Virginia Vignettes

Colonial Williamsburg is the restored and reconstructed historic area of Williamsburg, Virginia, a small city between the York and James rivers that was founded in 1632, designated capital of the English colony in 1698, and bestowed with a royal charter in 1722. It was a center of political activity before and during the American Revolution [...]

In late 1751, at the age of 19, George Washington made his only lifetime trip outside of the continental colonies.  He accompanied his older brother Lawrence, who sought relief for his tuberculosis in the climate of Barbados.  The choice of this Caribbean island was not fortuitous.
Barbados was a major British sugar and slave colony and [...]

The war effort and its repercussions demanded much of Virginia women. Many sent husbands off to war and assumed some if not all of the duties of running their family plantation, farm, or business. Homespun clothes became a mark of patriotism, and by 1777 Virginia women and their slaves were making much of the clothing used by [...]

His name was Robert Munford III, and while he is remembered today as a playwright, in his time he was best known as a member of the House of Burgesses and an officer who served under George Washington during the French and Indian War. Politically, Munford was an anti-tax moderate who opposed the Revolutionary War [...]

No, not Thomas Jefferson. It was St. George Tucker. Tucker was one of the most influential jurists and legal scholars in the United States during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He served as judge on three different courts in Virginia: the General Court (1788-1804), the Virginia Court of Appeals (1804-1811) and the federal [...]

Saul Matthews was a slave from Norfolk County who served the patriot cause in the double capacity of a soldier in the American army and as a spy for the American commanders in the British army during the Revolutionary War. During the time when many slaves of Norfolk and Princess Anne counties followed the [...]

William Flora (1755-1820) was one of the African Americans in the Norfolk area who distinguished himself as a soldier fighting on the American side during the Revolution and eventually found success as a business leader. Flora was a free black born in Portsmouth, Virginia who stood his ground at the Battle of Great Bridge, [...]

The continuous presence of British ships in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic coast encouraged a number of residents from the Eastern Shore and Norfolk areas to remain steadfast loyalists throughout the war. Some were merchants who had much to gain financially by trading with Britain; others were smugglers who made handsome profits by [...]

The document that Thomas Jefferson wrote represented the journey that the American colonies and Virginia had taken since 1765. The center section of the Declaration lists eighteen major abuses and a number of minor ones by king and Parliament and is based primarily on the notion that the traditional rights of Englishmen had been violated. Americans were [...]

The war effort and its repercussions demanded much of Virginia women. Many sent husbands off to war and assumed some if not all of the duties of running their family plantation, farm, or business. Homespun clothes became a mark of patriotism, and by 1777 Virginia women and their slaves were making much of the clothing used by [...]