threetime Grammy Award-winning opera bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green; Tony winner Kelli O’Hara; Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award winner Adrienne Warren; and legendary Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Judy Collins, who launched her farewell tour at the event. Emmy Award-winning actor Richard Thomas narrated the PBS show, which also included a greeting from filmmaker Ken Burns. Chief Stephen Adkins of the Chickahominy Indian Tribe offered a prayer of peace, and the Hon. John Charles Thomas, the first Black justice to serve on the Supreme Court of Virginia and a Foundation trustee, shared an original poem about America’s ongoing quest to expand freedom.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

T O P : A NDR E W WO O D S; B O T T O M: BR E NDA N S O S TA K

FOURTH OF JULY

T O P : BR I A N NE W S O N; T O P R IG H T A ND MIDDL E : BR E NDA N S O S TA K ; B O T T O M: BR I A N NE W S O N

Some of Colonial Williamsburg’s own stars also appeared on the broadcast. Nation Builders portraying Thomas Jefferson, Martha Washington, James Lafayette and others spoke of their characters’ achievements. “I made history,” was their refrain, after which each asked: “How will you?” The day’s programming began with Jefferson’s reading of the Declaration of Independence from the Capitol balcony, an annual tradition that this year attracted a record 30,000 people. The events culminated with the largest-ever fireworks display in Williamsburg — more than 3,000 shells — and a thrilling drone show. During the live performance, Fiorina addressed the audience both at Market Square and watching around the nation. She urged them to work together to form a more perfect union. She reminded the audience that it was in Williamsburg that the ideas of liberty and equality were nurtured, as was the belief that everyone has the right to work to make their dreams come true. “America,” Fiorina concluded, “welcome home." America Made in Virginia: 250 Years Together can be seen at colonialwilliamsburg.org/pbs

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Check out the highlights from July Fourth at colonialwilliamsburg.org/july4

10 CELEBRATING

YEARS

DELIVERING HISTORY since 2016

Trend & Tradition tells the stories of early America and this special place that honors our nation’s beginnings. It’s our way of saying thank you for a donation of $50 or more supporting The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Go to colonialwilliamsburg.org/give

DONATE TO SUBSCRIBE

About Town 100TH ANNIVERSARY

100

Y E A R S

o f

his year marks not only the 250th anniversary of America but the 100th anniversary of Colonial Williamsburg. Over the past century, the Foundation’s historians, architectural historians, archaeologists, curators, conservators and even moviemakers have transformed their fields, influencing their peers well beyond Williamsburg. In that time, Colonial Williamsburg’s presentations of history have taken various forms, including first-person and third-person offerings, scripted and improvisational street theater, and broadcast and digital programs. They have come to include not just the famous Founders but lesserknown figures, including enslaved and free Black people, Indigenous Americans, and women, all of whom built this nation. In short, Colonial Williamsburg has played a major role in shaping how Americans understand the history of the Revolution. And that all began in 1926. To publicly commemorate this centennial, the Foundation will host a procession down Duke of Gloucester Street and a ceremony

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

HIS T ORY

on the Courthouse steps on the afternoon of Saturday, Nov. 14. The event will feature the Fifes & Drums, Nation Builders, guest speakers and an address by Colonial Williamsburg CEO Carly Fiorina. Other centennial-related events include Letters From the Archives, a limited series of special evening programs in the Hennage Auditorium at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. They will explore the story of Williamsburg from the 18th century to today through live readings of historical documents and selected correspondence culled from the collections of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. The programs will feature a cast of current and former Colonial Williamsburg actors, interpreters and other special guests. Also included is an after-hours opportunity to view the current exhibition at the Art Museums — Colonial Williamsburg: The First 100 Years. Letters From the Archives runs on Oct. 9, 16, 23 and 30 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20.

C R E DI T T K

John D. Rockefeller Jr. (left) provided the funds to turn W. A. R. Goodwin’s dream of restoring Williamsburg into reality.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

The Beginnings Colonial Williamsburg began 100 years ago

O P P O SI T E : S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY

PAUL ARON

xactly when the Rev. Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin dreamed up the idea of restoring Williamsburg to its colonial elegance is unclear. Goodwin himself admitted it was difficult to pinpoint a single moment. What was clear was that to transform his dream into reality, Goodwin needed money — a lot more money than a rector at Bruton Parish Church earned. Among the wealthy potential patrons he pursued was Henry Ford. Goodwin approached Ford through a letter to his son, Edsel. In June 1924, Goodwin explained that Williamsburg had been the capital of Virginia at a time when the colony’s borders had extended as far west as the land on which Ford’s factory was now located and that it was the only remaining colonial town that could still be saved.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Then followed a remarkably blunt passage: “Unfortunately you and your father are at present the chief contributors to the destruction of this city,” Goodwin wrote. “Garages and gas tanks are fast spoiling the whole appearance of the old streets and the old city, and most of the cars which stop at the garages and gas tanks are Ford Cars!” Henry Ford’s office sent a short reply saying he was not interested. Fortunately for the restoration of Williamsburg, Goodwin was also courting John D. Rockefeller Jr. Goodwin first met Rockefeller in February 1924 in New York when Goodwin, who at that time was fundraising for William & Mary, addressed a committee raising funds for a Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) memorial hall in Williamsburg. Rockefeller, who chaired that committee, was a member of PBK, which had been founded by William &

About Town

(Above) Pre-restoration photos of Williamsburg include one from 1928 (top) and one from 1927 (bottom right). Goodwin (bottom left) lived to see more than 150 buildings restored or reconstructed.

Mary students in 1776. In his discussions with Rockefeller about the hall, Goodwin invited him to visit Williamsburg. Rockefeller took up the offer in March 1926, accompanied by his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and three of their sons. The main purpose of Rockefeller’s March trip was to visit Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, a college for African Americans to which Rockefeller had long contributed. Now Hampton University, the school is about 30 miles from Williamsburg. When the Rockefellers arrived in town, Goodwin gave them a tour. During the visit, Rockefeller asked whether there was any plan to preserve the town’s colonial buildings. Sensing the timing was not right and exhibiting remarkable restraint, Goodwin did not then ask Rockefeller for money. “I found it exceedingly hard at the time not to burst forth in the presence of Mr. Rockefeller into unfolding my cherished dream,” Goodwin later wrote. On Nov. 27, Rockefeller returned to Williamsburg for the dedication of Phi Beta Kappa Hall, and he and Goodwin again toured the town. This time Goodwin revealed his dream of restoring the colonial capital. Rockefeller was intrigued. He agreed to pay for an architect to make some sketches. Ever cautious, Rockefeller made clear that was the extent of his commitment, but two days later he wrote Goodwin asking for more details about colonial properties and what it might cost to buy them. Goodwin must have been especially thrilled to read that Rockefeller felt that “the acquisition of isolated houses ... could not be of the largest value” and that Rockefeller would only be interested if “some complete thing could be done.” Just a few days later, on Dec. 7, Rockefeller authorized Goodwin to buy a house

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY

100TH ANNIVERSARY

P HI BE TA K A P PA ME M O R I A L H A L L , S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS R E S E A R C H C E N T E R , WIL L I A M & M A RY L IBR A R IE S

built in 1752-53 for Philip Ludwell and later lived in by one of his daughters, Lucy Ludwell Paradise. The house, which came to be called the Ludwell-Paradise House, was the first property purchased as part of Williamsburg’s restoration. Rockefeller originally estimated the project would cost about $5 million. He would eventually spend about $68 million of his own money on Williamsburg, and other family members would contribute about $25 million more. Rockefeller once jokingly referred to his tours of the town with Goodwin: “I’d heard of people being taken for a ride. Dr. Goodwin took me for a walk!” What motivated Rockefeller to give millions to restore Williamsburg? Cynical historians have attributed Rockefeller’s philanthropy, in Williamsburg and elsewhere, to a desire to improve the robber-baron image of his father. John D. Rockefeller Jr. unlike Henry Ford, had mixed feelings about his family’s role in the Industrial Revoluton. Williamsburg offered Rockefeller a chance to escape from the stresses of industry to what seemed a simpler and more peaceful world. Rockefeller was also genuinely interested in architecture, and he enjoyed studying the plans for Rockefeller Center in New York as well as for Williamsburg. He immersed himself in the details of both. At one point, when researchers learned that a partly reconstructed house was 6 feet from its 18th-century location, Rockefeller insisted it be moved regardless of the cost. He told his advisor and biographer Raymond Fosdick, “No scholar must ever be able to come to us and say we have made a mistake."

A new Phi Beta Kappa hall opened in the spring of 1956 after a fire destroyed the auditorium of the previous building.

Phi Beta Kappa: The Beginning

The histories of Colonial Williamsburg and Phi Beta Kappa were intertwined long before the Rev. Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin met John D. Rockefeller Jr. at a 1924 fundraiser for a Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) hall on the William & Mary campus. According to PBK’s website, the first meeting of PBK, on Dec. 5, 1776, took place in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern. Not all historians agree about that. Richard N. Current, in his history of the society, argued that a secret society — as PBK originally was — was likely to meet in some room at William & Mary rather than at a place as public as the Raleigh. But Current may not have appreciated that 18th-century taverns were often venues for private dinners, balls and receptions. Whatever the exact location of the first meeting, there is no doubt it took place in Williamsburg. Two hundred fifty years later, PBK is one of the nation’s most prestigious

Adapted from That the Future May Learn From the Past: The First 100 Years of Colonial Williamsburg, available at shop. colonialwilliamsburg.com.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

academic honor societies with chapters at nearly 300 colleges and universities.

A Milestone Meeting General Assembly gathers in Williamsburg to mark 250th anniversary

WHEREAS, on October 7, 1776, the First Virginia General Assembly met in regular session following independence, marking a defining

moment in the transition from colonial governance to constitutional self-government; and WHEREAS, the proceedings of that historic Assembly laid the foundation for Virginia’s enduring constitutional framework and its continued leadership among the several states; … ... now, therefore be it

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

BR I A N NE W S O N

he Virginia General Assembly will mark its 250th anniversary by returning to the Williamsburg Capitol, the site of its first session after independence. This past February, state legislators passed a resolution that reads in part:

About Town 100TH ANNIVERSARY

RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the Joint Rules Committee be directed to develop plans for a special commemorative session or event involving the members of the General Assembly to be held in Williamsburg on October 7, 2026.

CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G FO UNDAT IO N

The 1776 Session

The House of Delegates that met in Williamsburg in October 1776 was composed of most of the same men who had met at the Fifth Virginia Convention in the spring to set the course of independence. But, historian John Selby wrote, “There was a new spirit, an excitement and ebullience that quickened pulses, for independence presented opportunities that British rule had barred before.” So eager was Thomas Jefferson to influence the first General Assembly’s debates that he turned down an offer to serve as an ambassador to France and instead stayed in Williamsburg. The more conservative delegates, like Edmund Pendleton, Robert Carter Nicholas and Carter Braxton, planned to simply eliminate the vestiges of monarchy without fundamentally changing the way Virginia was governed. Jefferson, however, had a broader vision and wanted to eliminate the privileges of special interest groups, including leading families, land speculators and the established church. “When I left Congress in 76,” he later wrote, “it was in the persuasion that our whole code must be reviewed, adapted to our republican form of government, and, now that we had no negatives of Councils, Governors & Kings to restrain us from doing right, that it should be corrected, in all it’s parts, with a single eye to reason, & the good of those for whose government it was framed.”

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Jefferson was successful on some fronts. The first assembly repealed the entailing of estates, an ancient tradition that required large landowners to pass their property to a single heir. Jefferson himself had benefited from this system. Other proposals introduced in that first session took longer to enact. Religious dissenters from across Virginia, for example, petitioned the assembly for relief, but that relief came incrementally over several years. In 1786 a statute for religious liberty, penned by Jefferson, became law. Of all of Jefferson’s proposals, the least successful was his call to free and then deport enslaved people born after a certain date. Decades later, Jefferson wrote, “It was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day.”

The 1934 Session

This fall’s special session is not the first to be held in Williamsburg since the capital moved to Richmond. In 1934, the year the reconstructed Capitol opened to the public, the Virginia legislature held a special session in Williamsburg. The assembly made John D. Rockefeller Jr. an honorary citizen of

John D. Rockefeller Jr. addressed a special season of the Virginia General Assembly on Feb. 24, 1934, at the Capitol in Williamsburg.

