This post is adapted from the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project's blog for 1/24 (see the link below):
Today marks the 250th birthday of Robert Burns. For the most part, that event will go unnoticed in the United States. Apart from Scotch whiskey, there is little about Scotland that crosses the mind of the average modern American. And yet the Chesapeake region teemed with Scots men and women during the 18th century. Many were merchants, physicians, and educators and they, more than any other European nationals, gave rise to urban life in the Colonial Chesapeake. In no place is that clearer than in the towns along the Potomac River, especially Alexandria, Virginia, and Port Tobacco, Maryland.
The land title research that we have been working on has turned up many Scots and a strong connection between those of Alexandria and Port Tobacco. Thanks to David Dobson's Scots on the Chesapeake, 1607-1830 (Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 1992), we know a fair amount about the Alexandria Scots. Those of Port Tobacco, however, did not appear in many of the sources that Dobson used in his compilation. Local land and other legal records, however, have proven fruitful and we could easily add dozens of names to his list.
Lists of names, places of origin, occupations, and death dates are important data in developing a historical study of a select group of people; but those data have little to offer when we try to understand how those immigrants thought of their new lives in North America and how they felt about family and friends left in the Old World, perhaps never to be seen again.
Scotland's poet laureate had, at one time, considered emigrating to the New World. His short life may have been even shorter had he done so...disease and the hazards of sea travel took a heavy toll on immigrants of all ethnicities. He also would have been a late arrival, the majority of expatriate Scots having relocated to the Americas soon after the uprisings of 1715 and 1745, many in shackles and sold into indentured servitude. Robbie Burn's paeans to the land and people of Scotland did not yet exist when many Scots came to these shores, but I have no doubt that in the late 1700s many a Scot's eye would glisten upon hearing a recitation of Burns' My Heart's in the Highlands.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
VIRGINIA COMPANY COLONIES’ EXHIBITION COINCIDES WITH BERMUDA’S 400TH ANNIVERSARY
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – “Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies,” a special exhibition March 1 through October 15, 2009, at Jamestown Settlement, a state-operated museum of 17th-century Virginia, will examine the shared history and links between England’s first two permanent colonies in the New World.
A companion lecture series will feature guest speakers at 7 p.m. on April 25, June 13, July 11 and August 8.
A British presence was established in Bermuda in 1609 when the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet en route to Jamestown in Virginia, was shipwrecked. Bermuda commemorates its 400th anniversary in 2009, two years after the Jamestown quadricentennial.
Beginning with the wreck of the Sea Venture, upon which Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” is based, the exhibition will trace Bermuda’s 400-year history, highlighting its importance as a strategic location and emergence as a premier travel destination in the 20th century. The Sea Venture’s passengers survived the disaster, built two smaller vessels in Bermuda and in 1610 sailed on to Virginia, leaving behind two people. More than two dozen objects from the Sea Venture underwater archaeological site will be exhibited courtesy of the Bermuda Maritime Museum.
Virginia and Bermuda were initially administered by the Virginia Company of London and later became British royal colonies. Today, Bermuda is the oldest self-governing British overseas territory. Legislative bodies formed in Virginia in 1619 and Bermuda in 1620 continue to the present and are represented in the exhibition with the Virginia House of Delegates Speaker’s chair, dating to the 18th century, and a 17th-century cedar chair from the Parliament of Bermuda.
Portraits of two British monarchs associated with Virginia and Bermuda – King James I and Queen Elizabeth II – and two early governors – Lord de la Warr, appointed Lord Governor and Captain General of Virginia by the Virginia Company in 1610, and Henry Hamilton, governor of Bermuda from 1785 to 1794 – will be exhibited.
Silver communion sets dating to the 17th century, from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hampton, Virginia, and St. Peter’s Church in St. George, Bermuda, symbolize the prominent role of the Church of England in both colonies.
