Berkeley Plantation

Another Declaration of Independence Signer to see.  Since he's buried on his plantation, we had another historic site to visit.

Berkeley Plantation comprise about 1,000 acres on the banks of the James River.  It was originally called Berkeley Hundred, named after the Berkeley Company of England.  In 1726, it became the home of the Harrison family after Benjamin Harrison IV located there and built one of the first three-story brick mansions in Virginia.  It is the ancestral home of two presidents of the United States: William Henry Harrison, who was born there in 1773, and his grandson Benjamin Harrison.

I felt like we were stepping back in time as we drove onto the property.

I pictured myself in a carriage :-)

And then we arrived.

The Guest House in colonial times is now the Gift Shop and where tours start.

We met two nice women who were "on duty" that day.

Linda and Sudi

Also "on duty" was George.

We went outside to start the house tour with Sudi.  Unfortunately, we learned that photos of the inside of the house were prohibited.

The side of the house displays an interesting item - notice the round mark above the door.

The initials of Benjamin IV and Anne Harrison

On December 4, 1619, a group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred on the north bank of the James River.  It was about 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, where the first permanent settlement of the Colony was established on May 14, 1607.

During the Indian Massacre of 1622, nine of the settlers at Berkeley Hundred were killed, as well as about a third of the entire population of the county.  The Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned as the colonists withdrew to Jamestown and other more secure points.

In 1726, using bricks fired on the Berkeley plantation, Benjamin Harrison IV built a Georgian-style brick mansion on a hill overlooking the James River.  Harrison's son, Benjamin Harrison V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a governor of Virginia, was born at Berkley Plantation, as was his son William Henry Harrison.  Berkeley would later earn a distinction shared only with Peachfield in Quincy, Massachusetts, as the ancestral home for two United States presidents, though this connection is negligible as William Henry Harrison's grandson, the 23rd president Benjamin Harrison, was born and reared in North Bend, Ohio.

By the time Benjamin Harrison VII inherited Berkeley in 1799, the land was worn out after more than two centuries of monoculture tobacco and cotton crops and the plantation was drifting toward financial ruin.  After 150 years of Harrison family ownership, a local bank foreclosed on the plantation and the family was evicted.  Benjamin Harrison VII was the last Harrison to own Berkeley.

During the Civil War, Union troops occupied the plantation and President Lincoln twice visited in the summer of 1862 to confer with General George McClellan.  During the Army of the Potomac's Peninsula Campaign in 1862, confederate General J.E.B. Stuart's army shot a cannonball into the side of the house from the nearby James River.  The cannonball was never removed and is still visible today.

The Harrisons were unable to regain possession of the plantation after the war and it was rented out by the bank from time to time to tenant farmers and the mansion was eventually used as a barn, falling into such disrepair that it was uninhabitable.

John Jamieson, who as a youth had been at Berkeley as a drummer boy in McClellan's army, purchased the property in 1907.  In 1925, his son Malcom inherited the property, spending large sums of money to turn the ruined main house into a livable and stately home for himself and his wife, Grace Eggleston.  The project took over a decade and the mansion was finally occupied by the Jamiesons in 1938.

Today the house is owned by the Malcom E. Jamieson family and one of the family lives on the second floor of the home today.

It was time to walk the grounds.  But first, I made a stop in the restroom outside near the Gift Shop.  Look who was guarding the door for me.

Tribute to a Drummer Boy who was the youngest recipient of the Medal of Honor.

This monument memorializes the origin of Taps.  During the Civil War in July, 1862, when the Army of the Potomac was in camp on this site, Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield summoned Private Oliver Willcox Norton, his brigade bugler, to his tent.  He whistled some new tune and asked the bugler to sound it for him.  After repeated trials and changing the time of some notes which were scribbled on the back of an envelope, the call was finally arranged to suit General Butterfield and used for the first time that night.  From that time, it became and remains to this day the official call for "Taps".

As explained in the book The Great Plantation, by Clifford Dowdy, when the ship from England arrived on December 4, 1619, the men rowed ashore, placed their personal luggage on the ground, gazed at the woods and listened to the silence.  Then at the command from their Captain, the homesick men knelt on the dried grass to pray.

The Berkeley Company had given a specific list of ten instructions to the settlers when they departed England.  The first instruction was upon landing that they give a prayer of Thanksgiving for their safe voyage and to do so annually and perpetually thereafter.  

On that day, America's first official English speaking Thanksgiving had just occurred, one year and 17 days before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and almost 2 years before the pilgrims held a 3 day Harvest Feast with their Native American friends, which today is commonly thought to be the first Thanksgiving.