“Here plans were laid and actions taken of untold moment.”

Silversmiths Fashion New Mace

Maces were traditional symbols of civic, institutional and religious power. In the Capitol during the colonial era, a mace symbolized royal power. After the Revolution, Virginia’s legislators, having rejected royal authority, sold the elaborate staff. Colonial Williamsburg silversmiths are now creating a mace to stand in its stead. “As a large and magnificently crafted piece of silver, the mace made for Virginia’s House of Burgesses would have been one of the most striking objects present in 18th-century Williamsburg,” said Erik Goldstein, the Foundation’s senior curator of mechanical arts, metals and numismatics. Creating such an incredibly elaborate piece is no easy task. In preparation, Colonial Williamsburg’s silversmiths studied existing 18th-century maces, including one in Norfolk and one in South Carolina. The South Carolina mace has been especially useful since it has many of the same elements that the one from the Capitol likely had. Curators and silversmiths also studied the reconstructed 1749-1750 mace of the City of Williamsburg, which is owned by the Foundation and on exhibit in Wolf Hall, just inside the front door of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. That mace, though, had undergone significant change in the 19th century. The project is an ambitious and an appropriate one for Colonial Williamsburg. “The mace represented colonial power, but it can also be a symbol of what we have done with that power as an independent commonwealth and what we do with it now,” Journeyman Silversmith Chris Strum said. Other silversmiths working on the new mace are Master George Cloyed, Apprentice Megan Cantwell, Journeyman Preston Jones and Supervisor Journeyman Bobbie Saye. Also contributing are Master Engraver Lynn Zelesnikar and foundrymen Drew Godzik and Andrew Prochnow.

the commonwealth and invited him to address the legislature. Rockefeller noted that he was both a host, as the Restoration’s benefactor, and a guest of the assembly. “As host,” he said, “I am the silent partner and at the same time, anomalous as it may seem, the spokesman of a large number of people; of Dr. Goodwin, who ‘dreamed dreams and saw visions,’ without which restored Williamsburg and this gathering in the reconstructed Capitol of earlier days would not have been possible; of my personal associates who have worked with Dr. Goodwin in developing and making real his dream; of the Committee of Advisors composed of eminent architects, historians and others who have given unsparingly of their time to the consideration of the major problems of the restoration; of the architects, the builders, their able and efficient staffs, and the workers of every description — all of whom each in his own sphere have been essential to the carrying out of this undertaking. In the name of this goodly company of my associates and coadjutors I bid you welcome to restored Williamsburg and its reconstructed Capitol. May I venture to associate myself with you in welcoming also to restored Williamsburg the people of the nation.” Rockefeller spoke of how the reconstructed Capitol moved him and others: “For here ... sat nearly every great Virginian of the 18th century; here were spoken words that will never die; here plans were laid and actions taken of untold moment in the building of this nation.”

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BR E NDA N S O S TA K

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

About Town AT THE MUSEUMS

Decoding Art Accession numbers provide hidden details PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASON COPES

CURRENTLY OPEN

Colonial Williamsburg: The First 100 Years Henry H. Weldon Gallery

Restoring Williamsburg James Boswell and Christopher Caracci Gallery

The exhibition Colonial Williamsburg: The First 100 Years examines the history of the Foundation as it has endeavored to tell the story of America’s founding. Numerous objects bring to light the origins and evolution of the world’s largest U.S. history museum. But the story is not confined to just one gallery. There is much more to explore. The first portrait that visitors see as they enter the museum is a case in point. A portrait of George Washington painted in 1780 by Charles Willson Peale was given to the Foundation by John D. Rockefeller Jr. He purchased it from Shirley Plantation in Charles City County, Va., where the portrait had hung since at least the early 19th century. In Williamsburg, the portrait was displayed in the House of Burgesses in the reconstructed Capitol until the 1980s when it was moved to the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. Notice that a label for each object in the museum provides the object name, maker, origin, materials and accession number. The accession number for the Washington painting, 1933-502, means the painting was the 502nd piece acquired in 1933. Thus, the item has been in the collection for 93 years. In the exhibition Restoring Williamsburg, a ceramic bust of Sir Walter Raleigh, object 1930-699, has a fascinating history related to

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the reconstruction of the Raleigh Tavern, Colonial Williamsburg’s first exhibition building. In 1787, English potter Josiah Wedgwood created black basalt busts of Raleigh. In 1930, none of these early pieces were known, but one of the original 18th-century molds was located. A new mold was made to cast a bust specifically for Colonial Williamsburg. To ensure it would not be mistaken for an original, the bust was clearly marked with the maker and the 1930 date. This bust along with lead fragments recovered archaeologically in Williamsburg served as the models for the modern lead bust that sat atop the pediment of the reconstructed Raleigh Tavern when it opened in 1932. The Governor’s Chair, 1930-215, made circa 1750 for the Capitol, was acquired by the Rev. Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin. It is in the June Stedman Hennage Gallery. A desk and bookcase, 2024202, made circa 1725, is the earliest known piece by Williamsburg cabinetmaker Peter Scott, given to the Foundation by the William & Mary Foundation. It can be found in the Nancy N. and Colin G. Campbell Gallery. There are many more pieces to explore, and Colonial Williamsburg’s online catalog offers additional information. Go to emuseum.colonialwilliamsburg.org and type in the accession number to learn more about each piece.

(Top left) The governor's chair features an uncommonly high seat, which was typical for a ceremonial chair meant for the highest government officials. After independence it was used as the chair for the Speaker of the Virginia Senate. (Above) This basalt bust of Sir Walter Raleigh was made in 1930 using a replica of the 18th-century mold that produced original busts of Raleigh.

About Town AT THE MUSEUMS

Just Arrived Countless social clubs existed in the 18th century, primarily catering to the wealthy and politically elite. Predecessors to today’s fraternal and charitable organizations, these societies were formed by gentlemen with common interests or a particular cause. Meetings provided a gathering space for members to socialize, network and conduct business. Of the many social clubs in early America, the Tuesday Club of Annapolis, Maryland, is arguably the most well-documented. Founded in 1745 by Dr. Alexander Hamilton (no relation to the American statesman), the Tuesday Club was a well-known social and literary society. Although it was only active for about a decade, the club hosted more than 150 “honorary members” and “strangers,” including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and the portraitist John Wollaston. More than 1,600 pages of humorous writings about the history and activities of the club survive,

providing rare insight into the lives of its members and guests. Original music, poems, mock trials, theatrical performances, eating, drinking and old-fashioned tomfoolery characterized the gatherings. In March 1749, Hamilton, who served as secretary, proposed specially designed gilt-silver medals as badges for the group’s members. Struck in London with a production run of less than two dozen pieces, the membership badges were distributed to regular members the following year. Today, they are widely considered the first truly American-instituted medals. Colonial Williamsburg’s recent acquisition is one of only two surviving silver-gilt examples. Its purchase was made possible by the Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections fund. Look for it in America’s Beginning Through Money and Medals, a forthcoming exhibition at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg.

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O P P O SI T E A ND T O P : BR I A N NE W S O N; B O T T O M: BR E NDA N S O S TA K

Framing History How do you reconstruct a building that was destroyed by a tornado in 1834 and for which there is virtually no documentary evidence? In the case of the first First Baptist Church, which is rising again on the African Baptist Meeting House site on Nassau Street, the process involved close collaboration among architectural historians, archaeologists, curators, historic tradespeople and eight area churches whose congregations include descendants of the original one. The church’s history dates to 1776 and a Black congregation led first by a preacher named Moses and then by Gowan Pamphlet. At first, congregants met in an arbor in the woods since the law prohibited gatherings of more than five enslaved people. Early in the 19th century, members of the church erected the building that was destroyed by the tornado. In the mid-19th century, they built a new building on the site.

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Raising the African Baptist Meeting House by PAUL ARON

Colonial Williamsburg bought the property in 1954 and tore down the church. The congregation built a new church on Scotland Street, just outside the Historic Area. It still exists as the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg. The original 19th-century church’s foundations were buried, until recently, under a parking lot in 1965. In July, community members joined Colonial Williamsburg staff in raising the first of four timber-framed walls for the new building. The Rev. Dr. Reginald Davis, pastor of the First Baptist Church, noted that they were standing on the very ground where the congregants’ ancestors gathered: “The earth held their story, the archaeologists uncovered their truth, and the builders shaped the timber. Everything is a testament to resilience.” As part of the frame-raising ceremony, the pastors of the First Baptist Church and its daughter and granddaughter

(Opposite) Colonial Williamsburg employees raise the frame of the meetinghouse in July. (Top) Community members participate in the frame-raising ceremony. (Above) Members of the descendant community signed bricks that were laid in the foundation.

About Town FRAMING HISTORY

nity members before Colonial Williamsburg’s brickmakers fired them. “This journey together has been a profound reminder that we are all connected to our past,” Colonial Williamsburg CEO Carly Fiorina said. “It is also a reminder to us that only by telling the full story of our past can disappointment and suspicion become empathy and collaboration.”

(Clockwise from top) The ground breaking took place in June. Members of the descendant churches sign the braces that were raised during the ceremony. Stones mark the grave sites at the burial ground behind the meetinghouse.

churches hammered pegs through the base of the frame, securing it to the foundation. Children from those churches and the wider community passed the pegs. The corner braces that support the frame, which were crafted by Historic Trades carpenters, had been signed by the various congregations’ members. And the bricks that pave the crawl space beneath the church had been signed by commu-

Community members first drew the Foundation’s attention to the site. As archaeologists prepared to investigate, they remained partners in the process. A prayer vigil in 2020 brought together faith and community leaders as well as descendants of the original congregation. One of the most telling examples of cooperation came in 2023 after burial plots were found at the site. Decisions about whether and how to examine the remains were made in collaboration with the modern congregations. Experts analyzed three sets of remains, but in general the condition of the bones was too poor to get as much information from them as had been hoped, and the community agreed with the recommendation of Jack Gary, then the Foundation’s director of archaeology, not to disturb additional burials. The community also found appropriate the archaeologists’ suggestion that the lives of the people buried there be commemorated with stones placed just as the graves were found. The Foundation commissioned 62 stones in three sizes, each inscribed with the word “adult,” “child,” or “infant.” “It’s really powerful to see the stones exactly as people were buried,” Gary said at the time. “This project is not a restoration, not a re-creation, not a memorial. It’s all those things.” Both the 2024 ceremony dedicating the burial markers and the groundbreaking ceremony a year later brought

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T O P A ND B O T T O M R IG H T: BR I A N NE W S O N; B O T T O M L E F T: BR E NDA N S O S TA K

Building Trust

“Everything is a testament to resilience.”

BR I A N NE W S O N

— Rev. Dr. Reginald Davis together Foundation officials and experts, clergy, and community members. Dana Tomlin, the Foundation’s vice president for community engagement and real estate, said that the 2024 ceremony “signaled that remembrance would precede reconstruction and that descendants would remain central to the project moving forward.” At the 2025 ground breaking, Tomlin described the day as “more than a groundbreaking, it’s a homecoming.”

for fastening clothing. They were found near the meetinghouse door. “One can almost see worshippers pausing at the entrance to straighten their attire, adjusting ribbons and adornments, and losing a few in the process,” Senior Archaeologist Meredith Poole said. “One can imagine someone sweeping the meetinghouse after worship ended, sending dislodged pins into the yard where they settled among the bricks.”

