Friends of Green Spring Newsletter

Dedicated to the Opening of a new National Park
Vol. 1, No. 4, Fall 2003

Friends working hard for operating money and basic archaeology

Raising money for operations and exploratory archaeology is occupying the Friends of Green Spring now that the open house is history. Both are difficult assignments in a community and country overrun with efforts to raise private money for good causes. Fortunately, supporters of opening Green Spring are responding. Contributions are very welcome. Checks may be made out to "Friends of Green Spring" and mailed to P.O. Box 779, Williamsburg, VA 23187. Contributions may be designated for either operating expenses or archaeology.

Professional assistance is needed to raise money for archaeology and everyday expenses. If the Friends can raise $30,000 for Green Spring archaeology, the Colonial National Historic Park will match it and continue exploring before the park is opened. The Friends gave CNHP $30,000 previously to fund archaeology field schools of William and Mary students directed by Dr. Andrew Veech.

Most important is the cause of opening a new national park with benefits to our area and nation in perpetuity.

Green Spring Park Watch to pick and picnic October 11

Recruits welcome to join

Green Spring has returned to nature after being manicured for the June open house. Whether Green Spring is mowed or not, there will be a Centerville Road cleanup and fall picnic in the park. Members of the Green Spring Park Watch will meet beginning at 10 A.M. Saturday, October 11 behind the Prudential-McCardle Real Estate office at Route 5 and Greensprings Road. The event will be over by noon. There is a William and Mary football game that afternoon.

Volunteer recruits are welcome to both the road cleanup and picnic, if they will notify Park Watch coordinator Cliff Williams, 253-7867, who will be buying the food and drinks. Newcomers can qualify later as permanent Park Watchers when there is a training session. Being a Park Watcher qualifies the person to visit Green Spring any time. Friends of Green Spring pay for the annual fall picnic.

Park Watch Patrol members, who have been trained in their mission by federal rangers, will assemble behind the Prudential office first to put on orange safety vests and gloves, use anti-bug spray and pick up nail sticks before marching off to attack trash on Centerville Road. Outdoor clothing and shoes are a "must." The portion of Centerville Road through Green Spring was adopted by the Friends of Green Spring in September 1998.

Modern Archaeology Takes a New Look

As those who have visited Green Spring know, exploratory archaeology has been underway for the last couple of years under the direction of Dr. Andrew Veech. Following is the FIRST INSTALLMENT of a report written by Dr. Veech, CNHP archaeologist. Subsequent installments will appear in the next issues of the Friends of Green Spring newsletter.

Since Fall 2000, a mixed team of volunteers and college students working under the direction of National Park Service archaeologist Dr. Andrew Veech has been conducting intermittent archaeological investigations at Green Spring Plantation in James City County, Virginia. These are not the first excavations ever conducted at Green Spring. Previous excavations were conducted at the estate in 1928-29 by local antiquarian Jesse Dimmick and in 1954-55 by National Park Service archaeologist Louis Caywood. But the focus of Veech's study - which thus far has principally been directed on the plantation's early- to mid-eighteenth-century formal garden and its associated outbuildings - differs from the foci of those earlier excavations. What is more, Veech and his team are documenting the brick architecture which they are uncovering in far greater detail than was done by either Dimmick or Caywood. Consequently, a far more comprehensive image of Green Spring's landscape is emerging now, for a new generation of scholars to scrutinize and interpret.

The Orangery

The 45x15-foot structure which local tradition long has reputed to be "Berkeley's Orangery" quite possibly is an orangery (or greenhouse). It's just not Berkeley's orangery. Rather, it's one built by one of Green Spring's later occupants - likely, Philip Ludwell III, who resided at the estate from the 1720s through the 1750s. In 2001, a thick, undisturbed layer of household trash was uncovered along with the north face of the orangery at a level even with the original, colonial-era living surface. This trash deposit contained artifacts dating as late as 1740, suggesting that the orangery itself had probably been built only a few years earlier - likely in the 1720s or 1730s.

However, further excavations revealed that the bottom-most course of the orangery wall had been built on top of and on axis with an earlier split-log fenceline, one that almost certainly had been erected during the tenure of Sir William Berkeley. Thus, it seems that at least some 18th-century, Ludwell-era landscape features at the estate sit atop earlier Berkeley-era landscape features. No doubt, other examples of this superpositioning of architecture and landscape design will be found elsewhere as excavations continue.

by Dr. Andrew Veech

Historic Green Spring pins will be ready this fall for park supporters

"Historic Green Spring" pins will be available this fall for donors and other supporters of Green Spring. Measuring 11/4 inches in length, the pins are a 4-color representation of the Berkeley mansion as it appeared in 1796 to English architect Benjamin Latrobe. Arrangements for the pin were made by Gayle Randol, a member of the Friends board of directors.

"These pins will be a handsome way to thank those who help meet our objective of opening Green Spring to the public," said Daniel Lovelace, president of the Friends of Green Spring, "and we hope they will be widely seen and admired in the community."