The exhibition will feature items from the Earl Gregg Swem Library of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg related to St. George Tucker, an 18th-century Virginia judge and legal scholar born in Bermuda, and examples of Bermuda-made 17th- and 18th-century cedar furniture and silver spoons from the Tucker House in St. George, Bermuda, the 18th-century home of St. George Tucker’s brother Henry.
The American Revolution, American Civil War and World War II are among conflicts that have involved Bermuda because of its crossroads location in the Atlantic and proximity to the North American coast. Examples of Revolutionary era correspondence from the Swem Library, a painting depicting a Civil War blockade runner from The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and a World War II flyer from the Bermuda National Archives will be exhibited.
A late 19th-century watercolor painting by Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, loaned for the exhibition by the National Gallery of Canada, depicts Bermuda’s Hamilton Harbour. This painting brought Bermuda’s unique character to the attention of other artists, whose work influenced the development of Bermuda as a travel destination. A selection of paintings by leading American, Canadian and British artists depicting Bermuda scenes, including a game of croquet, will come to the exhibition from Bermuda’s Masterworks Foundation. Among them is “Banyan Tree Trunk” by Georgia O’Keeffe, who lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, for part of her youth and taught art for two summers at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
The popularity of both Virginia and Bermuda as travel destinations will be illustrated with a display of posters and other promotional materials.
Located in Jamestown Settlement’s special exhibition gallery, “Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies” is funded by grants from James City County and the Bank of Bermuda Foundation and other donations.
The St. George’s Foundation worked with the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the Virginia state agency that operates Jamestown Settlement, to facilitate artifact loans from Bermuda institutions.
The Saturday evening lecture series, funded with a grant from Dominion, features “The Lion and the Mouse … the Story of America and Bermuda” on April 25, presented by Bermuda filmmaker Lucinda Spurling; “The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America” on June 13, presented by University of Tennessee Professor of History Lorri Glover, co-author of a book with the same title as her talk; “Sister Colonies: Virginia, Bermuda, and the Beginnings of English America” on July 11, presented by University of Rochester Associate Professor of History Michael Jarvis; and “Somewhere Beyond the Sea: Art, Artists, and Bermuda” on August 8, presented by Founding and Creative Director Tom Butterfield of The Masterworks Foundation. Advance reservations are required for the free evening lectures at Jamestown Settlement’s Robins Foundation Theater by contacting (757) 253-4415 or rsvp.lecture@jyf.virginia.gov.
Jamestown Settlement, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, until 6 p.m. June 15 through August 15, is located southwest of Williamsburg on Route 31 at the Colonial Parkway next to Historic Jamestowne, site of the 1607 English settlement. Jamestown Settlement general admission of $14.00 for adults and $6.50 for ages 6 through 12 includes admission to the special exhibition. Permanent museum exhibits include expansive exhibition galleries and outdoor re-creations of an early 17th-century Powhatan Indian village, the three ships that brought America’s first permanent English colonists to Virginia in 1607 and a 1610-14 colonial fort.
For more information, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838. A video and a background paper, both titled “The Story of the Sea Venture,” are available at www.historyisfun.org/jamestown-and-bermuda.htm.
A companion lecture series will feature guest speakers at 7 p.m. on April 25, June 13, July 11 and August 8.
A British presence was established in Bermuda in 1609 when the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet en route to Jamestown in Virginia, was shipwrecked. Bermuda commemorates its 400th anniversary in 2009, two years after the Jamestown quadricentennial.
Beginning with the wreck of the Sea Venture, upon which Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” is based, the exhibition will trace Bermuda’s 400-year history, highlighting its importance as a strategic location and emergence as a premier travel destination in the 20th century. The Sea Venture’s passengers survived the disaster, built two smaller vessels in Bermuda and in 1610 sailed on to Virginia, leaving behind two people. More than two dozen objects from the Sea Venture underwater archaeological site will be exhibited courtesy of the Bermuda Maritime Museum.