The Foundations

In consultation with the modern-day congregations, Colonial Williamsburg decided to reconstruct the 16-by-32-foot building. Though still too small for regular use by

As is so often the case, the first steps toward reconstructing a building were taken by archaeologists. In 2022, they uncovered the brick foundations of a frame building. It was a small building, only 16 feet by 20 feet. Archaeological evidence indicates that by 1818 the congregation, which had grown, built an addition that increased the building size to 16 feet by 32 feet. Four evenly spaced bricks ran down the center of the foundation. These, architectural historians surmised, served as support for joists that were meant to keep a wooden floor from sagging. A brick step revealed the location of the door, and broken and recycled bricks revealed a walkway leading to that door. Archaeologists collected more than 280,000 artifacts from the site, providing not just information about the building but also glimpses of the people who gathered there. Among the artifacts are more than 160 straight pins, which were used

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Framing the Building

Archaeologists began excavating the site of the meetinghouse in 2020.

today’s congregations, the building will be used for special ceremonies. Archaeologists found no window glass, indicating the church probably had only shuttered window openings. There was also no plaster, which further indicated a simple, barnlike structure. Still, that left a lot for Colonial Williamsburg’s architectural historians to figure out. They turned to other early 19th-century meetinghouses, including both African American churches and other Baptist churches. “Although the Baptist tradition did not establish formal standards for the design of meetinghouses, many developed similar styles and layouts,” said Tessa Honeycutt, the Foundation’s Shirley and Richard Roberts Associate Architectural Historian. “Many meetinghouses were simple one-room timber frame structures with weatherboard siding on the exterior. Plans for these structures tend to follow a one-story linear layout with a central door located on one of the short or long walls.”

Some historical accuracy had to be sacrificed to make the building usable. Wooden sheathing boards inside the building hide electrical and HVAC systems. But Jennifer Wilkoski, director of architectural preservation and research, stressed, “We are trying to be as faithful to the evidence as we can be.”

Furnishing the Building

Interior spaces of comparable churches varied considerably, but in general, in keeping with their rejection of hierarchy, Baptists rebuffed the Anglican tradition of intricately decorated pulpits that placed the minister above the congregation. Baptist preachers instead stood on stools and low platforms when speaking. The limited financial resources of a congregation of enslaved and free Black people made it likely they acquired benches over time and from different sources. That reality led Tara Gleason Chicirda, senior curator of furniture,

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L E F T: JA S O N CO P E S; R IG H T: BR I A N NE W S O N

(Left) Archaeologists uncovered 280,000 artifacts from the site, including more than 160 straight pins, an 1817 coin and a furniture tack. (Right) Joiner Ayinde Martin works on a bench to go inside the new building.

About Town FRAMING HISTORY

to conclude the building should include benches of different designs and lengths. “Plank seat benches with ‘stick’ legs or board ends would have been seen throughout American buildings in the early 19th century, and many members of the congregation would likely have had the knowledge and skills needed to make such benches for their house of worship,” Chicirda said. “They also could have purchased such seats from local woodworkers or reused older benches from other sources.” Colonial Williamsburg’s joiners made the benches for the church, based on prototypes that included original benches from early churches and meetinghouses in Virginia and North Carolina. “It’s easy to get caught up in cutting mortices and the minutiae of a project,” said Brian Weldy, master of the joiner shop. “Seeing the frame rising brought home that this was bigger than that.”

BR I A N NE W S O N

Opening the Building

The building will open October 9, in time for the church’s 250th anniversary. As part of the anniversary celebrations, each of the congregations will receive a set of three volumes comprising the technical reports documenting the research and analysis that went into the project. Bookbindery Journeyman Supervisor Barbie Swanson worked with Bob Lyon, a bookbindery alumnus, to bind the volumes so they would resemble ones from the 18th century. Jack Gary, who is now the Foundation’s vice president of archaeology and historic landscapes, suggested the special binding. “The idea to bind the books with our bookbinders grew out of the desire to make sure the congregations had access to all of the archaeological information that resulted from the project,” Gary said. “We didn’t want to hide it digitally, and we wanted to

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make sure there was something tangible that everyone could see and read. We also figured it was going to be in the libraries of the churches, and we wanted the volumes to look professional and visually signal the importance of the material inside and reflect the importance of the relationships that formed out of this project.” “I am so proud that this church is still going on,” said Gertrude Brown, who has worshipped at First Baptist for 76 years. “I’m glad it’s not going to die or be forgotten.” Dennis Gardner, a member of First Baptist, grew up a few blocks from Nassau Street and recalled walking to Sunday school and sometimes ringing the bell to call people to the church. “I’m satisfied and gratified that CW has gotten around to the reconstruction," he said. His wife, Jacquelyn Gardner, attended the frame raising and said she found it “exhilarating and spiritually moving to see history come up out of the ground.” She added that it was especially satisfying to be able to share that history with future generations. “We were there,” she said. “We were part of the beginning of the country.”

Bookbinders work to bind technical reports to distribute to descendant churches.

About Town

GOOGLE ARTS & CULTURE

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG AND GOOGLE LAUNCH ARTS & CULTURE SITE

olonial Williamsburg is stepping into the future, collaborating with Google to share with the world much of what the colonial capital has to offer. In June the Foundation partnered with Google Arts & Culture, a noncommercial initiative of the parent company, to launch a digital space highlighting interactive stories, artifacts from the collections and virtual tours of the Historic Area. Google Arts & Culture is an online platform that digitizes and shares art, artifacts and historic sites from around the world. In Colonial Williamsburg’s virtual collection, a wide array of resources curated by Foundation staff includes 40 virtual tours of sites in the Historic Area, 60 unique stories about the city and more than 3,500 objects and images from the Foundation’s collections. The work grew out of board of trustees discussions three years ago about how to digitize Colonial Williamsburg’s vast collections. “To

ensure that these art, architectural and archaeological resources would always be available to the world’s scholars and the public, we needed to capture and share them digitally,” Foundation CEO Carly Fiorina explained. “But undertaking this process on our own would have been prohibitively expensive.” More than 70 Foundation employees from 17 departments worked with

BR I A N NE W S O N

Taking Williamsburg to the World

Google to create, curate and assemble the material on the site. “We did what we do best — providing the historical scholarship, curation, authentication and storytelling necessary to make this new digital hub truly worthy of Colonial Williamsburg’s brand,” Fiorina said. “Meanwhile, the tech experts did what they do best. Google, along with co-collaborators YouTube and Gemini Notebook, brought the tools, platforms and technological know-how to turn our shared vision into a reality.” One especially cutting-edge part of the initiative is a digital notebook called “Spark of Revolution: Virginia’s Founding Ideas” that Colonial Williamsburg created in partnership with Google’s Gemini Notebook. The notebook uses artificial intelligence to answer users’ questions about the nation’s founding ideas. Unlike most AI, however, the notebook draws exclusively from a collection of historical sources, research and educational content chosen and verified by the Foundation’s own experts. In

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B O T T O M: BR I A N NE W S O N

that sense, noted Mia Nagawiecki, Colonial Williamsburg’s senior vice president for education, “Spark of Revolution” is the product of not just months and years, but decades of research conducted by the Foundation’s historians, past and present. “So many research and digital team members contributed human expertise and care to this effort, working to ensure that it upholds our standards of historical accuracy and rigor,” Nagawiecki said. Fiorina stressed that it was no coincidence that The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Google launched the initiative amid commemorations of the nation’s semiquincentennial. “Both of our organizations are excited this year to celebrate 250 years of American ingenuity and progress and to reflect on the centuries of work by our forebears to build a more perfect union,” she said. “But we also know that much work remains — and that this anniversary arrives at a fraught

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moment for our nation. So many of our countrymen and women feel divided against one another and disconnected from our history. This is hardly surprising when study after study confirms how little our fellow citizens know about our history. How can we move forward as a nation if we don’t understand who we are or where we’ve been?” At the event launching the project, Google Arts & Culture’s founder, Amit Sood, concluded after touring the Historic Area that there is no place in the world like it and that people need to come here. Fiorina added: “Through strategic initiatives like this one, we can dramatically expand the Foundation’s global reach, engage many more people in an unvarnished history of America’s founding — and invite them here to see it for themselves.”

(Opposite page) Colonial Williamsburg CEO Carly Fiorina addressed attendees at the June launch event. (Above) Members of Google’s leadership team toured the Historic Area. Pictured (left to right) are Ted Bosnaca, director of Historic Trades; Amit Sood, founder of Google Arts & Culture; Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Alphabet and Google and historian and YouTuber Max Miller.

To explore the digital hub, go to: Goo.gle/colonialwilliamsburg

New Windows on Williamsburg RESTORING THE MAGAZINE TO ITS 18TH-CENTURY LOOK

BR I A N NE W S O N

by PAUL ARON

About Town

MAGAZINE RENOVATION

S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY

nyone who thinks the Historic Area is unchanging has not visited Williamsburg recently. Even the iconic Magazine has taken on a new look thanks to recent research. The Magazine was constructed in 1715 to house the colony’s arms and ammunition. In 1775, it was the site of the inflammatory Gunpowder Incident: In the early morning hours of April 21, about 20 sailors, acting on orders from Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, seized 15 half-barrels of gunpowder from the Magazine. The incident was potentially as explosive as one in Massachusetts, where a few days earlier British troops had marched on Concord to seize the colonists’ military supplies. In Massachusetts, fighting broke out. In Williamsburg, local leaders calmed the crowd, but tensions remained high, and the Revolution would soon come to Virginia. The Magazine’s unusual octagonal design became familiar to millions of visitors after its restoration in 1934-35. But, as it turns out, the building looked somewhat different during the Revolution than it did for most of the 20th and 21st centuries. What made the 1930s restoration especially challenging was that after the state government moved to Richmond in 1780, the building was repurposed, first as a market and then as a Baptist meetinghouse, a Confederate arsenal, a dancing school and a livery stable. Moreover, in the 1930s, the Colonial Revival style, which took into consideration 20thcentury tastes, influenced researchers of that time.

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Looking at the Outside

The most visible change is to the Magazine’s windows. Instead of sash windows, which move up and down, the Magazine now has casement windows, a medieval style with diamond panes and hinges on the sides. By the late 17th century, sash windows were being introduced to colonial America as they offered better light and ventilation than casements. Still, they were expensive.

The Magazine’s restoration was well underway when this photo was taken in July 1935.

About Town

“Making these windows is a very specialized process, similar to making stained glass windows.” — Jennifer Wilkoski

A 19th-century photo of the Magazine shows there was once a window on the building’s west wall. That opening was filled in before Colonial Williamsburg restored the site.

Archaeological excavations at the site of the Magazine uncovered lead and glass materials that suggest the original windows were casements. “Given that the building functioned as a storage facility and was not always well maintained, it is highly probable that funds were not allocated for modern window upgrades as quickly as they were for more prominent buildings in town,” said Tessa Honeycutt, the Shirley and Richard Roberts Associate Architectural Historian. “Williamsburg lacked the resources and skilled tradesmen needed for a swift transition to sash windows.” Documentary evidence indicates the windows were replaced in 1788, likely with sash windows as they were becoming more common by then. In researching the original casement windows, architectural historians traveled near and far to study comparable structures and architectural details. Sites included Bacon’s Castle in Surry and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in New Kent, both in Virginia, and the Brooking window collection in England. The Brooking collection includes hundreds of casement windows, many close to the size of the original Magazine windows. “The Brooking collection is where things started to click,” Honeycutt said. “Being in a space with hundreds of examples we could touch and open and see how they worked was really exciting.” Architectural historians also turned to England to reproduce the windows. “Making these windows is a very specialized process, similar to making stained glass windows,” said Jennifer Wilkoski, director of architectural preservation and research. “We had specific needs: wooden windows, leaded glass, wrought iron frames and hardware. In the U.S.

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S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY

MAGAZINE RENOVATION

T O P : G EO R G E WA S HING T O N BIR T HP L AC E N AT IO N A L M O NUME N T/ N AT IO N A L PA R K S E R V IC E (O B JEC T OWNE R ) A ND CO L O NI A L E NCO UN T E R S: T HE L OWE R P O T O M AC R I V E R AT VA L L E Y, 15 0 0 -1720 A D (H T T P S://CO L O NI A L E NCO UN T E R S .O R G / ); B O T T O M: BR I A N NE W S O N

there are people who can do each of these things but none who do all together.” The company that made the windows, Owlsworth Conservation, also made the cellar casement windows for Charlton’s Coffeehouse. The Magazine’s new windows were installed in July. The Magazine’s doors are being replaced later this year, also as the result of extensive research, which included studying a photo from 1935 that suggests the door was once higher. “We don’t know why earlier architectural historians decided to do the doors differently,” Wilkoski said. “It seems like they followed more of a 19th-century design.”

