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Friends of Green Spring Newsletter

Dedicated to the Opening of a new National Park
Vol. 2, No. 1, Winter 2004

Isabel sets course for mission to open Green Spring

Isabel changed directions for a lot of residents of James City County, including the Friends of Green Spring. Until the hurricane smashed trees and houses and soaked thousands of artifacts stored on Jamestown Island, the Friends focused on raising money for exploratory archaeology. Now, the focus will be on funding water and sewer lines, a new entrance to Green Spring and a visitor contact station on the west side of Centerville Road.

The Colonial National Historical Park has as its mission restoring the artifacts, which were taken to Fort Lee. Archaeologist Andrew Veech is spending his time doing that job, so archaeology at Green Spring is on hold. The Friends earlier provided $30,000 to CNHP for an archaeology field school.

"Isabel forced the Green Spring board of directors to return to our mission, which is to open Green Spring to the public as soon as possible. Archaeology will be part of the program when the park is open, but first we must have infrastructure and a visitor center," said Daniel Lovelace, president of the Friends of Green Spring.

"Our goal is in keeping with the final General Management Plan for Green Spring and the James City County Board of Supervisors resolution supporting opening the site for public visitation," Lovelace said, and added, "We will begin working with county and state officials to reach agreed goals and the time lines."

The Friends determined long ago that both private and public funding would be sought to open the new national park for public education and enjoyment.

Gala recognizes GMP importance

Thanks donors

It took about five years of hard work and a lot of National Park Service money to produce the final General Management Plan for Green Spring. It was a good reason to celebrate the final plan and to thank supporters who want to open Green Spring as soon as possible.

So, the Friends of Green Spring gave a party on Sunday afternoon November 9 at the William and Mary Alumni Center to do just that...celebrate the GMP and thank donors. Friends Board Members, Winnie Bryant and Jane Yerkes, were co-chairs of the event. Green and gold enamel pins reading "Historic Green Spring" were affixed to the name badges as a tangible way of recognizing all those who contributed to the cause. The handsome pins have a representation of Green Spring manor on them, based on Benjamin Latrobe's 1796 image. Donors who did not attend will receive pins by mail.

President Daniel Lovelace and CNHP Public Affairs Director Mike Litterest described the Friends' objective to open Green Spring and the importance of finally having a complete General Management Plan. CNHP Archaeologist Andrew Veech fascinated the audience with artifacts from Green Spring. He showed a 17th century brick with a perfect dog print in it and a satyr's face from a large earthen planter made on the plantation.

Archie Cannon, representing Patriots' Colony, and Bud Ramey and Ron Reid of Riverside Health System were introduced as sponsors of this event, as they were of the June 1 Green Spring open house. Other guests also were generous in sending checks with their RSVP cards or leaving checks at the registration desk. The event was a way of ending the year by calling attention to the value of opening Green Spring and the need for community support.

360 Years Ago

Historic Green Spring's Sir William Berkeley created Virginia's First Bi-Cameral Legislative Body, setting a precedent for the Designers of America's Constitution 146 years later.

[The following article was contributed to the Newsletter by Friends of Green Spring Board of Directors member Professor Warren Billings, who is Chairman of the Department of History at the University of New Orleans and the leading scholar of the exploits of Virginia's longest-serving colonial governor, Sir William Berkeley (1605-1677). His latest book, A Little Parliament, will be published in the next month by the Library of Virginia, and his ground-breaking biography of Governor Berkeley is scheduled for publication by the Louisiana State University Press in the Fall of 2004].

Virginia's General Assembly is the oldest continuous representative legislature in the Western Hemisphere. Originally conceived as a management device, it was one of the tools the managers of the Virginia Company of London employed to save their colonial venture. As such, it was composed of a governor, councilors of state, and burgesses elected from various subdivisions along the James River watershed. All of whom sat as one body in the church at Jamestown, which was the only building large enough to accommodate their number.

The salvage plan proved overly ambitious, the company failed, and Virginia passed under Royal control in 1624. Dissolution of the Virginia Company jeopardized the General Assembly because the Crown neglected to stipulate that it continue. The assembly met continuously, but it languished in constitutional limbo for more than a decade. By 1639, when King Charles I finally sanctioned it, the assembly had already acquired its place as the primary lawgiver for the colony, although it remained unicameral, and it little resembled its modern-day counterpart. Governor Berkeley encouraged change that not only modified the structure but set the assembly on its path to becoming a little Parliament.

