Latest news with #ColonialWilliamsburgFoundation
19-06-2025
- General
Archaeologists unearth foundation of 1760s schoolhouse for Black children
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Archaeologists in Virginia have unearthed the foundation of a building from the 1700s that once supported the nation's oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children, William & Mary announced Wednesday. The university in Williamsburg said the foundation is nearly completely intact. Archaeologists also uncovered a cellar that is layered with centuries of artifacts, including slate pencil fragments and jewelry. The schoolhouse was later used as a dormitory, housing some of the first generations of women to attend college in the U.S. 'The roots of our city and university entwine here," said Katherine A. Rowe, William & Mary's president. "Every layer of history that it reveals gives us new insights into our early republic, from the Williamsburg Bray School through the generations that followed, up through the early 20th century.' The Williamsburg Bray School taught hundreds of mostly enslaved students in the 1760s. The school rationalized slavery within a religious framework. And yet becoming literate also gave them more agency, with students sharing what they learned with family members. The schoolhouse then became a private home before it was incorporated into William & Mary's growing campus. The building was expanded for various purposes, including student housing, and later moved from its original location. Historians identified the structure in 2020 through a scientific method that examines tree rings in lumber. It was then moved to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a living history museum that includes parts of the original city. The museum has restored the schoolhouse and is working to identify the students' descendants. Meanwhile, archaeologists with Colonial Williamsburg recently uncovered the foundation and cellar during a major project by William & Mary to renovate a university building, Gates Hall. The school's archaeologists are also involved. Tom Higgins of William & Mary's Center for Archaeological Research said the cellar is not lined with bricks and 'was probably dug soon after the foundations were laid.' Researchers have found handmade ceramics often associated with sites of enslavement and Indigenous communities, the university said. There are also items that appear to be more recent, such as a shard of glass depicting Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, war and the arts. From 1924 to 1930, the building housed Methodist women attending William & Mary. 'We know that the girls at Brown Hall were furnishing their dorms,' said Michele Brumfield, senior researcher at the university's archaeological center. 'So maybe they were bringing in things like this.'
Boston Globe
19-06-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Rebuilding one of the nation's oldest Black churches to begin at Juneteenth ceremony
'Oral history is one thing but to have an image to go along with the oral history makes a greater impact on the psyche of oppressed people,' said Davis, who leads the current 215-member congregation in a 20th Century church that is less than a mile from the original site. 'Black Americans have been part of this nation's history before and since the Declaration of Independence.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The original building was destroyed by a tornado in 1834. First Baptist's second structure, built in 1856, stood there for a century. But the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a living history museum, bought the property in 1956 and turned the space into a parking lot. Advertisement Colonial Williamsburg had covered the costs of building First Baptist's current church house. But for decades it failed to tell the church's pioneering history and the stories of other colonial Black Americans. In recent years, the museum has placed a growing emphasis on telling a more complete story about the nation's founding. Colonial Williamsburg's rebuilding of the church is an opportunity to tell Black history and resurrect the stories of those who originally built it. Advertisement Telling Virginia's untold story Rebuilding First Baptist's original meetinghouse will fill an important historical gap, while bolstering the museum's depiction of Virginia's 18th century capital through interpreters and restored buildings. More than half of the 2,000 people who lived in Williamsburg at the time were Black, many of them enslaved. Rev. James Ingram is an interpreter who has for 27 years portrayed Gowan Pamphlet, First Baptists' pastor when the original church structure was built. Pamphlet was an enslaved tavern worker who followed his calling to preach, sermonizing equality, despite the laws that prohibited large gatherings of African Americans out of fear of slave uprisings. 'He is a precursor to someone like Frederick Douglass, who would be the precursor to someone like Martin Luther King Jr.,' Ingram said. 'Gowan Pamphlet was leading the charge.' The museum's archaeologists uncovered the original church's foundation in 2021, prompting Pastor Davis to say then that it was 'a rediscovery of the humanity of a people.' 'This helps to erase the historical and social amnesia that has afflicted this country for so many years,' he said. The archaeologists also located 62 graves, while experts examined three sets of remains and linked them to the congregation. Scientists at William & Mary's Institute for Historical Biology said the teeth of a Black male in his teens indicated some kind of stress, such as malnutrition or disease. 'It either represents the conditions of an enslaved childhood or far less likely — but possibly — conditions for a free African American in childhood,' Michael Blakey, the institute's director, said in 2023. Advertisement 'It was a marvel' In the early 1800s, the congregation acquired the property for the original church from a local white merchant. The land was low, soft and often soggy — hardly ideal for building, said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's executive director of archaeology. But the church's congregants, many of whom were skilled tradespeople, made it work by flipping bricks on their side and making other adjustments to lay a level foundation. 'It was a marvel that they were able to build a structure there, but also that the structure persists and even grows bigger,' Gary said, adding that the church was later expanded. Based on their excavation, archaeologists surmise there was no heat source, such as a fireplace, no glass in the windows and no plaster finish, Gary said. About 50 people could have sat comfortably inside, possibly 100 if they were standing. The congregation numbered about 500, which included people on surrounding plantations. Services likely occurred outside the church as well. White planters and business owners were often aware of the large gatherings, which technically were banned, while there's documentary evidence of some people getting caught, Gary said. Following Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831, which killed more than 50 white people in Virginia's Southampton County, the congregation was led by white pastors, though it was Black preachers doing the work, Gary said. The tornado destroyed the structure a few years later. Boards are being cut The museum is rebuilding the 1805 meetinghouse at its original site and will use common wood species from the time: pine, poplar and oak, said Matthew Webster, the museum's executive director of architectural preservation and research. The boards are already being cut. Construction is expected to finish next year. Advertisement The windows will have shutters but no glass, Webster said, while a concrete beam will support the new church directly over its original foundation, preserving the bricks. 'When we build the earliest part of the church, we will put bricks on their sides and will lay them in that strange way because that tells the story of those individuals struggling to quickly get their church up,' Webster said. 'And then when we build the addition, it will be this formal foundation that really shows the establishment of the church.' Janice Canaday, who traces her lineage to First Baptist, said Williamsburg's Black community never forgot its original location or that its graves were paved over in the 1950s. 'They will never be able to expunge us from the landscape,' said Canaday, who is also the museum's African American community engagement manager. 'It doesn't matter if you take out the building. It doesn't matter if you ban books. You will never be able to pull that root up because that root is so deep.'