Looking Inside

Architectural historians are also studying the inside of the building. Preliminary findings suggest there may have been shelves on the second floor. As with the outside, researchers are looking at comparable buildings. The problem: There aren’t many. Royal armories like the Tower of London were much more extravagant. “A lot will depend on our investigation of the building and looking at the physical evidence,” Wilkoski said.

Around the Building

This latest restoration of the Magazine began in 2024 when the wall surrounding it was lowered. The original wall was constructed around 1755 and was pulled down in the mid-19th century. Research and archaeological evidence indicate the 18th-century wall was a few feet shorter than the 20th-century reconstruction. Documentary evidence includes a letter from 1892 and a sketch that historian Benson J. Lossing made around 1850.

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Fragments found during excavations at a site in Colonial Beach, Va., inspired the design of the latches for the new windows on the Magazine.

About Town

PHILANTHROPY AT WORK

Uncovering Williamsburg’s first cabinetmaker By Emily MacIntosh

The Devil Is in the Dovetails O

n Jan. 26, 1776, The Virginia Gazette reported on a fire on Duke of Gloucester Street: “Mr. Peter Scott’s old house in this city, which he had rented and lived in for 43 years, was burnt down last Sunday night, by accident.”

sparked the blaze. Now, 250 years after the fire destroyed the property, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is unearthing the site to further investigate the archaeological remains. Portions of the site were previously surveyed and excavated in 1955 and 1958 under architectural draftsman James M. Knight and Ivor Noel Hume, who was the first director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg. The results of those

earlier digs helped inform the plan for the current excavations. “Returning to one of the Foundation’s early archaeology projects with new techniques and new research questions is a full-circle moment,” said Jack Gary, vice president of archaeology and historic landscapes. One goal of the project is to ascertain if and how Scott used the site for his cabinetmaking business as well as his home. Such

Peter Scott was Williamsburg’s first known cabinetmaker and worked 53 years in the city, until his death at age 81. Furniture attributed to him still survives including a desk and bookcase (right) and a tea table (above), both circa 1722-1730. CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G CO L L EC T IO NS

Scott, a successful cabinetmaker, had died in November of the previous year, but the newspaper’s editor knew that Williamsburg residents would still associate the property with its former, long-standing tenant. Readers today would be more familiar with Scott’s final landlord, George Washington. In fact, it was soldiers serving under Washington as commander in chief of the Continental army who inadvertently

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CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G CO L L EC T IO NS , GIF T O F WIL L I A M & M A RY FO UNDAT IO N

About Town PHILANTHROPY AT WORK

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About Town

“He is making furniture for people with enormous resources and big names: Robert Carter, Thomas Jefferson and others.” — RON HURST

A 1756 invoice documents the cancellation of two years of rent Peter Scott owed Daniel Parke Custis in exchange for two dressing tables.

archaeological research into a prominent artisan can also lead to new insights about daily life, style and furniture production in the 18th century. Further, the excavations are informing whether the Foundation will reconstruct any of the structures on the site and what they would look like.

First Williamsburg Cabinetmaker Born in Scotland, Scott arrived in Williamsburg by 1722. Here, he established himself as the first and longest-serving cabinetmaker in the colonial capital, producing high-quality tables and case furniture

for more than 50 years. “That’s a pretty remarkable run for that time in our history,” said Ron Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg’s chief mission officer, who has been studying Scott for the past 30 years. “He is making furniture for people with enormous resources and big names: Robert Carter, Thomas Jefferson and others.” Although records indicate that Scott owned property on a backstreet in town, he began renting the Duke of Gloucester Street house in 1733. Directly across from Bruton Parish Church, it was owned by John Custis IV. Over time, Scott’s landlords

changed, first from Custis to his son Daniel Parke Custis; to his son’s widow, Martha Dandridge Custis; and ultimately to George Washington, who took ownership following his marriage to Martha. Washington’s careful recordkeeping helped Hurst to identify a dressing table at George Washington’s Mount Vernon as one of two such pieces that Scott made for Daniel Parke Custis in 1754 in exchange for two years of rent. A third dressing table, virtually identical, that has also been attributed to Scott is on view in the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. “The details of furniture construction are not unlike handwriting,” Hurst said. “Everybody does it differently. So by looking at construction details — the dovetails, the way the drawers are put together, foot blocking, all those things — and then seeing exactly the same pattern of construction details in other things that have local ownership histories, suddenly you can start to build a whole body of material that you can say, ‘These things are all from this one shop.’”

Exposing the Story of the Site While finished furniture

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CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G CO L L EC T IO NS

PHILANTHROPY AT WORK

About Town

T O P : BR I A N NE W S O N; B O T T O M: S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY

PHILANTHROPY AT WORK

pieces tell their own story, the team working at the site, which most recently hosted the Colonial Garden, is learning more about how the property was used during the 18th century. Guests have been able to watch the work as it has progressed and speak with the archaeologists and volunteers about their discoveries. The work has focused on understanding the main house, potential workshop and outbuildings that once stood on the lot. Noël Hume partially excavated the tenement building’s foundation but left some of it intact. The current investigations have resulted in an outline of the full footprint of the brick foundations of both the house and a detached kitchen. Evidence that speaks to how Scott may have organized a cabinetmaking shop is also coming out of the ground. “In the middle of the kitchen footprint is a masonry structure that appears to be a kiln built into the floor and tied into the kitchen chimney. While research is ongoing, one as yet unproven theory is that it was for drying wood, which would be the only such one we know of in 18th-century Virginia,” Hurst said. Recovered artifacts

including tools, furniture tacks and a broken drawer handle further suggest that cabinetmaking work was being performed at the site, whether by Scott himself or by free or enslaved workers. Wood fragments and mortar samples have also been collected for future

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testing to learn more about the building’s foundations.

To Reconstruct or Not to Reconstruct John Custis IV acquired three adjacent lots opposite Bruton Parish Church in 1714. Landowners were required by law to build

(Top) An aerial photo taken from a drone shows the extent of the excavations as well as members of the Peter Scott archaeology field team along with students from Colonial Williamsburg’s summer archaeology field school. (Bottom) Archaeologists first worked on the site in the 1950s, and James Knight produced a scale drawing of the building’s foundations in December 1955.

About Town

PHILANTHROPY AT WORK

completing the investigation and documenting the site. Fieldwork is expected to continue through the end of 2026 and possibly into the beginning of 2027, depending on available funding. Donor support of this project will ensure archaeologists have the necessary tools to do the work well and continue their research in the lab through artifact analysis, curation and scientific testing. “I think the ability to recapture a very prominent 18th-century Williamsburg citizen, and his environment, is a really important thing to do,” Hurst said. “And over the course of the last 40 years,

we’ve really shifted our interpretation to broadly encompass the whole cross-section of society. Lots of great historic sites generally focus on one individual or one family. Here we have this amazing, complicated mosaic of society in 18th-century America, and we can talk about all of it.”

(Left) Artifacts from recent excavations are displayed on a drying rack. They include oyster shells, animal bones, assorted small finds, ceramics and glass. (Right) Archaeological Field Technician Amber Poole brushes dirt off a large bone fragment found in the 2026 cellar excavations.

How You Can Help Donor support advances Colonial Williamsburg’s mission to explore and interpret our nation’s history and its origin story. By investigating and reconstructing the Peter Scott site, we can better understand the impact

Scott, his work and the broader site had on the community. To contribute, visit colonialwilliamsburg.org/ TT. For more information on how to support the Peter Scott project, email campaign@cwf.org.

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within two years or lose possession of the property. Thus, construction of the tenement houses he erected on the lots must have begun by 1717. Many buildings from that early in the 18th century had leaded casement windows and riven clapboard roofs. The wooden sash windows and shingle roofs more commonly seen throughout the Historic Area came into style later in the century. Reconstructing the house Scott rented would give the Foundation the opportunity to showcase that evolution of architectural styles in 18th-century Williamsburg. For now, the focus is on

Modern History NEWS AND EVENTS of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Colonial Williamsburg at Chautauqua Nation Builders, Fifes & Drums and Historic Trades highlight visit

T O P L E F T: G A BR IE L MIL BY/ T HE C H AU TAU Q UA N DA ILY; T O P R IG H T A ND B O T T O M: S K Y L A R S E AV E Y/ T HE C H AU TAU Q UA N DA ILY

olonial Williamsburg’s live programming extended well north of the Historic Area in August for a week of programs at Chautauqua Institution. Chautauqua is a notfor-profit, 750-acre community in southwestern New York that, according to its vision statement, “aspires to create an informed, engaged and renewed public that fosters and actively contributes to a more civil society.” Its nine-week summer season of events included lectures, performances and events from such notable names as Ken Burns, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Josh Groban. Among those featured in the programs from Colonial Williamsburg were Nation Builders Katharine Pittman, Stephen Seals, Kurt Smith and Robert Weathers who portray,

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

respectively, Martha Washington, James Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson and George Wythe. Interpreters moved in and out of character, discussing the art and craft of interpretation. Also participating, as a moderator, was Robert Currie, the Foundation’s associate vice president for performing arts and signature events. Other programs featured performances by the Fifes & Drums and demonstrations of historic trades by the Foundation’s milliners, cabinetmakers, blacksmiths, carpenters and joiners. The week’s capstone event, Flame of Revolution, was an immersive, multimedia journey into the evolution of the Declaration of Independence.

In August, Colonial Williamsburg led a week of demonstrations, master classes and performances at the Chautauqua Institution in New York.

About Town MODERN HISTORY

popular, and they flourished as strong foragers and good egg layers. A healthy hookbill can lay more than 200 eggs a year. In Williamsburg some of the eggs may be used for Historic Foodways demonstrations. Polluted waterways in the 20th century caused their numbers to decline in the wild. On top of that, a diminished market for duck eggs reduced their appeal to farmers. “I have long wanted to have some rare ducks,” said Darin Durham, manager of animal husbandry. “Apprentice husbander Logan Taylor also had an

Rare Ducks Arrive in Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg’s Rare Breeds pro-

upon a breeder in his hometown in

gram has added Dutch hookbill ducks to

Missouri. Logan picked them up

its roster. The domesticated breed, first

while he was home and brought back

mentioned in the 17th century, origi-

two hens and a drake in March. We

nated in the Netherlands. As the name

have now tripled our flock by hatch-

suggests, the ducks have downward-

ing the eggs.”

curving bills. This distinctive feature

The ducks can be seen behind the

may have made it easier for hunters to

Peyton Randolph House. The drake has

distinguish them from wild ducks.

been dubbed Sir Francis Drake. The hens

Their unusual appearance made them

and chicks have not yet been named.

Florida: Registration #CH10673. A COPY OF THE FOUNDATION’S OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE 1-800-HELP-FLA WITHIN THE STATE. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE. Maryland: THE FOUNDATION’S CURRENT FINANCIAL STATEMENT IS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST AT THE ADDRESS LISTED ABOVE. FOR THE COST OF COPIES AND POSTAGE. DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION SUBMITTED ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE HOUSE, ANNAPOLIS, MD 21401 New Jersey: INFORMATION FILED WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL CONCERNING THIS CHARITABLE SOLICITATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY BY CALLING (973) 504-6215. REGISTRATION WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT. Pennsylvania: THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION OF THE COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF STATE BY CALLING TOLL FREE WITHIN PENNSYLVANIA 1-800-732-0999. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT. Virginia: A FINANCIAL STATEMENT IS AVAILABLE FROM THE STATE DIVISION OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSUMER SERVICES UPON REQUEST. Washington: ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE CHARITIES DIVISION, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE, OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON, BY CALLING 1-800-332-4483. West Virginia: WEST VIRGINIA RESIDENTS MAY OBTAIN A SUMMARY OF THE REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE, SOLICITATION LICENSING BRANCH, AT 1-800-830-4989, STATE CAPITOL, CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA 25305. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT.