Berkeley, who sought fresh beginnings in Virginia, used his influence at court to buy out Sir Francis Wyatt and become governor-general. He arrived in his government in February 1642, virtually unannounced and without allies among leading Virginia politicians. The assembly was in session, but in deference to Berkeley, Wyatt adjourned it until Berkeley formally took over. Berkeley then reconvened the assembly and worked with members to complete important reforms that Wyatt initiated. The session acquainted him with existing political alliances among the councillors and burgesses and revealed divisions that he might exploit to build a power base of his own. He realized that the greatest threat to his own effectiveness as governor would come from the councillors. A way round that obstacle lay in making common cause with the burgesses. For that reason, among others, he encouraged the burgesses who attended the General Assembly of March 1643 to sit separately from the councillors. And so the assembly became bicameral.

"(Sir William) Berkeley's thirty-five year tenure marks him as one of Virginia's most significant colonial chief executives; he was also one the most controversial. Berkeley stood with that handful who closely identified themselves with leading Virginians and their interests, even when those interests opposed The Crown's. His vanity, his hauteur, his stubbornness, and his ruthlessness earned him the cautious respect, if not the fear, of those he governed, just as his vindictive suppression of Bacon's Rebellion gained him the hostility of many Virginia historians. Truth to tell, his was not an endearing personality, but that defect should not be the excuse for ignoring his part in fostering self-government in Virginia."

(Warren M. Billings. Jamestown and the Founding of the Nation Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1998. pp. 59-60).

Williams recognized

Clifford Williams (right) was recognized at the Oct. 9 quarterly meeting of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the National Park Service for Green Spring Inc. for his outstanding efforts on behalf of opening Historic Green Spring as a public park. Williams founded the Friends membership organization in 1997 and is officially retiring as a member of the board. Daniel Lovelace, president of the group, is picture presenting a plaque to Williams.

Donation to Green Spring

Rodney Taylor (right), director of the Colonial Capital branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, presents a check for $1,000 to Dr. Daniel Lovelace, president of the Friends of the National Park Service for Green Spring Plantation. The presentation was made oct. 23 at the site of Green Spring, Governor Berkeley's plantation home about 4 miles north of Jamestown Island. In the background is the one remaining colonial building on the site.

Early Explorers

Early explorers find buildings, but miss the truth

Installment Two of a report by Dr. Andrew Veech reveals buildings and garden of Ludwell era. Findings break new ground in a continuing unraveling of the mysteries of Green Spring. A last installment highlights the Ludwell-Lady Frances manor house and the spring house that visitors find fascinating.

Both Jesse Dimmick and Louis Caywood superficially recorded the outbuildings south of and downslope from the Green Spring manor house, however, both men thought that these buildings were separate from one another and from the manor house above. This is not the case, as recent research at the site has demonstrated.

Late in Spring 2001, a truncated, Flemish bond garden wall was found to extend east out of the northeast corner of the orangery. Subsequent excavations conducted in Fall 2001 and Spring 2002 revealed that truncated garden wall extended for some 45 feet east from the orangery before turning 90° and extending southward. After proceeding in this southerly course for an additional 50 feet, the garden wall was found to enter into and bond with the northwestern corner of the 12x12-foot outbuilding that defines the western edge of the Ludwell family's terraced formal garden. This garden was probably designed by Philip Ludwell II, who resided at Green Spring between 1697 and 1727. The outbuildings which from this early- to mid-18th-century garden were first identified archeologically by Dimmick in 1928-20, although they appear as only outlined boxes in his 2-page site report.

Essentially, then, the truncated garden wall discovered and traced in 2001-02 forms the western façade of this northernmost, 12x12-foot outbuilding along the western edge of the Ludwell formal garden. This wall also comprises the eastern façades of the two more southerly outbuildings on the garden's western side.