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Archaeologists Were Digging Up a Hospital—and Found the Skeletons of 4 Confederate Soldiers
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Archeologists working for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation discovered the remains of four Confederate soldiers. The crew was excavating a site that once stored gunpowder during the American Revolution when they came across the Civil War-era discovery. The four soldiers' remains were likely from when a makeshift hospital treated wounded soldiers during the Civil War's Battle of Williamsburg. Digging through an American Revolution gunpowder storage site resulted a discovery from a completely different war: the remains of four Confederate soldiers who likely died following a Civil War battle. As archaeologists with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation excavated a site in search of American Revolution history, the team instead first came across the eye sockets of a human skull, according to a report from the Associated Press, before uncovering four skeletons and three amputated legs the experts believe are from Civil War casualties. One skeleton has a Minié bullet—a common round of ammunition used in the Civil War—lodged in the spine, as does the foot of one of the amputated legs. With the available evidence, the experts deduced that the remains were likely from a makeshift hospital that functioned near the site during the Civil War, and they later dug through archives to find handwritten lists of soldiers that were admitted to the hospital following the Battle of Williamsburg. With the lists in hand, the research team was able to start the process of identifying the soldiers. 'It is the key,' Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's executive director of archaeology, told the AP. 'If these men were found in a mass grave on a battlefield, and there was no other information, we probably wouldn't be trying to do this.' The list of the wounded was part of a private family's archival documents which, at some point, were given to nearby William & Mary University. The researchers went through the detailed documentation, which included everything from names and regiments to dates of deaths and amputation information, for over 60 soldiers. Using the thorough information from the list, experts believe the four soldiers came from regiments tied to Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia. They even have some individual names in mind, keeping those close to the vest until they can work with possible descendants using DNA from the soldiers' teeth. Gary said the goal is to ensure an 'ironclad' identification. The Battle of Williamsburg occurred on May 5, 1862. Experts believe that the roughly 25,000 men who fought for the Union and Confederate armies included 2,283 Union soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or missing and 1,560 for the Confederates. The remains, which were initially discovered in 2023, were carefully buried with their arms crossed, indication they did not die during the battle, as those men were traditionally placed in trenches and then moved to a cemetery, Gary said. The four soldiers were out of uniform, as evidenced by buttons and a buckle, commonly found on more comfortable clothes, that the archaeologists also found. Archaeologist Eric Schweickart told the AP that one soldier had two $5 gold coins from 1852, and they also found a toothbrush made from animal bone and a snuff bottle. The AP reports that William & Mary's Institute for Historical Biology believes the youngest soldier was between 15 and 19 years old and the oldest could have been up to 55 years old. The remains were given a true burial, even as the investigation into their identity continues. 'Everyone deserves dignity in death,' Gary said. 'And being stored in a drawer inside a laboratory does not do that.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
04-06-2025
- General
A Virginia museum found 4 Confederate soldiers' remains. It's trying to identify them
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Archaeologists in Virginia were excavating the grounds of a building that stored gunpowder during the American Revolution when they uncovered the eye sockets of a human skull. The team carefully unearthed four skeletons, including one with a bullet in the spine, and three amputated legs. They quickly surmised the bones were actually from the Civil War, when a makeshift hospital operated nearby and treated gravely wounded Confederate soldiers. The archaeologists work at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a museum that owns the land and focuses on the city's 18th century history. They're now trying to identify human remains from the 19th century, a rare endeavor that will include searching for living descendants and requesting swabs of DNA. The museum has recovered enough genetic material from the men's teeth for possible matches. But the prospect of identifying them emerged only after the team located handwritten lists in an archive that name the soldiers in that hospital. 'It is the key,' said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's executive director of archaeology. 'If these men were found in a mass grave on a battlefield, and there was no other information, we probably wouldn't be trying to do this.' The archaeologists have narrowed the possible identities to four men who served in regiments from Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia. The museum is withholding the names as the work continues. Meanwhile, the remains were reinterred Tuesday at a Williamsburg cemetery where Confederate soldiers from the same battle are buried. 