California: Not yet able to issue charitable gift annuities. New York: Upon request, a copy of the latest annual report may be obtained from the address listed above for the foundation or from the Charities Bureau, Department of Law, Attorney General of New York, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. North Carolina: Financial information about the foundation and a copy of its license are available from the State

Solicitation Licensing Branch at (919) 807-2214. The license is not an endorsement by the state. Oklahoma: A charitable gift annuity is not regulated by the Oklahoma Insurance Department and is not protected by a guaranty association affiliated with the Oklahoma Insurance Department. South Dakota: Charitable gift annuities are not regulated by and are not under the jurisdiction of the South Dakota Division of Insurance.

The Foundation does not issue charitable gift annuities in Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, and Washington. In California — we are not yet able to issue charitable gift annuities.

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interest in ducks, and he stumbled

About Town MODERN HISTORY

Blue & White: American Style

CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G FO UNDAT IO N

Colonial Williamsburg and Hachette release new calendar, wrapping paper book

Workman Publishing Company is producing a new calendar and a gift wrap book, inspired by Colonial WIlliamsburg.

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olonial Williamsburg is unveiling a pair of products that deftly celebrate the artistry that flourished within the walls of 18th-century Williamsburg homes and businesses. The Foundation has been collaborating with Workman Publishing, a division of the Hachette Book Group, to produce a calendar and a gift wrap book inspired by the timeless blueand-white designs featured on 18thcentury wallpaper and delftware pottery found in Williamsburg. Both products are titled “Blue & White: American Style.” “Colonial Williamsburg is a place where history isn’t just preserved; it’s still alive. And their archives are one of the richest visual records of American history and craftsmanship anywhere in the country,” said Jamie Thompson, the editorial director for Workman calendars, who researched Colonial Williamsburg’s archives for designs for the projects. The gift wrap book includes 12 sheets that unfold to 18 inches by 25 ¾ inches, as well as gift tag stickers. The designs are all inspired by the Foundation’s collections. Likewise, the calendar includes patterns from wallpaper, textiles and ceramics as well as animal scenes and those of everyday colonial life. “Working with Hachette on the calendar and gift wrap book has been a tremendous honor,” said Noreen O’Rourke, creative services manager for the Foundation. “Renowned for producing beautifully designed, thoughtfully researched publications, Hachette has been an exceptional publishing partner.” Both items are available at Colonial Williamsburg gift shops as well as through Amazon and pageaday.com.

About Town MODERN HISTORY

Thomas Everard House Reopens Visitors are once again getting a look inside the Thomas Everard House. The house, on Palace Green near the Governor’s Palace, closed during the pandemic and reopened in September. The home was built in 1718 by John Brush, who was the first keeper of the city’s Magazine. Thomas Everard lived there from the 1750s until his death in 1781. Everard was, among other things, clerk of the York County court, mayor of Williamsburg and clerk of the House of Burgesses. “Our tours at the Everard focus on a behind-the-scenes look at how we know what we know and the variety of hands and research methods that are required to fully investigate, care for, furnish and interpret a site,” said Laura Barry, vice president of collections, conserBR E NDA N S O S TA K

vation and museums. Tours run through Nov. 18 and focus on the house’ parlor. Recent research there has uncovered the original paint coloring and wallpaper.

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Revolutionary Roots: Teaching Civic Engagement for 250 It was truly a revolutionary summer at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation! In celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, a record number of educators came to Williamsburg to experience history where it happened and return to their classrooms ready to inspire the next generation.

Summer 2026 Program Reach

The Bob and Marion Wilson Teacher Institute of Colonial Williamsburg By the Numbers

What Teachers Are Saying...

515 Teachers

99%

Gained deeper American history content knowledge.

99%

50 States and Bermuda

Left more enthusiastic about teaching.

98%

Developed new activities for their classrooms.

47,610 Students Impacted

95%

Strengthened their ability to teach with primary sources.

“The entire week was a revitalization of why I wanted to become a teacher: to make learning moments real, authentic, and meaningful for my students.” “I want to share these stories of the past in a way that will make history come alive for my students.” “I left the week knowing more, curious about topics I want to explore further, and excited to share what I’ve learned with my colleagues and students.” “The experience strengthened my passion for teaching history and motivated me to create lessons that help students actively connect with the past.”

NEW DIGITAL LEARNING RESOURCE: GOOGLE ARTS & CULTURE We’re excited to introduce new educational support materials for Colonial Williamsburg’s collaboration with Google Arts & Culture. Featuring thousands of primary sources, immersive virtual tours, and engaging stories, this digital experience offers new ways for educators and students to explore the people, places, and ideas that shaped America. Visit artsandculture.google.com/project/colonial-williamsburg to learn more.

Scan here to learn more about the Bob and Marion Wilson Teacher Institute.

Share the Power of Place. Give the Gift of History. You can preserve the legacy of our nation’s birthplace and help spread our mission by making a gift to the Foundation in the name of a friend, family member or fellow history lover. Make sure your gift arrives in time for the holidays by donating by December 1! Each gift recipient will receive: n

a 24-karat-gold-finished ornament

a personalized letter acknowledging your donation

a year-long subscription to Trend & Tradition: The Magazine of Colonial Williamsburg, featuring behind-the-scenes stories about our latest projects and historical research

give.colonialwilliamsburg.org/gift-of-history

Donate Today

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Please consult professional advisors before making a charitable gift. Colonial Williamsburg cannot render tax or legal advice. Colonial Williamsburg® is a registered trademark of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation © 2026. Gifts to Colonial Williamsburg are tax deductible. In this case, you, as the contributor, take the deduction.

Live&Learn

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CHALLENGE YOUR PERCEPTIONS . DISCOVER FOOD FRESH FROM THE GARDEN . GET TO THE ART OF IT

p. 65 King Corn

Chasing the “EMBLEM OF THE REVOLUTION” The hunt for

HUNTING SHIRTS

leads to Germany

This hunting shirt was collected in America between 1777 and 1779 and sent to Brunswick, Germany, as an example of what Continental soldiers were wearing.

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DIR K S C HE R E R , S TÄ DT IS C HE S MU S E UM BR AUNS C HWEIG

By Neal Hurst

CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G CO L L EC T IO NS

An 18th-century German engraving shows what it calls an accurate depiction of an American soldier and states the clothing is made of coarse linen.

Live & Learn HUNTING SHIRTS

By the eve of the Revolution, the hunting shirt had taken on new meaning. On June 1, 1775, as Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, convened a hastily called assembly session, rebellious members of the House of Burgesses arrived wearing hunting shirts as a pointed, wordless act of defiance. Within weeks, hunting shirts would also be worn by the soldiers of the Continental army.

The Shirts Go to War

Previous to the discoveries in Germany, only three Revolutionary-era hunting shirts were known to have survived, including this one in New York.

On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress authorized six companies of backcountry riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to march to Boston, where George Washington had just taken command of an army of some 20,000 men in desperate need of support as well as new clothing. The backwoodsmen made the nearly 500-mile march in just 25 days, and with them came the hunting shirt. Washington was familiar with the garment and was a fan. Practical, cheap and quick to produce, the shirt also carried an almost mythological power on the battlefield. “It is a dress justly supposed to carry no small terror to the enemy,”

Washington wrote, “who think every such person a complete marksman.” He ordered no fewer than 10,000 hunting shirts, began acquiring large quantities of linen, circulated patterns and promoted the shirts as a means of building esprit de corps among his ragged troops. While Congress in Philadelphia struggled to outfit the army in proper woolen coats, the hunting shirt became the essential stopgap. Most Continental soldiers and officers likely wore one at some point during the war. Tens of thousands of hunting shirts were made. Yet when the war ended, the once-prolific shirts were worn out and largely discarded in the dustbin of history.

A Vanishing Emblem

In 1833, George Washington Parke Custis, Washington’s adopted grandson, was already mourning the shirt’s disappearance. “The Hunting Shirt, the emblem of the Revolution, is banished from the national military,” he wrote, predicting it would one day be found only “in museums, like ancient armour, exposed to the gaze of the curious.”

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NE W YO R K S TAT E O F FIC E O F PA R K S , R EC R E AT IO N A ND HIS T O R IC P R E S E R VAT IO N. WA S HING T O N’ S HE A D Q UA R T E R S S TAT E HIS T O R IC SI T E . BEQ UE S T O F E N O C H C A R T E R . WH.1971.49

In the mid-18th-century backcountry of colonial America, the hunting shirt was born out of necessity. Simple in construction — typically linen, cut from squares and rectangles, split down the center front, with a cape around the neck and fringed edges — this garment was the workaday dress of frontier life, worn by the men who hunted deer to meet the colonists’ demand for leather breeches. Few fashions were more purely American.

DIR K S C HE R E R , S TÄ DT IS C HE S MU S E UM BR AUNS C HWEIG .

A circa 1780 German engraving depicts two American soldiers, both wearing hunting shirts. It notes that the entire uniform is made of coarse linen and that the shirts are trimmed with white fringe.

Live & Learn HUNTING SHIRTS

Custis was more right than he knew. Only three Revolution-era hunting shirts were known to have survived, and just one was confirmed as battle worn: Capt. Abraham Duryea of the Dutchess County militia wore his hunting shirt during the battle of Long Island, New York, in 1776. Donated to the now-defunct Tomlinson Museum in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1855, the shirt eventually made its way to Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site in Newburgh, New York, where it remains on view today. Three shirts were the entire material record of one of the Revolution’s most widely produced garments. That is, until now.

A Discovery in Germany

In early 2025, two colleagues researching European collections stumbled onto something remarkable: two hunting shirts, in two separate German museums, neither previously known to scholars. With a grant from the Mary and Donald Gonzales Field Experience Fund, which supports continuing education opportunities directly related to an employee’s job and the educational mission of Colonial Williamsburg, I traveled to Brunswick and Mannheim, Germany, in November 2025 to document and pattern the shirts firsthand. The city of Brunswick had deep ties to the American Revolution. In 1776, Britain’s King George III asked Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of BrunswickWolfenbüttel, to send troops to help suppress the colonial rebellion. By war’s end, more than 5,000 Brunswick soldiers had crossed the Atlantic, and most never returned to their homeland, instead settling in the new United States. However, one of those soldiers brought something back home. Capt. Johann Conrad Ruff collected a hunting shirt

and cap between 1777 and 1779. A letter from a Brunswick court councillor named Hoefer confirms they were presented to the duke “so that His Highness may graciously see what kind of clothing the highest officers currently wear in America.” The cap is now lost, but the shirt survives in remarkable condition in the city’s municipal museum. Like the Duryea shirt, it is made from linen, split down the center front with a distinctive zigzagging fringe pattern along the center and hem, with a caped collar trimmed in decorative tufts. The lower sleeves are pleated to control the fullness and to ensure they do not get in the way of the wearer. It is now the second hunting shirt with a confirmed history of being worn during the Revolutionary War. The Reiss Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim holds the other newly discovered shirt. Museum records first mention it in the 1880s, with no documentation of where it came from. But based on its placement in the oldest portion of the collection, it may have belonged to the collection of Carl Theodor, a high-ranking Bavarian nobleman. As with the Brunswick shirt, its novelty as a distinctly non-European garment and possible military uniform likely made it a prized souvenir. A few things, however, set the Mannheim shirt apart from the other four: its large size — over 40 inches long with a 70-inch chest and 20-inch neck — which made practical sense for frontier soldiers who used the generous front fold as a makeshift saddlebag for food, tow cloth for wiping the barrel of a rifle and other supplies; shirt sleeves terminating in fringes, like a ruffle; and only fringe around the cape. Perhaps most strikingly, it is the first surviving example of a dyed hunting shirt, previously known only from written descriptions.

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Perhaps most strikingly, it is the first surviving example of a dyed hunting shirt, previously known only from written descriptions.

L E F T: CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G CO L L EC T IO NS; R IG H T: © R EIS S-E NG E L H O R N-MU S E E N M A NNHEIM (G E R M A N Y )/ MIC HE L L E S T R IEG E L

(Right) A hunting shirt in Mannheim, Germany, previously unknown to scholars, features pleated lower sleeves, which would ensure the material did not impede the soldier’s use of his hands. (Below) A depiction of a Continental army soldier wearing a hunting shirt was included on a Revolutionary-era $4 Georgia note.