We finally made it to the burial ground overlooking the James River.

Harrison and Jamieson family members are interred here.  But we came specifically to see Benjamin Harrison V, signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Benjamin V was one of the nation's Founding Fathers and served as Virginia's governor from 1781 to 1784.

Benjamin Harrison V (1730-1791) and Elizabeth Bassett Harrison (1730-1792)

Once again, the actual gravesite is "somewhere in this graveyard".  We've seen this so many times.

We had one more quick stop we wanted to make before we made the drive back to the RV.

Grace Episcopal Church was first founded in 1634 on the site of the current U.S. Coast Guard Yorktown station, but has been nestled in the heart of the historic Village of Yorktown since 1697.  The church has survived fires and two wars over its history.  It is one of just 50 colonial Virginia churches to survive among the roughly 250 Anglican churches built in the Colonial period.

Here lies Thomas Nelson Jr. (1738-1789), a Founding Father of the United States, general in the Revolutionary War, and member of the Continental Congress.  In addition to serving many terms in the Virginia General Assembly, he twice represented Virginia in Congress, where he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.  Virginia legislators elected him to serve as the commonwealth's governor in 1781, the same year he fought as a brigadier general in the siege of Yorktown, the final battle of the war.

Inscription:

Gen. Thomas Nelson Jr.

Patriot Soldier Christian-Gentleman

Mover of the Resolution of May 15, 1776

In the Virginia Convention

Instructing her delegates in Congress

To move the body to declare the colonies

Free and independent states

Signer of the Declaration of Independence

War Governor of Virginia

Commander of Virginia's forces

He gave all for liberty

Interestingly, his wife, Lucy Grymes Nelson, lived 41 years following his death and is not buried here with him but in Fork Episcopal Church Cemetery in Doswell, Virginia.

We walked through the cemetery and I noticed an interesting group of headstones.

In the middle is Corbin Waller Mercer (1840-1910).  Maybe only interesting to me since the middle name is Waller and my Revolutionary patriot is Ashbel Waller.  So I looked him up to learn more about him and to see if, by chance, he was related to Ashbel.  

Corbin Mercer served in the Confederacy under the command of Colonel John S. Mosby, and was a member of the Robert E. Lee Camp of Confederate Veterans.  During the war he was captured and imprisoned at Fort Delaware.  I also learned that he was the great-grandson of General Hugh Mercer, who was killed at the battle of Princeton, New Jersey in the American Revolution.  Hmmmm, why did that name sound familiar?

Turns out when we were visiting Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia a few weeks past, we not only saw the gravesite of General Hugh Mercer but we took a picture of it. 

What a day.

St. John's Episcopal Church + 1 more

We had another cemetery (and Declaration of Independence signer) to visit - this one had some very special history.

As tensions grew between the colonies and Great Britain in the 1770s, Virginia held a series of meetings to organize its protests against the mother country.  In March of 1775, the Second Virginia Convention was held at the church at what was then called Henrico Parish Church.  Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph and other prominent Virginians were delegates to the convention.  Here, Patrick Henry embodied the spirit of the Revolution on March 23, 1775, with his famous words....."Give me liberty.....or give me death!"

St. John's Church is one of America's most important sites, where - swayed by Patrick Henry's powerful argument - the delegates made a decision that changed the course of history, lighting the spark of the War for Independence.

Oh no, the gate was closed - AND LOCKED!

We walked around the brick wall and couldn't find an opening so we could visit. But wait, what was this?

An elevator?  Okay, let's give it a try.

I'd say that's the first - and probably the last - that we've found the only way inside a cemetery and church is by elevator.  But it worked and we were there.

St. John's Episcopal Church, founded 1741

Patrick Henry gave his passionate speech here

First things first - find the grave of George Wythe.

George Wythe (1726-1806) was an American academic, scholar, and judge.  The first of the seven signers of the Declaration of Independence from Virginia, Wythe served as one of Virginia's representatives to the Continental Congress and the Philadelphia Convention and served on a committee that established the convention's rules and procedures.  He left the convention before signing the Constitution to tend to his dying wife.  He was elected to the Virginia Ratifying Convention and helped ensure that his home state ratified the Constitution.  Wythe taught and was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Henry Clay, and other men who became American leaders.

I just love wandering around historic cemeteries.