Once exiting the southeast corner of the 12x12-foot outbuilding, the garden wall proceeds southward for another 42 feet and then enters into and bonds with the northeastern corner of the 18x18-foot outbuilding, which is the middle outbuilding of the three along the western garden edge. The wall then continues an additional 42 feet and then connects with the northeastern corner of the southernmost, 20x20-foot outbuilding in the line. From there, the garden wall exits the 20x20-foot outbuilding's southeastern corner and turns due east, running some 220 feet and thereby forming the formal garden's terminal, southern boundary. After running its 200-foot course, this southern garden wall connects with the southwest corner of a 20x20-foot outbuilding framing the garden's eastern edge.

The same pattern and spacing of garden walls and outbuildings witnessed on the western side of the garden appears to have been precisely mirrored on the eastern side of the garden. These buildings and walls are being traced and recorded now, in Spring 2003. Diagnostic artifacts thus far recovered in association with the eastern garden wall strengthen speculations that this comprehensive, symmetrical garden plan dates to the early 18th century.

The function of the 12x12-foot outbuilding on the garden's western side presently remains a mystery. Its 12x12-foot mate on the eastern side, however, is the plantation's sill partially-standing springhouse. The 18x18-foot outbuilding on the garden's western side possesses a well-laid brick floor, which probably relates to its initial function (perhaps a dairy?). By contrast, the presumed 18x18-foot outbuilding on the eastern side of the garden remains troublingly elusive. No conclusive evidence of that building has yet been found, although the rigorous symmetry of the garden design suggests that the building almost certainly must have stood there originally. The 20x20-foot building on the garden's western side yielded an assemblage of domestic artifacts, suggested that it may have served as a slave quarter. The 20x20-foot building on the garden's eastern side is probably the most massively built outbuilding of the six, and it contains a well-laid 4.5x4.5-foot brick hearth in its northeastern corner. An enclosed, brick-and-tile drain extends south from this hearth along the entire inside wall of the outbuilding, suggesting that perhaps this building served as the plantation's laundry.

News Briefs

Thanks from a founding father

George Wright, one of the founding fathers of Friends of Green Spring, sent the following card after the November 9 program and reception: "Margaret and I enjoyed the Green Spring reception on Sunday a great deal. It was first class in every detail. Many thanks and best wishes for the success of your project. Kindest regards, GW."

Safe storage for artifacts being built

Members of the Friends board attended the groundbreaking ceremonies in September for the new historic Jamestown artifacts collections facility. Speakers were CNHP Superintendent Alec Gould, APVA Executive Director Elizabeth S. Kostelny, Berkeley Scholar Warren Billings, Jamestown 400th Project Director Sandy Rives and Keynote Speaker J. Steven Giles, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Historic Green Spring and Freedom Park

Dan Lovelace and Cliff Williams recently met with Colonel Lafayette Jones, a leader in the development of James City County's new Freedom Park, located west of Centerville and Long Hill roads. A retired Special Forces (Green Beret) Intelligence Officer, Colonel Jones is a descendent of Free Black tenant farmers and the slaves who were freed by William Ludwell Lee after his death at Green Spring in 1803. Lee's will provided his former slaves with farmland in what is now Freedom Park, along with corn, tools and the right to live on the land rent-free for ten years. The meeting explored ways to foster increased cooperation between Historic Green Spring and Freedom Park development efforts.

Friends of Green Spring has a birthday in February

Friends of Green Spring will be a 7-year-old non-profit corporation on February 24, 2004, however, it required a couple of years earlier to raise community support and do the paperwork for incorporation and IRS tax free standing.

Board of Directors:

OFFICERS
Daniel D. Lovelace
President
Randy Smith
Vice President
Donald S. Buckless
Treasurer
Robert W. Hershberger
Secretary
BOARD MEMBERS
Professor Warren M. Billings
Winnie Bryant
M/G Archie S. Cannon, Jr. (Ret.)
Betty Cutts
Roger Guernsey
John Hamant
Loretta J. Hannum
Trist B. McConnell
Gayle K. Randol
Marc B. Sharp
Randy Smith
Richard G. Smith
Robert Taylor
Carol D. Tyrer
Jane Yerkes
ADVISORY COUNCIL
David Ball
Sean K. Fitzpatrick
Hon. Jay T. Harrison, Sr.
Dr. James Horn
Julie Leverenz
Martha McCartney
Mary Minor
Hon. Thomas K. Norment, Jr.
Douglas Pons
Hon. Melanie L. Rapp
Timothy Sullivan

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
Editor

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