Why It Matters

The discovery of two additional hunting shirts — now bringing the known total to five — is more than a footnote in textile history. The uniform of the Revolutionary War for some soldiers, this garment was a symbol of American ingenuity and identity at a time when the nation itself was being invented. The information gathered from these newly documented shirts will help refine the patterns used to re-create

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them in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area, where the hunting shirt remains a common sight. George Washington Parke Custis surmised that hunting shirts would one day live only in museums. He was right about that, but he could not have imagined that some of the most important examples would survive an ocean away in Germany, waiting more than two centuries to be found.

Neal Hurst is curator of textiles and historic dress for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

L IBR A RY O F V IR GINI A

S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY

How a group of Baptists helped give birth to religious freedom in Virginia By BRENT TARTER 57

(Previous spread) Signatures fill a page from a Sept. 24, 1776, petition from Baptists in Prince Edward County requesting religious freedom. A 19th-century engraving shows Patrick Henry addressing the House of Burgesses. (Above) James Madison made his political debut at the Fifth Virginia Convention as a delegate from Orange County. (Right) He and George Mason proposed Section 16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which opened the door for full religious liberty.

Both the Declaration of Rights and the Declaration of Independence state that all men are created equal and have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. George Mason, who drafted the Declaration of Rights, and Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, referred specifically to adult white males who owned property and could vote. But those words, the Revolutionary language of liberty, appeared to promise all Americans inclusion in a new society based on equality for all. From the campaign to abolish slavery through the Civil Rights and women’s movements of the 20th century, people seeking to create a more inclusive and just society have appealed to the ideas embedded in those words. The Virginia Declaration of Rights contains an important guarantee of liberty that is not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. James Madison, who made his political debut at the conven-

tion as a delegate from Orange County, proposed changing the final clause that transformed it from a restatement of religious toleration for Protestants into a guarantee of full religious liberty for everybody — or, at least, for all Christians. As adopted, Section 16 reads: “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”

A Petition from Prince Edward County One of the first documents that refers explicitly to the Virginia Declaration of

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B O T T O M: S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY; INS E T: CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G CO L L EC T IO NS , GIF T O F MR S . G EO R G E S . R O BBINS

he Virginia Convention that met in the Capitol in Williamsburg from May 6 through July 5, 1776, instructed the Virginia members of the Second Continental Congress to introduce a resolution to declare the colonies independent of Great Britain. The convention also adopted the first constitution for the state as well as the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

Rights as a guarantor of individual liberty is a petition that 160 Baptist men who lived in Prince Edward County adopted on Sept. 24, 1776, and sent to the General Assembly. It is also one of the most eloquent and powerful of the scores of petitions on the subject of religious liberty that the General Assembly received beginning in that year. The syntax is awkward in a few places, with run-on sentences of the sort that were common in petitions of the time. The petitioners begin by “hoping that our united American States will long continue free and Independent” before praising the 16th article:

L IBR A RY O F V IR GINI A

The last Article of the Bill of Rights we also esteem as the rising Sun of religious Liberty, to releave us from a long Night of ecclesiastic Bondage: And we do most earnestly request and expect that you would go on to complete what is so nobly begun; raise religious as well as civil Liberty to the Zenith of Glory, and make Virginia an Asylum for free enquiry, knowlege, and the virtuous of every Denomination. Justice to ourselves and Posterity, as well as a regard to the honour of the Common Wealth, makes it our indispensable Duty, in particular to intreat, That without Delay, You would pull down all Church E[s]tablishments; Abolish every Tax upon Conscience and private Judgment; and leave each Individual to rise or sink according to his Merit, and the general Laws of the Land. The petitioners concluded, “The whole amount of what we desire, is, That Our Honourable Legislature would blot out every Vestige of British Tyranny and Bondage, and define accurately between civil and ecclesiastic Authority; then leave our Lord Jesus Christ the Honour of being

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Live & Learn RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Separating Religion & State

(Previous) The September petition from Prince Edward County is now at the Library of Virginia. (Above) Archibald Cary once jailed a Baptist minister for preaching.

Brent Tarter was the senior editor at the Library of Virginia. His most recent book is Vignettes of Revolutionary Virginia: Remarkable Stories From the Founding of the Nation.

The Prince Edward Baptists were appealing to this new American language of religious liberty in the Virginia Declaration of Rights and not the old English language of religious toleration. Heretofore, the petitioners and the thousands of other dissenters — Protestants who did not consider themselves members of the Church of England — were worshipping under several onerous restrictions: Every Virginia taxpayer, whether Anglican or not, paid taxes to the Church of England to support the religious and civic responsibilities that Virginia law assigned to the church’s parishes. No marriage was valid unless a minister of the Church of England celebrated it, and as such, the children of those married in Baptist, Presbyterian or Lutheran churches or in Quaker, Mennonite or Church of the Brethren meetinghouses were all legally illegitimate, which imposed major problems on them; for instance, absent a clear will, by common law illegitimate children could not inherit property. Moreover, dissenters had to apply to the royal governor for permission to erect and maintain a meetinghouse, and they could not hold meetings anywhere else, in the night, or with windows or doors closed and locked. Dissenters had grown in number during the middle of the 18th century and considerably altered the religious culture of Virginia with Baptists and Presbyterians bringing more Calvinism than English settlers had in the 17th century. In response, mobs of people, sometimes including or under the leadership of

sheriffs or justices of the peace, harassed or beat Baptist ministers, broke up their religious services, or threw them in jail. In Chesterfield County in the 1770s, the presiding judge of the county court, Archibald Cary, who was one of the leading members of the House of Burgesses, jailed a Baptist minister. The minister nevertheless continued to preach through the window of his jail cell to members of his congregation who gathered outside. Cary reportedly erected a high wall around the jail to keep the Baptists at a distance.

A Growing Dissent and Small Progress Dissenters had been trying for years, without success, to obtain relief from some of the legal restrictions, but so far they had had only one small success. In August 1775, the Third Virginia Convention created a two-regiment army and adopted an ordinance that provided for paid chaplains, who in England and in the colony had always been ministers of the Church of England. The Virginia Baptist Association petitioned the convention to grant Baptist ministers “free Liberty to preach to the Troops at convenient Times without molestation or abuse.” Patrick Henry, who had defended dissenters’ rights, drafted a resolution, which the convention adopted without recorded opposition on Aug. 16, 1775, “that it be an instruction to the Commanding officers of the Regiments or Troops to be raised to permit Dissenting Clergymen to Celebrate divine Worship & to preach to the Soldiers or exhort from time to time as the various operations of the military Service may admit for the ease of such scrupulous Consciences as may not chuse to Attend divine worship as celebrated by the Chaplain.”

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

NE W YO R K P UBL IC L IBR A RY

the Sole Lawgiver and Governor in his Church; and every one in the Things of Religion to stand or fall to Him; he being, in this respect the only rightful Master.”

T O P : L IBR A RY O F V IR GINI A ; B O T T O M: V IR GINI A B A P T IS T HIS T O R IC A L S O CIE T Y

Before the Fifth Virginia Convention began to consider the first draft of the Declaration of Rights, 49 Baptists in Prince William County petitioned to be freed from some of the legal restrictions. They asked for freedom to “worship God in our own way, without interruption”; that they not be required to pay taxes to support ministers of other churches; and those marriages that dissenting ministers performed be regarded as legal. The final sentence of their petition suggests that they offered a quid pro quo: “These things granted we will gladly unite with our Brethren of other denominations, and to the utmost of our ability promote the common cause of Freedom.” The Fifth Convention referred the petition to a committee, but the committee made no recommendation before the convention adjourned. While this particular petition was never acted upon, it ignited a spark that would smolder and not extinguish. As the wording of the petition from the Prince Edward County Baptists indicates, the promise of religious liberty that the

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

“These things granted we will gladly unite with our Brethren of other denominations, and to the utmost of our ability promote the common cause of Freedom." members of the Fifth Virginia Convention inserted into the Declaration of Rights gave dissenters hope and offered them a powerful new line of argument. At every session of the General Assembly beginning in October 1776, the House of Delegates received large numbers of petitions, from Presbyterians and other Dissenters as well as Baptists, asking for or even demanding relief from the religious and legal discrimination that the government of Virginia and the Church of England imposed on dissenters.

In 1775, Patrick Henry drafted a resolution allowing dissenting preachers to hold services for Virginia soldiers.

In the 1770s Thomas Jefferson wrote a bill establishing religious freedom in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It would take more than a decade to pass.

The petitioning was an entirely unprecedented and organized attempt to persuade the General Assembly to change the law on a fundamentally important subject. The campaign for transforming the practices of religious toleration into laws of religious freedom was the first

and one of the most important consequences, and uses, of the Revolutionary language of liberty. Eventually, in January 1786, after more than a decade of political controversy and social ferment, the General Assembly adopted the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, which removed all of the legal privileges that the Church of England had enjoyed; transferred its civic duties, such as caring for orphans and paupers, to local governments; and converted all religious societies into purely voluntary associations. Perhaps even including the Declaration of Independence itself, that law may be the most important act of the entire Revolutionary period for Virginians. It seems appropriate that Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the most famous phrases of the Revolutionary language of liberty, drafted the bill and that James Madison, who had proposed the amendment to the Declaration of Rights that transformed it from a statement of religious toleration into a guarantee of religious liberty, pushed the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom through the assembly a decade later. One choice irony is that Archibald Cary, who used his office as presiding judge of the Chesterfield County Court to jail a Baptist minister early in the 1770s, signed the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in his capacity as speaker of the Senate of Virginia. He may have changed his mind about the dissenters or the privileged place in society and government that the Church of England had always enjoyed. Equally possible, he might have signed into law a bill of which he disapproved because, as speaker, that was his constitutional responsibility. Cary’s signature, together with the signature of former Gov. Benjamin Harrison, speaker of the House of Delegates and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, made the bill a law.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

B O S T O N P UBL IC L IBR A RY

A Revolutionary Breakthrough

Live & Learn BOOKS

Title Page New books on the Constitution

The U.S. Constitution: A

We the People: A History

The Making and Breaking

Comprehensive and Annotated

of the U.S. Constitution

of the American Constitution:

Guide for the Modern Reader

BY JILL LEPORE

A Thousand-Year History

BY MELISSA MURRAY

Liveright

Simon & Schuster

The Constitution includes 27 amend-

BY MARK PETERSON

Princeton University Press

For the original Constitution and all 27

ments, but thousands more have been

Mark Peterson’s history of the Consti-

amendments, Melissa Murray provides

introduced but not ratified. Jill Lepore

tution begins well before most such

a brief explanation of the text followed

chronicles unsuccessful efforts through-

works. He begins with the Domesday

by a discussion of that text’s history.

out American history, including many

Book, an 11th-century survey of prop-

Then comes more detailed analysis,

from liberals, such as the Equal Rights

erty commissioned by William the

sometimes clause by clause. Other

Amendment, and some from conser-

Conqueror, the first Norman king of

guides to the Constitution tend to focus

vatives, such as one that would have

England. For Peterson, the Constitu-

on the original text, the Bill of Rights

introduced God into the Constitution.

tion, like the Domesday Book, was

and the 13th, 14th and 15th amend-

Lepore is the founder and director of

less about creating principles for a

ments — the Reconstruction amend-

Harvard’s Amendment Project, which

government than it was about manag-

ments that abolished slavery, redefined

has compiled, classified and analyzed

ing and controlling land. In the case

citizenship and gave Black men the

attempts to revise the Constitution. She

of the Constitution, Peterson writes

right to vote. Murray thinks the late

bemoans the fact that both liberals and

that he believes the Founders wanted

19th- and early 20th-century amend-

conservatives have largely abandoned

to empower a federal government to

ments that grew out of the populist

efforts to amend the Constitution. “No

enable western expansion. He extends

movement are equally significant. The

constitution can be kept forever, like

the story through the present and

16th Amendment, for example, allows

a butterfly under glass, tacked down

argues that the Constitution has not

for a progressive income tax. The

with pins,” she writes. “To constitute is

changed enough to accommodate the

populist era, Murray asserts, shows

to become or establish; to amend is to

evolving American society. Writes

that constitutional change does not

mend, correct, repair, and improvise.”

