It’s Independence Day weekend and what better way to kick it off, than with some great info on visiting Jamestown! We took an impromptu trip two weeks ago and headed south towards Williamsburg. We ended up spending a day exploring both sites. The Jamestown Settlement and Historic Jamestowne sites are minutes apart, and while each one is quite unique and has fun and interesting features, you can easily spend an entire day visiting just one location. However, if you’re traveling with younger kids, like we were, it worked out well to hit both places in the same day.
Historic Jamestowne
This is the actual site where 104 settlers arrived on May 14,1607. After checking in at the Visitors Center (which has many artifacts and lots of information), you are free to walk the grounds and explore. Signs and information boards are set up at different points to let you know where you’re standing and what happened there.
Another way to explore the site is to take a free tour, guided by an archaeologist.
As you visit the different sites and spots, you will get a wonderful account of all that has been found, along with details about the current excavation. Our Guide actually jumped right into a pit and showed us the possible cellar of the building they were excavating!
If you’re ready for lunch or a quick snack, stop by the historic Dale House Café near the water’s edge. It’s a scenic spot to rest up before continuing on to the Archaearium – a museum that houses the most impressive of the two million artifacts uncovered since the Rediscovery Project began in 1994. There are even several places where the flooring is made of glass, so you can see down to the original stones and foundation of the building under the Archaearium.
Jamestown Settlement
After spending a good 2-3 hours exploring the archaeological site, we headed over to the Jamestown Settlement, which is a re-creation of the original and a “living/working museum”. You could spend hours just wandering through the museum itself. Our first stop was actually the Cafe for a quick lunch! The food is cooked to order and they have a decent selection of items to satisfy even the pickiest eaters – and we had 3!
After lunch, we wandered through the gallery exhibits learning about Jamestown’s beginnings and viewing hundreds of objects and artifacts from 17th-century Europe, Africa, and Virginia. The items are integrated into the museum, which features three-dimensional structures and small theaters. The best part was that almost every placard or information board featured an item to touch – linen, wool, deer skin, iron cuffs, etc. so you really got a sense of what the settlers were using or wearing.
After learning more about life in the 1600’s, it was time to explore the three outdoor-living, hands-on history areas. First was the re-created Powhatan village featuring reed-covered houses, crops and a ceremonial circle of carved wooden posts. You can walk in the houses, sit on the deerskin covered beds and even use a chunk of a log and rock pestle to grind corn into meal (we had a hard time dragging one of the little ones away from that!). We were quite fascinated to watch a Powhatan Indian interpreter make a log canoe by burning the inside of a tree trunk and then scraping it out with an oyster shell.
Our next stop was checking out The Ships – re-creations of the Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed that brought America’s first permanent English colonists to Virginia in 1607. The ships are moored at the pier and are completely hands-on! Once aboard the ships, you can explore the tight conditions, try steering with a whip-staff or tiller, tie sailors’ knots, and even climb into a sailor’s bunk. Costumed interpreters are on all 3 ships and give a great account of what it was like to sail from England in 1607 and can answer pretty much any question you might have.
Our last stop was the James Fort. The re-created 1610-14 fort contain structures topped with thatch roofs depicting dwellings, as well as an Anglican church, a court of guard, a storehouse, a cape merchant’s office and a governor’s house. Historical interpreters even forge and repair metal objects in a blacksmith’s forge and show how matchlock muskets are fired (warning: the muskets are loud!). You can even try on armor and play games!
Overall, visiting both sites was a fantastic way to learn about Virginia and American history. Children have plenty to see, handle, and explore, while Adults can enjoy learning new facts about the area and even feel like a kid again! Williamsburg and Jamestown are only about a 3-hour drive from the Northern VA area and is definitely something you could do over a long weekend.
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