'Everyone deserves dignity in death,' Gary said. 'And being stored in a drawer inside a laboratory does not do that.' The soldiers fought in the Battle of Williamsburg, a bloody engagement on May 5, 1862. The fighting was part of the Peninsula Campaign, a major Union offensive that tried to end the war quickly. The campaign's failure that summer, stalling outside the Confederate capital of Richmond, informed President Abraham Lincoln's decision to end slavery. In his first inaugural address, Lincoln said he intended to reunite the nation with slavery intact in the Southern states, while halting its westward expansion, said Timothy Orr, a military historian and professor at Old Dominion University. But Lincoln realized after the campaign that he needed a more radical approach, Orr said. And while the president faced political pressure for emancipation, freeing people who were enslaved served as 'another weapon to defeat the Confederacy.' 'He becomes convinced that slavery is feeding the Confederate war effort,' Orr said. 'It had to be taken away.' Bigger and bloodier battles followed Williamsburg, Orr said, but it was 'shockingly costly for both sides." Roughly 14,600 Union soldiers fought about 12,500 Confederates, Carol Kettenburg Dubbs wrote in her 2002 book, 'Defend This Old Town.' The number of Union killed, wounded, captured or missing was 2,283. The Confederate figure was 1,870. The fighting moved north, while a Union brigade occupied the southern city. Confederate soldiers too wounded for travel were placed in homes and a church, which was converted into a hospital. A surgeon from New York treated them, while local women visited the church, Dubbs wrote. One woman noted in her diary on May 26 that there were 'only 18 out of 61 left.' When the remains were discovered in 2023, they were aligned east-west in the Christian tradition, said Gary, the archaeologist. Their arms were crossed. The careful burial indicates they were not dumped into a mass grave, Gary said. Those who died in the battle were almost immediately placed in trenches and later reinterred at a cemetery. The men were not in uniform, said Eric Schweickart, a staff archaeologist. Some were in more comfortable clothes, based on artifacts that included buttons and a trouser buckle. One soldier had two $5 gold coins from 1852. Another had a toothbrush made of animal bone and a snuff bottle, used for sniffing tobacco. The bullet in the soldier's spine was a Minié ball, a common round of Civil War ammunition. The foot of one amputated leg also contained a Minié ball. Bones in a second severed leg were shattered. As the team researched the battle, they learned of the lists of hospitalized soldiers, said Evan Bell, an archaeological lab technician. The lists were likely copied from Union records by the women who visited the wounded. The documents were with a local family's papers at William & Mary, a university nearby. The lists became the project's Rosetta stone, providing names and regiments of more than 60 soldiers. They included dates of death and notes indicating amputations. The archaeologists eliminated soldiers on the lists who survived or lost an extremity. The four skeletons had all of their limbs. Death dates were key because three men were buried together, allowing the team to pinpoint three soldiers who died around the same time. William & Mary's Institute for Historical Biology examined the remains and estimated their ages. The youngest was between 15 and 19, the oldest between 35 and 55. The estimates helped match names to enlistment records, census data and Union prisoner of war documents. The soldiers' remains and the amputated limbs were buried in their own stainless steel boxes in a concrete vault, Gary said. If descendants are confirmed, they can move their ancestor to another burial site. The identification effort will continue for another several months at least and will include extensive genealogy work, Gary said. Using only DNA tests on remains from the 1800s can risk false positives because 'you start becoming related to everyone.' 'We want it to be ironclad,' he said.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Williamsburg launches new emergency notification system for residents
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WAVY) – The City of Williamsburg launched a new emergency notification system on Thursday, May 15. The city is now using RAVE Mobile Safety. It replaces the current notification system, Everbridge, at a savings for the city of about $30,000 a year, according to a news release. RAVE Mobile Safety is a leading provider of critical communication and collaboration technology for mass emergency notifications. This is the system the city of Williamsburg is now using to communicate with residents during emergencies. If you live in Williamsburg and were already signed up to receive emergency alerts through Everbridge, you have been automatically signed up for the new system. If you previously received emergency alerts by email, keep an eye out for a confirmation email that requires action to continue to receive alerts through the new system. If you're a new user, go to THIS LINK to sign up for emergency alerts from the City of Williamsburg. You'll be able to select the types of alerts you want to receive, such as weather or public safety alerts. This is a free service to the pubic. Many other local governments, colleges, universities, and businesses also use RAVE Mobile Safety as their mass notification system, including William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, sharing the same short codes. Any message from the City of Williamsburg will always start with WBURG ALERT. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