Peterson: “It will require courage

depend solely on the president or

Another believer in amendments is

to embrace the beliefs held by the

Congress or the Supreme Court: “Ordi-

Bugs Bunny, whom Lepore quotes in

framers of America’s constitutions

nary people working at the grassroots

the epigraph to the book. In the 1986

of the 1770s and ’80s: that a society

level can also read and interpret the

cartoon “An Ode to the Amendments

deserves a constitution suited to

Constitution, and, as importantly, find

of the U.S. Constitution,” Bugs sang:

its own needs and challenges, not

it wanting and agitate for change.”

“It was intended to be amended.”

those of its distant ancestors.”

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Your Generosity Will Benefit Generations to Come

Nation Builder Katharine Pittman portrays Martha Washington

Seal the deal with a challenge coin! In celebration of the nation’s 250th and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s 100th anniversaries, we encourage you to make a gift that will impact future generations by designating the Foundation as a beneficiary in your Will. Friends who share this information with us for the first time will receive a commemorative challenge coin that honors 100 years of the Foundation. To learn more, please contact the Office of Gift Planning at 1-888-293-1776 or legacy@cwf.org. Please consult professional advisors before making a charitable gift. Colonial Williamsburg cannot render tax or legal advice. Colonial Williamsburg® is a registered trademark of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation © 2026.

VARIETY Corn PLANTING Plant after danger of last frost and soil has reached 60° F. Plant each seed 1 to 2 inches deep and 12 inches apart. Requires full sun.

Aw, Shucks

Corn: An ancient American treat BY ANGELA TAORMINA PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN NEWSON

TIP Corn is wind pollinated so plant rows in a block or square grid, not one long row.

Live & Learn GARDEN-TO-TABLE

important food to early settlers. They learned to cultivate corn and prepare corn breads from Indigenous people. Native to Mesoamerica and Central America, corn’s progenitor— a grass called teosinte — began to be domesticated likely for sweet juices pressed from its stalks. Teosinte has stony, yet brittle, seeds that shatter as they hit the ground, propagating the plants naturally. Over thousands of years, Indigenous farmers selected plants with seeds that clung to their stems, more like today’s corn. While such varieties were easier to harvest and eat, they were harder to produce as ripened kernels bound tight in husks cannot scatter and germinate on their own. Instead, each ear must be plucked and shucked and its seeds separated out to prepare for the next season’s planting. Despite that extra work, corn succeeded partly because it is easier to harvest and process than small grains. It also provides more food than other grains for the acreage planted. White dent corn, which was common in 18th-century Williamsburg, now flourishes during the season in the Historic Area’s farm and garden. Master Historic Farmer Ed Schultz and his team recently began a program to perfect Virginia gourdseed, Historic Foodways Journeyman Supervisor Abbey Shoaf prepared johnnycakes in the Governor’s Palace kitchen. The Historic Garden has been growing white dent corn, which was common in 18th-century Williamsburg.

IMAGINE CORN ON THE COB: an ear

a type of dent corn. Shultz has been

packed with plump, juicy yellow,

working with Glenn Roberts of Anson

white — or yellow and white — ker-

Mills, who has had success in bringing

nels. Smothered in butter. Hard to

heirloom cultivars, including gourd-

beat. Unfortunately for American colo-

seed, to market. It’s called gourdseed

nists, today’s sweet farmstand staple

simply because its kernels are shaped

did not become widely available until

like a “gourd seed.” Its close relative

the 19th century.

originally came from Mexico, and

The varieties grown in colonial

no one really knows how it got to

Virginia were starch-dense field corn.

Virginia — whether by the Spanish or

Rather tough, and not as sweet as

Indigenous trade networks. Farmers

today’s, corn was, nonetheless, an

like it because it is “prolific,” meaning

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Johnnycakes Historic Foodways Adapted from American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (Hartford, Conn., 1796). SERVES 4

NOTE The batter can be made ahead of time and even refrigerated overnight. It will thicken as it stands.

brandy or sherry for soaking (optional) 2

cups finely ground cornmeal

cups heavy cream or half-and-half

cup molasses lard or oil for frying butter, sugar or syrup for serving

1. In a medium pot over medium heat, stirring constantly, cook the cornmeal and cream or half-and-half until the liquid is absorbed and the cornmeal is tender. Continue to cook to thicken the batter or remove it from the heat and allow it to thicken as it rests after step 2. 2. Remove from the heat, and mix in the molasses. 3. If the batter is thick, move to step 4. If not, set the batter aside to cool and thicken or put it in the fridge overnight.* 4. In a medium frying pan over medium heat, heat enough lard or oil to cover the pan. 5. Drop a large spoonful of batter into the hot lard or oil and flatten with a spatula. 6. Once firm and browned on the bottom, flip the johnnycake over with a spatula and cook through. Finished cakes should have a light golden crust like a pancake. 7. Serve hot with butter, sugar, syrup or other topping of choice. *Alternatively, if the batter seems too soft and the cakes will not hold their shape in the frying pan, mix some flour into the batter and add additional molasses to taste.

Angela Taormina is a freelance editor living in Norge, Virginia.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Live & Learn GARDEN-TO-TABLE

it has two ears. Each ear has about 600 kernels. It also grinds easily and is delicious in grits and corn bread. Schultz says he hopes the crop can answer the question he has been asked countless times by visitors: “Where can I eat what they ate?” Using seeds selected, bred and refined over multiple growing seasons at the Historic Area’s farm, the team hopes to grow and process enough Virginia gourdseed for Colonial Williamsburg’s taverns to use in dishes on their menus. Despite many colonists’ reliance on cornmeal, Historic Foodways Journeyman Supervisor Abbey Shoaf, standing at the fire in the Governor’s Palace kitchen, stated that it would not have been served to the governor and his guests. They considered corn a crop for servants and livestock, and no preparation, however refined or toothsome, would have made it to their tables. However, it should be noted George Washington enjoyed hoecakes for his breakfast. Travelers, though, sometimes made dense, sturdy cornmeal cakes to take on trips. These were often called johnnycakes, a derivation of the word journey. Shoaf shared a recipe for johnnycakes that are sweetened with molasses. To celebrate late summer’s sweet corn Williamsburg Inn Executive Chef Julianne Gutierrez developed a rich risotto infused with deep corn flavor. Gutierrez prepared a simple corn stock from cobs shorn of their kernels. Those seemingly spent cobs release intense flavor into a potent broth that amplifies the risotto’s corn flavor while C R E DI T T K

keeping it vegetarian. A scattering of grilled kernels balances the corn’s sweetness with a hint of char.

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Live & Learn GARDEN-TO-TABLE

Corn Risotto Williamsburg Inn SERVES 6

NOTE This recipe takes about 2 hours to make. The pickled shallots need to be refrigerated overnight. An alternative to charring the corn (step 1 in recipe) is to purchase grilled corn kernels frozen or canned.

cobs of corn sprigs of fresh thyme

bay leaf

tablespoons olive oil, divided

cups grilled corn kernels, frozen or canned (if not charring the corn)

garlic cloves, minced, divided

shallot, minced, divided

medium white onion, diced

cups Arborio rice

cup white wine

cup Parmesan cheese, grated

tablespoons cold butter, cubed salt and black or white pepper, to taste

tablespoon fresh parsley, minced

tablespoons fresh thyme, minced pea tendrils for garnish

JE R RY Mc COY

pickled shallots for garnish (see recipe below) 1. Husk the cobs of corn, being sure to clean off the silk well. Char the cleaned cobs of corn either on a grill or in a skillet on the stovetop. Allow to cool, and then cut the corn from the cob. Reserve the corn and the cobs. (Alternative to charring: Boil

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

the cleaned cobs of corn, allow to cool and cut off the corn, but use prepared grilled corn kernels, frozen or canned, later in the recipe.) 2. Make corn stock: Add the corn cobs to a stockpot with a few stems of thyme, a bay leaf and 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil and allow to simmer, covered, for 30-45 minutes. Remove the bay leaf. Set aside. 3. Make a corn puree: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat 1 tablespoon of oil and sauté 2 cups of the grilled corn kernels with 1 teaspoon of garlic and 1 teaspoon of shallots. Transfer the mixture to a blender. Just cover with corn stock. Blend until smooth. Set aside. 4. In a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the onion, and cook about 5 minutes, until soft and translucent. 5. Add the remaining garlic and shallots, and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds. 6. Add the rice. Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula for about 2 minutes, until the grains are lightly toasted and coated with oil. (Using metal will cause the grains to break.) 7. Add the wine and stir to deglaze. Continue stirring until the wine is almost dry. 8. Turn down the heat to mediumlow. Add 6 cups of warm corn stock in three additions, stirring frequently until mostly absorbed, 10-15 minutes for each addition. Season with salt on the

second liquid addition. Once the stock is mostly absorbed, the rice should be slightly creamy and al dente. 9. To finish, stir in 2 cups of warm corn puree and allow liquid to reduce around the rice, about 5 minutes. 10. When the puree is mostly absorbed but the risotto is still flowing, add the cheese and butter. Stir until the butter is fully melted. 11. Add 1 cup of grilled corn kernels, season with salt and pepper, and finish with the parsley and thyme. 12. Serve immediately, topped with pea tendrils and pickled shallots. The risotto should spread gently on the plate but not run or be stiff.

Pickled Shallots 4

large shallots

cup champagne vinegar

tablespoon kosher salt

tablespoons granulated sugar

sprigs thyme

teaspoon black peppercorns

1. Peel and slice the shallots finely on a mandoline or with a sharp knife. Reserve. 2. In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, salt, sugar, thyme, peppercorns and a cup of water. Bring to a boil. 3. Pour the hot liquid over the shallots, ensuring they are fully submerged. Refrigerate overnight before use.

Virginia’s Signers of the Declaration of Independence The last of a continuing series . by Paul Aron

BENJAMIN HARRISON

BENJAMIN HARRISON V was a reluctant Revolutionary. He was, John Adams wrote, a member of the “cold Party,” those Adams thought cool to the idea of independence. Adams could be nasty about those he disliked. He compared Harrison to the fat, drunk and corrupt fictional character William Shakespeare portrayed in a trio of plays: “Harrison was another Sir John Falstaff, excepting in his Larcenies and Robberies, his Conversation disgusting to every Man of Delicacy or decorum, Obscaene, profane, impious.” This description was perhaps more a reflection of Adams’ puritanism than of Harrison’s character, though Harrison did enjoy drinking, eating and talking. More relevant, at least to the cause of independence, was that once Harrison embraced the cause — sometime in March 1776 — he did much to advance it. As a moderate, Harrison was in a better position than more radical members of Congress like Adams or Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee to sway other moderates. As president of the committee of the whole, a

GIF T O F ME R R I T T H. TAY L O R , JR ., V IR GINI A MU S E UM O F HIS T O RY & C ULT UR E (19 6 8.28.1. A )

Part 6 of 7

Profile: Virginia Signers of the Declaration of Independence

“A Corner Stone”

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Live & Learn

S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY

SIGNERS

parliamentary mechanism that let Congress meet with more relaxed rules, he (not John Hancock, the president of Congress) presided over some of the debates about the Declaration of Independence that led to its adoption. Edmund Randolph, who was a delegate to the Virginia Convention in Williamsburg that instructed its delegates to Congress to propose independence, wrote that each of Virginia’s delegates to Congress was chosen for a reason. In the case of Harrison, it was because he would “utter plain truths.” Even Adams had to concede that Harrison “was represented to be . . . a corner Stone in which the two Walls of Party met in Virginia.” At the Virginia Convention, firm Revolutionaries outnumbered moderates, and they acted against Harrison and Carter Braxton, the two Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress who had been most hesitant about independence, by eliminating their seats. The Convention decided that as of the end of August 1776 they would have five delegates instead of seven in Congress. In practice, that meant that the terms of Harrison and Braxton ended soon after the two signed the declaration. Harrison had a sense of humor, in one case gallows humor. On July 4, according to Benjamin Rush, a Pennsylvania delegate to Congress, the portly Harrison told the slender Elbridge Gerry, a

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

This description was perhaps more a reflection of Adams’ puritanism than of Harrison’s character, though Harrison did enjoy drinking, eating and talking. Massachusetts signer of the declaration, “I shall have a great advantage over you Mr. Gerry when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.” If Harrison was disturbed by the Virginia Convention’s move to end his term, he must have felt vindicated later in the year when Virginia’s General Assembly reversed the convention’s decision and elected him to serve again in Congress. He continued to serve the cause, especially by arguing for more support for the army. Harrison also served as governor of Virginia from 1781 to 1784, succeeding Thomas Nelson Jr., another signer of the declaration. Harrison’s family connections are noteworthy. His brother-inlaw was Peyton Randolph, the first president of the Continental Congress. His second cousins Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee joined him in signing the Declaration of Independence. His son William Henry Harrison and a great-grandson, also named Benjamin, were presidents of the United States.

