history’s stories: virginia thanksgiving our heritage: before it was old mill park

Many of us grew up celebrating Thanksgiving learning that it was in Plymouth Massachusetts in 1621 that the first Thanksgiving took place. I remember learning about the origin of how the Pilgrims and Indians celebrated Thanksgiving together, as a student at Montford Academy in the 1950's. I can recall asking the question "Sister did they celebrate the event at the Virginia colony called Jamestown"? I do not recall the answer other than the first Celebration was at Plymouth, Massachusetts. History has changed in many ways thru the years, we know so much more from discovered documents and Archelogy. One of the first Thanksgiving events was along what is today the Florida coast when the Spanish explorer Menendez in 1565 celebrated with the Indians. The first colony was established by the English at a site called Jamestown, Virginia on May 14, 1607, with the arrival of three hundred colonists. The first year the Powhatan Indians were friendly and helpful, learning the settlers how to plant crops that would grow well. During the latter part of 1608 relations between the Indians and settlers became strained as a drought was taking place and crops began to die. Between 1609-1610 became a period of time that the colonist called the

history’s stories Virginia By Ralph STARVING TIME. Many of the crops were failing due to lack of water and the Indians became hostile and refused to let the settlers leave the fort to hunt or fish. Archaeologist's and anthropologist in 2012 believe from their studies of unearthed remains that the settlers many Thanksgiving “Tuffy” Hicks have practiced cannibalism. The papers written by George Percy the president of Jamestown during the period reveals that the colonists ate rats, snakes, dogs, and horses The settlement was saved by the arrival of the supply ships in 1610 with a year's supply of food, materials and addition colonists. There were only sixty colonists out of the original threehundred still alive and it is written that they looked like skeletons from starvation. To celebrate the arrival of the supply ships the Jamestown colonists had a celebration and a Thanksgiving prayer with the Powhatan Indians. With the Virginia annual celebrations by the time the Pilgrims landed and had their Thanksgiving in 1621, the Virginian Colonists had been celebrating for eleven years. In December 1619 approximately twenty miles from Jamestown at a location called Berkley Hundred, Captain Woodleaf had a Thanksgiving service that he declared would be a yearly event of Thanksgiving. He had just arrived with Thirty Eight settlers from England. The location would become known as Berkeley Plantation, the home of the nineth President William Henry Harrison and also the home of Benjamin Harrison the twenty third President. You may argue that Berkley is the original location of the Thanksgiving. To those of us that are Virginian's Jamestown or Berkeley Plantation it is still VIRGINIA. Dedicated To: Frank Sealy, Ed Gunderson, Toni Chandler, Jim Haney, Sue Pennino, and Dan Wallace

Tuffy is Front Porch’s Resident Historian

OUR HERITAGE

bEFORE IT WAS old mill Park

By nancy moore

Old Mill Park itself opened in 1975 and is one of the city's most popular outdoor recreation spaces. Before it became a park, it was farmland-p part of the Fall Hill estate. In the late 1800s, the land was the site of a vineyard for Charles Hunter ' s winery on nearby Lauck's Island. Remnants of the winery can still be seen on the island.

The earliest occupants of the land were Native Americans, drawn to the site by the abundance of fish. When John Smith sailed up the Rappahannock River in 1608, he encountered the Manahoacs, who forced the English explorers to retreat downriver.

The park's location at the fall line of the river made it an important spot. The riverbed drops off, and upstream of this point, the Rappahannock is not navigable by deep draft vessels. Part of the French Expeditionary Force forded the river here on its way to Yorktown during the American Revolution. The first Falmouth Bridge wasn't built until the 1800s-privately funded by Francis Thornton.

The fall line made this a prime spot for water-powered mills. Bridgewater Mills, founded in 1822, produced flour and later bone meal and sumac. It burned in the late 1890s and was never rebuilt.

By far the site's most important events happened during the Civil War, when thousands of enslaved people crossed the river here to reach freedom on the Stafford shore, then occupied by Union forces.