Voices of Green Spring

The Green Spring Conspiracy of 1650 - 1652

The Surrender of Jamestown

Many bizarre events--from political hijinks to public hangings--took place at Historic Green Spring during the twenty-seven years of Sir William Berkeley's tenure as Governor of Colonial Virginia. Perhaps the strangest of these was the conspiracy by Berkeley and some of his Royalist cronies to prevent Oliver Cromwell and his Commonwealth government from gaining control of the Colony of Virginia. This effort lasted more than two years and involved dozens of recentlyarrived "Cavalier" refugees from England's Civil War. One of the principal conspirators was Governor Berkeley's friend, Colonel Francis Lovelace, a Royalist officer secretly dispatched by young King Charles II from his Government-in-exile in France. Only the belated arrival of three heavily-armed Commonwealth ships at Jamestown in March of 1652 prevented Berkeley's colonial "mutiny" from succeeding.

By the summer of 1650, the English civil war had been a major factor in the internal politics of the Virginia Colony for nearly a decade. From the outset, Virginia's gentry had largely sided with the Royalists and thus supported Governor Berkeley's policies. According to historian Steven D. Crow, "...Governor Berkeley apparently got the Burgesses to reaffirm their support of the Stuarts whenever he wanted. At his bidding the colony periodically rejected friendly overtures from Parliament, it proclaimed Charles II King in 1649, and it refused to recognize the Commonwealth." Berkeley's generosity to newly-arrived Royalists was well-known, and his mansion at Green Spring became the colony's principal social hub and refuge for supporters of the Stuart dynasty.

During the late 1640s Governor Berkeley's pro-Royalist efforts had been strengthened by Parliament's clumsy attempts to regulate the trade of Virginia's planters, who were selling tobacco to the Dutch and preferred to ignore directives from London designed to maintain English monopoly control of their business. By 1650 the frustrated Commonwealth, having failed to wean the Virginia traders from the Dutch, had resorted to economic coercion by outlawing English trade with Virginia. Combined with shock over the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and doubts about the staying power of the Commonwealth government, these economic pressures enhanced Governor Berkeley's efforts to preserve the colony for the Stuarts by strengthening the Virginia elite's determination to resist Parliamentary control. Their political viewpoint is reflected in the following toast, which was popular in Virginia during that period:

Though for a time we see Whitehall With cobwebs deck'd around the wall Yet Heaven shall make amends for all When the King enjoys his own again!

However, in the long run Governor Berkeley failed to keep Virginia in the Royalist camp. As Steven Crow has described it, "Few Virginians were ideologists and fewer still carried such deep-seated affection for the Stuarts that they would risk life and estate for Charles I or his son. When Cromwell's Commissioners arrived with a fleet in March of 1652, Virginia's gentry ignored their Governor and grudgingly signed the Northumberland Oath, which forced them to swear allegiance to the Parliament of England without the King or the House of Lords. Thus, at the end of his visit to North America, Colonel Francis Lovelace returned to France with news that no doubt pleased both of the parties contending for future political control of England: although Virginia's leaders remained sympathetic to the cause of the Stuart dynasty, they had no interest in openly resisting the Commonwealth's assertion of control over their colony.

See: Daniel Lovelace, Governor, Diplomat, Soldier, Spy: The Colorful Career of Colonel Francis Lovelace of Kent, (1622-1675), Published by the Lovelace family genealogical website LOVELACE-L@Rootsweb.com, March 2002, pp. 14-17.

News Briefs

Green Spring Board adds new members

The Friends of Green Spring organization is adding members to its board of directors. Robert Taylor became a member at the July quarterly board meeting. Taylor was vice president of human resources for Reebok before retiring.

Awaiting nomination at the next meeting in October will be John Hamant, who portrayed Governor Berkeley at the June open house, and Roger Guernsey, principal with Guernsey Tingle Architects. Hamant is a long-time employee of Colonial Williamsburg as archaeologist and interpreter. Guernsey moved his architectural practice from Vermont to Williamsburg in 1977. The firm is well known for its residential and commercial designs.

County will spend $1 million on Freedom Park

James City County will spend $1 million for an interpretive center and other improvements at the newly dedicated Freedom Park at Centerville and Longhill Roads, according to Supervisor Michael Brown, one of the speakers at the August 16 ceremony. The 500-acre heavily wooded park is located in the Powhatan District represented by Brown.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Lafayette Jones of the Forest Glen Neighborhood Association and a descendant of slaves given land by William Ludwell Lee in 1803, spoke enthusiastically of where homes and farms were once located. Between 50 and 75 county officials, community leaders and other supporters attended the ceremony.

The Friends of Green Spring published Martha W. McCartney's report, "The Free Black Community at Centerville," in 2000 after receiving a matching grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The Friends made a wide distribution of the book to libraries, universities and local schools.

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