A March 25, 1775, Virginia Gazette included praise for Benjamin Harrison’s work in the Continental Congress, as well as that of his fellow delegates Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton.

“Aristocratic Pride”

OF THE SEVEN Virginians to sign the Declaration, the last to support independence was Carter Braxton. Braxton’s reluctance had many sources. His dislike of the more radical patriots like Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry had roots in the two having helped expose a scandal involving John Robinson. As treasurer of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, Robinson mismanaged

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

N AT IO N A L P O R T R A I T G A L L E RY, S MI T HS O NI A N INS T I T U T IO N

Profile: Virginia Signers of the Declaration of Independence Part 7 of 7 72

CARTER BRAXTON

funds, lending money to wealthy planters, including Braxton. Also, Braxton’s first wife was Judith Robinson, John Robinson’s niece. Through his second wife, Elizabeth Corbin, Braxton had ties to the royal government. Her father was the deputy collector of royal revenues in Virginia. Braxton’s ties proved useful in April 1775 after Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, seized gunpowder from the Magazine in Williamsburg. Henry led angry militiamen toward Williamsburg, but Braxton helped to negotiate a deal that put off a revolution, at least for the moment. Most fundamentally, perhaps, Braxton worried that revolution would endanger his wealth. Some of his wealth came from his father, a wealthy planter and merchant, and some from his mother, who was the daughter of Robert “King” Carter, whose nickname was the result of his being one of the richest men in Virginia. Braxton distrusted the more democratic impulses of the more radical Revolutionaries. Those impulses did not, of course, extend beyond white men, but Braxton found them threatening, nonetheless. In an effort to influence the type of constitution Virginia would adopt, in the spring of 1776 he wrote “An Address to the Convention of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia; on the Subject of Government in General, and Recommending a Particular Form to Their Consideration.” As

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S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS , JO HN D. R O C K E F E L L E R JR . L IBR A RY; JO HN C A R T E R BR OWN L IBR A RY

SIGNERS

much as possible, Braxton hoped to retain the British form of government. He proposed that the governor have tenure as long as he behaved well and that members of the upper house of the legislature have life terms. Braxton conceded that each day “brings forth new proofs of British tyranny.” But he urged the convention not to abandon the English system of government. “The same principles which led the English to greatness, animates us,” Braxton wrote. “To that principle our laws, our customs, and our manners are adapted, and it would be perverting all order, to oblige us, by a novel government, to give up our laws, our customs, and our manners.” Lee called Braxton’s work a “Contemptible little Tract” with a “Confusion of ideas, aristocratic pride, contradictory reasoning, with evident ill design.” The Fifth Virginia Convention, meeting in Williamsburg, ignored Braxton’s proposal and adopted a constitution largely based on a draft by George Mason. The convention also voted to cut the number of Virginia’s representatives to the Continental Congress, and the two whose terms would come to an end were the two most conservative delegates, Braxton and Benjamin Harrison. Why, given his fears of independence and democracy, did Braxton end up signing the declaration? It’s not clear. But by April, though he

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Why, given his fears of independence and democracy, did Braxton end up signing the declaration? It’s not clear. was still against independence, his reasons were more practical than principled. He argued the colonies should first secure an alliance with France before taking on the powerful British forces. And in July, perhaps only in the interests of presenting a united front, Braxton decided to support the declaration. Unlike Harrison, Braxton never returned to Congress. But he did serve, influentially, in Virginia’s new General Assembly, and later in 1776 that assembly voted to thank him for his service in Philadelphia.

(Left) A supplement to the Virginia Gazette, dated May 5, 1775, reported on Carter Braxton’s role in averting violence after the royal governor seized the colony’s gunpowder from the Magazine in Williamsburg. (Right) “An Address to the Convention” was attributed to a “NATIVE” of Virginia but was recognized as Braxton’s work.

Savor fall. Celebrate what’s next. Fall brings a special kind of warmth to Colonial Williamsburg’s Merchants Square. Spend the day strolling beneath colorful trees, exploring welcoming shops and discovering unique finds, distinctive gifts and unexpected treasures for everyone on your holiday list. From crisp autumn afternoons to the first signs of holiday cheer, Colonial Williamsburg’s Merchants Square is the perfect place to savor the season, gather with those you love and begin your new favorite tradition.

Aromas Café

Chico’s

Baskin-Robbins

The Christmas Shop

Berret’s Seafood Restaurant & Taphouse Grill

Colonial Williamsburg Bookstore

Native Sun

Secret Garden

illy Caffé

The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg

Sole Provisions

J. McLaughlin

Penny and a Sixpence

The Jewish Mother’s Deli

Pepper Palace Williamsburg

Fat Canary and Downstairs at Fat Canary

Blink

Colorful Stitches Fine Yarn

Blue Talon Bistro

Danforth Pewter

K’Bola Cuban Restaurant & Bar

Brick & Vine

DoG Street Pub

Kimball Theatre

The Precious Gem

Campus Shop

Eleva Coffee Lounge

lululemon athletica

R. Bryant Ltd.

The Carousel Children’s Boutique

Ember

Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers

R. P. Wallace & Sons General Store

Monkee’s of Williamsburg

Scotland House Ltd.

The Cheese Shop

Everything Williamsburg

Precarious Beer Project

The Shoe Attic The Spice & Tea Exchange of Williamsburg Talbots Three Cabanas: A Lilly Pulitzer Signature Store The Williamsburg Winery Tasting Room & Wine Bar Walkabout Outfitter Wythe Candy & Gourmet Shop

Scan here or visit merchantssquare.org to learn more about becoming an insider and the fantastic events that are coming later this year. Tag us with #LoveMSQ on Social Media!

DIY: DRUM ORNAMENT

Drum Roll… An ornament that can’t be beat A PROJECT BY THE ART MUSEUMS OF COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN NEWSON

Live & Learn

rom calling minutemen to the Battle of Lexington to signaling surrender at the Siege of Yorktown, the drum earned its status as a symbol of the Revolutionary War. During the war, each company typically included one drummer along with a fifer. The instruments were used to mark both the start and end of the day as well as to send signals across a battlefield and, when not in combat, entertain the troops. The Colonial Williamsburg Fifes & Drums echo this history as they march through the Historic Area playing Revolutionary War field music. The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg have added a number of drums over the years, including a colorfully painted toy one made of leather, wood and paper. It features familiar national symbols: a hand-colored lithograph eagle holding a shield, above which is a banner that reads “E PLURIBUS UNUM.”

What You Need (A)

Scissors

(B)

Pencil

(C)

2 wooden skewers

(D)

Colored thread

(E)

Short ball head pins

(F)

Lightweight cardboard

(G)

Twine

(H)

Cardboard craft tube, 2¼ inches wide

(I)

2 pieces of scrapbook paper of choice, 7¼ by ⅜ inches

(J)

Piece of scrapbook paper of choice, 7⅛ by 2 inches

(K)

Glue

(L)

2 wood beads

C B

K I

E F

(M) Scrapbook paper

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

CO L O NI A L WIL L I A MS BUR G CO L L EC T IO NS

DIY

Live & Learn DIY

The Process STEP 1 Cut a 2-inch-tall piece of the cardboard tube for the shell of the drum. Trace the opening twice onto the lightweight cardboard and cut out the circles.

STEP 2 Glue a circle to each end of the drum shell. STEP 3 Once the glue is dry, glue one end of the drum onto a piece of scrapbook paper. Cut the paper in a circle around the drum leaving a ¾-inch border. Cut little slits from the outside of the paper toward the tube. Fold the snipped edges and glue to the tube. Repeat at the other end. STEP 4 Create a loop out of twine and glue both ends of the twine, together, to the side of the tube. To help secure the twine to the tube, glue a small strip of scrap paper over the twine. STEP 5 Glue a 7⅛-by-2-inch piece of scrapbook paper around the tube. Glue one 7¼-by-⅜-inch strip of scrapbook paper around each end. STEP 6 Push pins into the strips of scrapbook paper around the drum, roughly ½ inch apart.

STEP 7 Wrap the colored thread around the pins in a zigzag pattern. STEP 8 For each drumstick, glue a wooden bead to the pointed end of a skewer. Snip off the pointed end flush with the bead. From the blunt end, trim the skewer to 3½ inches. Add glue to the bottom third of the stick and wrap with twine. Glue both sticks to the top of the drum.

7 TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

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Where every book has a past. The Colonial Williamsburg Bookstore is more than shelves and spines—it’s a treasure trove of early American life. Whether you’re searching for historical fiction, beautifully bound classics, or a unique gift steeped in early American charm, you’ll find it here. Take a piece of the past home with you—one page, one story at a time. Visit the Bookstore at 440 WEST DUKE OF GLOUCESTER STREET, WILLIAMSBURG, VA 23185

LEARN MORE AT COLONIALWILLIAMSBURG.ORG/CWBOOKSTORE

Puzzles & Prize Wordplay: From theGiddy 18th century Up to today

by Ben Swenson

GIDDY Across UP

by Ben Swenson

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Our Prize Enigma

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

AUTUMN 2026

PUZZLE ANSWERS R E L E T S D I C K A H S A C H E M O T A C A C I A B R A R O G U E N A T I O N P U L P Y I S R I N E A R A R M Y R A N G E R N O R D O W L A N N U L M C G R I D D L E W O E S G I V E O F F U S O O A R R E N E R U S S O P R O M R O A M S T I K C I V I C P R I D E R A G E P L U M E S A L E S L A I H A R B O R P I L O T A G E E S A U D E N A D A M E S E H L E S C E N E S P S T

SUMMER PRIZE ENIGMA

The Frenchman’s Map Congratulations to winner Babs Chicoine of Shelbyville, Tenn., whose entry was chosen from a pool of correct answers to the puzzle in the Summer issue. She received a copy of “That the Future May Learn From the Past: The First 100 Years of Colonial Williamsburg.” Want to play, too? Here are the rules: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. Sweepstakes ends 11/20/26. For entry and official rules with complete eligibility, prize description, odds disclosure and other details, visit www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/trend-and-tradition-prizerules. Sponsored by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Void where prohibited. P L A N DE L A V IL L E E T E N V IR O NS DE WIL L I A MS BUR G E N V IR GINIE , A ME R IC A (F R E NC HM A N’ S M A P O F WIL L I A MS BUR G , V IR GINI A ), S P ECI A L CO L L EC T IO NS R E S E A R C H C E N T E R , WIL L I A M & M A RY L IBR A R IE S

GIDDY UP

The Frenchman's Map

TREND & TRADITION • AUTUMN 2026

Parting Shot

An A-mazing Adventure Laura Whitfield, of Springfield, Virginia, took this photo of her son navigating the maze behind the Governor’s Palace. She and her family try to visit every year, and she enjoys capturing the beauty of the Historic Area and the fun they have through a lens.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SUBMITTED PHOTOS. PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING! Send your favorite Colonial Williamsburg photo — a .jpg or .tif that is at least 300 dpi at 5" ×7", please — to partingshot@cwf.org. Tell us why you love the image, and we may choose it for “Parting Shot” in an upcoming issue. Don’t forget to include your hometown.

Whether enjoying a bike ride or gathering for book club with friends, WindsorMeade offers opportunities to stay engaged. Nestled in historic Williamsburg, the community supports a vibrant lifestyle today while providing a full continuum of support services for tomorrow. Independent Living | Assisted Living | Memory Support | Short-Term Rehabilitation | Nursing

YOUR VIBRANT LIFE CONTINUES AT WINDSORMEADE

windsormeade.org • 757-580-9514

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