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Friends of Green Spring Newsletter

Dedicated to the Opening of a new National Park
Vol. 1, No. 2, Spring 2003

Rewards Await Friends of Green Spring

New Family Membership Offers Three Levels of Support for Opening Green Spring Colonial National Historic Park

Exploration, education, recreation and economic benefits are the rewards for opening Green Spring Colonial National Historical Park (CNHP) to the public. Located at Route 5 and Centerville Road, the 308-acre site is all that remains of the first great colonial farm on the James River. Seventeenth century Royal Governor Sir William Berkeley, Lady Frances Berkeley and succeeding generations of Ludwells in the 18th and 19th centuries, owned Green Spring.

Broad community support and financial assistance are needed to implement a plan for Green Spring that includes a 3-building visitor contact station, archaeology and artifacts on display and access to an unspoiled place. Friends of Green Spring is introducing a membership organization to fulfill its mission as the official partner of the CNHP to open Green Spring. Rewards also await members who become Friends of Green Spring.

Friends of Green Spring offers memberships at three levels in order that as many as possible participate, based on their ability. Benefits range from the Friends quarterly newsletter to tours, seminars and history books, depending on the level of participation. Basic annual family membership is $35. The top support is $500.

Enclosed in this newsletter is a response form explaining the three levels and the way to join the Friends of Green Spring. It is rare in a lifetime to be a part of opening a new national park. Here is an opportunity in this unique county of America. We hope you will join and become a Friend of Green Spring.

Daniel Lovelace was elected president and Randy Smith vice president at the Friends January board meeting. Other officers are Donald S. Buckless, treasurer and chairman of the finance committee; Robert W. Hershberger, secretary and Clifford R. Williams, chairman of the advisory councils. Plans for Green Spring buildings were discussed.

Green Spring General Management Plan reaches final stage before approval

Several years of work comes to fruition this spring when the General Management Plan for opening Green Spring Colonial National Historical Park is final. The plan was printed and recorded in the Federal Register with 30 days of comment allowed. Whatever is said about the plan becomes part of the record, but much comment already had been included during the long series of public meetings and deliberation.

In May 2002, the James City County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution supporting the opening of Green Spring for “public visitation”. The resolution also directed the JCC staff to investigate measures that would make Centerville Road safer when the west side of the property is opened. Traffic on Centerville through the site often moves at 45-55 MPH and there have been serious accidents at both ends.

The final plan calls for opening the west side and ultimately the entire 308-acre site. Three proposed visitor reception buildings on the west side would be portable for movement in the future to the east side opposite the present entrance to Green Spring.

Green Spring Park Update

Park Watch Patrol will attack litter again at 10am Saturday, April 12

The Park Watch Patrol will take to the field again at 10 A.M. Saturday, April 12 to clean up Centerville Road through the park and Green Spring itself, if it needs it. Formed in 1998, the patrol conducts spring and fall cleanups to remove trash thrown out of vehicles on Centerville Road. Choice litter in the park ranges from hypodermic needles to old tires and home appliances. Liquor bottles and beer cans abound.

Members from seven neighborhoods along John Tyler Highway wearing official National Park Service caps meet behind the Prudential McCardle Realty office at Greensprings Road and Route 5 to put on their bibs and pick up their sticks with nails. Veterans wear gloves and outdoor shoes to protect themselves as they walk the ditches and fields from Route 5 to Alternate 5.

Following the pickup there will be soft drinks and talk about the status of opening Green Spring. In the fall, there is a very popular picnic tradition and lingering outdoors, if the day is glorious, as it often is.

All Park Watch members are trained and qualified to be on Green Spring by their mentor, Ranger Hiram Barber, based at the Law Enforcement Center of the Colonial National Historical Park in Yorktown. Cliff Williams is the coordinator of the Park Watch Patrol for Friends of Green Spring, which adopted that portion of Centerville Road.

Sir William Berkeley named Virginia Governor after war service and success as playwright

Young Sir William Berkeley (1605-1677), who arrived in Virginia in early 1642, was a well educated, culturally accomplished, and experienced military officer. The youngest son of Sir Maurice Berkeley of Bruton, Somerset, William came from a family that had invested heavily in the Virginia Company of London and would staunchly support the Crown during the English Civil War. After graduating from Oxford University in 1629, he briefly studied law and traveled extensively in Europe. He then gained access to the royal court, where he became a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and distinguished himself as a playwright. One of his plays, The Lost Lady, A Tragi-Comedy, was performed for the King and Queen, and is still in print today.