John Washington, a 24-year-old man working at the Shakespeare House Hotel on Caroline Street, was one of the first to cross. He later wrote about his life and his escape to freedom-one of the few slave narratives that have been found. Historian David Blight wrote about Washington in his 2008 book, A Slave No More. Washington vividly remembered that April 18, 1862, Good Friday. He wrote, "Someone dashed into the Dining Room of the hotel and said, 'The Yankees is in Falmouth.' Everybody was on their feet at once. Every white man was out of the house, Every man servant was on the housetop looking over the river at the Yankees. I could not begin to express my newborn hopes, for I felt already like I was certain of my freedom."

He and others headed for the area of the present-day park and looked for the Union troops across the river. He remembered, "One of a party of soldiers in a boat called out to the crowd standing around me, 'Do any of you want to come over.” Everybody said no, but Washington shouted, "Yes, I want to come over."

Learning from the soldiers that the District of Columbia was now free, Washington said he was "dumb with joy and could only thank God and laugh."

You can learn more about John Washington from historian John Hennessy on a November 6 walking tour sponsored by the Fredericksburg Area Museum. The cost is $25-or $20 for museum memberswith proceeds to benefit the museum's African American Initiative. You can contact the museum for more information.

Some of the information for this article came from the city's History Panels. They offer many insights into our shared past.

Nancy Moore is Board Member, Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Inc. and Virginiana Manager at Central Rappahannock Regional Library. Print, “Fredericksburg from Falmouth”, Alfred R. Waud, 1862

What’s in Riverfront Park?

Once upon a time ... during the Ice Age, frequent flooding swelled the Rappahannock River and deposited overbank soils on the floodplain, creating

a distinctive, large mound. Thousands of years later, on a fine spring day, a family of ancient Native American hunters and gatherers came to the river to harvest shad. It was an annual event that marked the end of winter, with promises of a bountiful season to come. Children played on the mound and practiced making stone arrowheads. A dangerous rabbit hunt teased their imaginations. The aspiring hunters left behind a scattering of quartzite flakes and a few stone tools. This is sacred ground.

Once upon a time ... almost two centuries ago, enslaved African Americans labored to exhaustion in the hot sun from dawn until dusk, repairing a dilapidated fence, tilling

the gardens, sowing seeds and pulling weeds behind the Rowe-G Goolrich house. Keeping varmints from raiding the vegetables was a constant challenge. Enslaved children worked alongside their mothers. During the Civil War, with the Union army encamped in Stafford County, slaves could stand on the mound and gaze across the river to the shores of freedom and many would travel there. This is sacred ground.

Once upon a time ... Union soldiers were treated here for terrible wounds received in battle. Some would never go home, and their remains were buried in the mound. This is sacred ground.

How do we peel back layers of the past, and visualize the incomprehensible depth of time? Archaeologists give us the tools, and our imagination does the rest. One way to look at it: assuming a new generation of people comes into the world every 20 years, people have lived, worked and played around the mound for more than 500 generations, leaving traces of their passing in its soils. This is sacred ground.

Once upon a time … "somewhere ages and ages hence" (Robert Frost), long after our children and grandchildren have laughed, danced, and made new friends in the water feature and playground that are installed at Riverfront Park, archaeologists may once again be called in to study the mound. What will they find? What traces will our children (and their descendents) leave behind? How will OUR story be told?

So … what's in Riverfront Park? A mound that remains - and always will be sacred ground.

A mound

By jon gerlach

An attorney and retired archaeologist, Jon Gerlach chairs the Architectural Review Board in Fredericksburg. "Fountain Boy" by Jon Gerlach

The Central Rappahannock Heritage Center is a non-profit, all-volunteer archives whose mission is to preserve historically valuable material ofthe region and make it available to the public for research

900 Barton St #111, Fredericksburg, VA www.crhcarchives.org contact@crhcarchives.org 540-373-3704

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