Eliza Poe (nee Elizabeth Arnold (1787-1811) was an English actress and the mother of Edgar Allan Poe who was born in London in the spring of 1787.  Her mother was a stage actress in London from 1791 to 1795 and it is thought that her father died in 1790.  In 1795, Eliza and her mother sailed from England to Boston arriving in January, 1796.  There Eliza debuted on stage at the age of nine only three months after her arrival in the United States.  This is not the exact burial site but the memorial marks the general area.

This was interesting.  I wish I knew the story as to why the wall looks to be just partially intact.

Alexander Whittaker was an English Anglican theologian who settled in Virginia in 1611 and established two churches near the Jamestown colony.  He was also known as "The Apostle of Virginia" by contemporaries.  He was a popular religious leader with both settlers and natives and was responsible for the baptism and conversion of Pochahontas two years after his arrival.  She took the baptismal name "Rebecca".  Whittaker accidentally drowned in c. 1616 while crossing the James River.

We had no idea there was a visitor center on the grounds.  Unfortunately, it was closed but we learned that guided tours depart from the center and take place inside the church and explore the events in Virginia leading up to the Second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry's famous speech, and his political career.  Sorry we missed it :-(

The grounds are so beautiful - I especially love this picture.

At the turn of the 20th century, hand-painted advertisement adorned barns and commercial buildings across the nation.  This ad for Uneeda Biscuit across the street from the church is one of the better preserved, and a great example of the craft from an advertising pioneer powerhouse.

Uneeda Biscuits were introduced in the 1890s as a product of the National Biscuit Company, now Nabisco.  In those days, crackers were packaged, shipped, and stored in, and sold directly from large cracker barrels, where they were exposed to air and went stale quickly.  Uneeda biscuits were lighter, flakier, and stayed crisper longer due to their packaging.  In 1896, National Biscuit Company spent $1 million in a branding campaign to compete with Cracker Jack, a competitor of Uneeda Biscuits.  The packaging featured a boy in a raincoat and has been considered one of the original consumer packaging concepts that did not rely on identity recognition.  The boy in the raincoat signified the way the packaging kept moisture out of the product by using interfolded wax paper and cardboard.  The Uneeda brand was discontinued by Nabisco in 2009.

But one more stop.

Since 1828, a small building currently known as the Jackson Death Site has stood south of the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia.  The building was built not as a residence but as the office of the small farm of Fairfield.  As a slave labor farm, the building may have served as office space for slave overseers.

Fairfield's close proximity to Guinea Station, a stop along the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad, ensured a steady flow of activity in the surrounding area throughout the Civil War.  The wide variety of people who passed through this area sometimes refer to it under different names including Fairfield, Chandler Plantation, and Guinea Station.

Most famously, the Civil War brought Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson to Fairfield.  In the lead-up to the Battle of Fredericksburg, Jackson's command camped in the area for a short time.  But it was six months later, during the Battle of Chancellorsville, that Jackson would make the small office famous.  After his wounding in a friendly fire incident and the amputation of his left arm, the survivors worked quickly to carry Jackson into friendly territory, eventually reaching the field hospital near Wilderness Tavern.  Two days later an ambulance carried Jackson a distance of 27 miles to Guinea Station.  Doctors hoped that Jackson would gain strength at Guinea and then proceed to Richmond by rail.  However, Jackson developed symptoms of pneumonia and would never get on the train.  He died in the farm office eight days after his wounding on May 10, 1863.

In the 1900s, private citizens sought to preserve the building in which Jackson died.  The efforts served a larger goal to memorialize Confederates and control the story of the Civil War.

We stepped inside where a guide was explaining things to a small group of visitors.  

Unfortunately, most of the original artifacts had been removed for the season due to the extreme heat.  

Sadly, no bed in the room.  :-(

This is the room used as a conference room and, later, a waiting room.

This marker is one of 10 similar small rectangular stone monuments commonly referred to as the Smith Markers because of the role that one of Jackson's former staff officers, James Power Smith, played in their placement.  The markers identify important sites related to Robert E. Lee, his generals, and their actions from 1862-1864.

The effort to place these stones began in 1902 when Samuel B. Woods suggested the formation of a committee to mark important places on the battlefield.  It was later described that the purpose was not to mark battlefields, or lines of battles, but certain points or locations that would be of lasting historic interest.  

Smith directed the placement of the markers, including this one next to the farm office where Stonewall Jackson died.  Placement was completed in 1903.  Originally the marker was west of the house, near the rail line, so that it could be readily seen by train passengers.  The National Park Service moved it to its current location in the 1960s.  The Park Service added the last two lines of the inscription to prevent the misconception that the monument marked Jackson's grave.