Virginia and Bermuda were initially administered by the Virginia Company of London and later became British royal colonies. Today, Bermuda is the oldest self-governing British overseas territory. Legislative bodies formed in Virginia in 1619 and Bermuda in 1620 continue to the present and are represented in the exhibition with the Virginia House of Delegates Speaker’s chair, dating to the 18th century, and a 17th-century cedar chair from the Parliament of Bermuda.
Portraits of two British monarchs associated with Virginia and Bermuda – King James I and Queen Elizabeth II – and two early governors – Lord de la Warr, appointed Lord Governor and Captain General of Virginia by the Virginia Company in 1610, and Henry Hamilton, governor of Bermuda from 1785 to 1794 – will be exhibited.
Silver communion sets dating to the 17th century, from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hampton, Virginia, and St. Peter’s Church in St. George, Bermuda, symbolize the prominent role of the Church of England in both colonies.
The exhibition will feature items from the Earl Gregg Swem Library of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg related to St. George Tucker, an 18th-century Virginia judge and legal scholar born in Bermuda, and examples of Bermuda-made 17th- and 18th-century cedar furniture and silver spoons from the Tucker House in St. George, Bermuda, the 18th-century home of St. George Tucker’s brother Henry.
The American Revolution, American Civil War and World War II are among conflicts that have involved Bermuda because of its crossroads location in the Atlantic and proximity to the North American coast. Examples of Revolutionary era correspondence from the Swem Library, a painting depicting a Civil War blockade runner from The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and a World War II flyer from the Bermuda National Archives will be exhibited.
A late 19th-century watercolor painting by Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, loaned for the exhibition by the National Gallery of Canada, depicts Bermuda’s Hamilton Harbour. This painting brought Bermuda’s unique character to the attention of other artists, whose work influenced the development of Bermuda as a travel destination. A selection of paintings by leading American, Canadian and British artists depicting Bermuda scenes, including a game of croquet, will come to the exhibition from Bermuda’s Masterworks Foundation. Among them is “Banyan Tree Trunk” by Georgia O’Keeffe, who lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, for part of her youth and taught art for two summers at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
The popularity of both Virginia and Bermuda as travel destinations will be illustrated with a display of posters and other promotional materials.
Located in Jamestown Settlement’s special exhibition gallery, “Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies” is funded by grants from James City County and the Bank of Bermuda Foundation and other donations.
The St. George’s Foundation worked with the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the Virginia state agency that operates Jamestown Settlement, to facilitate artifact loans from Bermuda institutions.
The Saturday evening lecture series, funded with a grant from Dominion, features “The Lion and the Mouse … the Story of America and Bermuda” on April 25, presented by Bermuda filmmaker Lucinda Spurling; “The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America” on June 13, presented by University of Tennessee Professor of History Lorri Glover, co-author of a book with the same title as her talk; “Sister Colonies: Virginia, Bermuda, and the Beginnings of English America” on July 11, presented by University of Rochester Associate Professor of History Michael Jarvis; and “Somewhere Beyond the Sea: Art, Artists, and Bermuda” on August 8, presented by Founding and Creative Director Tom Butterfield of The Masterworks Foundation. Advance reservations are required for the free evening lectures at Jamestown Settlement’s Robins Foundation Theater by contacting (757) 253-4415 or rsvp.lecture@jyf.virginia.gov.
Jamestown Settlement, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, until 6 p.m. June 15 through August 15, is located southwest of Williamsburg on Route 31 at the Colonial Parkway next to Historic Jamestowne, site of the 1607 English settlement. Jamestown Settlement general admission of $14.00 for adults and $6.50 for ages 6 through 12 includes admission to the special exhibition. Permanent museum exhibits include expansive exhibition galleries and outdoor re-creations of an early 17th-century Powhatan Indian village, the three ships that brought America’s first permanent English colonists to Virginia in 1607 and a 1610-14 colonial fort.
For more information, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838. A video and a background paper, both titled “The Story of the Sea Venture,” are available at www.historyisfun.org/jamestown-and-bermuda.htm.
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