As both a creative intellectual and a “man of action,” Sir William embodied the style and values of the court of his patron, King Charles the First. Berkeley received a knighthood for his service during The Second Bishop’s War (1640), but then became increasingly disenchanted with “life at court.” Looking abroad for new opportunities, Sir William used both money and his family's influence to obtain a commission as Governor of Virginia on August 9, 1641. When he set sail for Jamestown three months later, Berkeley was thirty-seven years old, unmarried, and a refugee from court politics. In short, he was ready to begin a whole new stage of this life.

A Moment in Time

Dr. Andrew Veech records bits of the past in cozy Archer Cottage with a great view

Imagine working in a cottage with a river view amid priceless artifacts testifying to the lives of native people for thousands of years and to Europeans in the last few hundred. Dr. Andrew Veech, archaeologist for the Colonial National Historical Park, calls the Thomas Archer Cottage his office everyday he isn’t in the field digging more chards of pottery, arrow heads or wine bottle glass from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. A 17th century brick shows the perfect paw imprint of a large dog that may have belonged to Sir William Berkeley and Lady Frances.

Cozy and warm as it can be on a cold, wintry day, the restored 18th century home and store belonging to the Thomas Archer family, houses modern computers to catalogue thousands of artifacts from Jamestown and Green Spring before they are sent for permanent storage. Drawers containing clean and dazzling pieces of history slide out for visitors to see. Three William and Mary students help Dr. Veech with the meticulous job of marking and bagging hundreds of items.

Andrew, as everyone calls him because of his youthful appearance, is a native Virginian and undergraduate of the University of Virginia. He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology from Brown University. Before coming to the CHNP in August, 2000, he was the archaeologist of Gunston Hall Plantation in Fairfax County. Andrew’s research interests include the archaeology of the early historic Chesapeake, early colonial and European-native people contacts.

Soon, winter's work in the cottage lab will be over. Andrew and his crew of William and Mary students and volunteers will be in the field again at Green Spring and Jamestown. Since Sean Fitzpatrick’s column appeared in the Virginia Gazette, more volunteers have come forward. Very little in life could be more fascinating than what goes on in the little cottage and in the digs under the direction of Dr. Veech. However, it does take youth, stamina and strength.

News Briefs

Christopher Wren Society visits Green Spring

More than 30 members studying the Battle of Green Spring visited the site in February.

Daffodils will bloom soon at Green Spring

Thousands of ancient bulbs have pushed sprouts through snow, ice and frozen ground this hard winter and spring. Remember, look, but don’t pick OR DIG! These are a precious resource we need to protect.

Green Spring is flowing volumes

While it flows even during drought, Green Spring is bubbling now and water cress is in its spring growth. Centuries of native people, colonists and modern residents have enjoyed the cold waters of Green Spring.

Governor Berkeley had 1,800 fruit trees

Are the scraggly pear trees at Green Spring survivors of his orchard? We wonder. They still bloom and produce small pears. William and Mary Biology Students

Visit Green Spring

Classes come to study the birds, animals and plants, which are there in abundance. All schools and classes are welcome to contact the Colonial National Historical Park to arrange visits.

Park Watch Patrol Members visit Green Spring whenever

Instead of following a schedule, Park Watch Patrol members now walk whenever they want. Members must be qualified by the federal rangers in Yorktown to be on Green Spring.

Green Spring is being mowed more often

Though short-handed and having huge areas to maintain, the CNHP crew does a remarkable job under Facilities Manager Skip Brooks and Manager of Workers Henry Campbell.

Friends of the National Park Service for Green Spring, Inc.

Board of Directors:

OFFICERS
Daniel D. Lovelace
President
Randy Smith
Vice President
Donald S. Buckless
Treasurer
Robert W. Hershberger
Secretary
Clifford R. Williams
Advisory Council Chairman
BOARD MEMBERS
Professor Warren M. Billings
Winnie Bryant
M/G Archie S. Cannon, Jr. (Ret.)
Rol Collins
Loretta J. Hannum
Nicholas M. Luccketti
Trist B. McConnell
Samuel G. Poole
Gayle K. Randol
Marc B. Sharp
Randy Smith
Richard G. Smith
Carol D. Tyrer
Jane Yerkes

Friends of the National Park
Service for Green Spring, Inc.
P.O. Box 779
Williamsburg VA 23187
Phone: (757) 221-0800
Email: greenspring2@aol.com
Daniel Lovelace
Clifford R. Williams
Co-Editors

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