Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
plenty dubious-it is at least a model town. It makes you realize what an immeasurably nice
placemuchofAmericacouldbeifonlypeoplepossessedthesameinstinctforpreservation
as they do in Europe. You would think the millions of people who come to Williamsburg
every year would say to each other, “Gosh, Bobbi, this place is beautiful. Let's go home to
Smellville and plant lots of trees and preserve all the fine old buildings.” But in fact that
never occurs to them. They just go back and build more parking lots and Pizza Huts.
A lot of Williamsburg isn't as old as they like you to think it is. The town was the capital
of Colonial Virginia for eighty years, from 1699 to 1780. But when the capital was moved
toRichmond,Williamsburgfellintodecline.Inthe1920sJohnD.Rockefeller developeda
passion for the place and began pouring money into its restoration-$9o million so far. The
problem now is that you never quite know what's genuine and what's fanciful. Take the
Governors Palace. It looks to be very old-and, as I say, no one discourages you from be-
lieving that it is-but in fact it was only built in 1933. The original building burned down in
1781 and by 1930 had been gone for so long that nobody knew what it had looked like. It
was only because somebody found a drawing of it in the Bodleian Library at Oxford that
they were able to make a reasonable stab at reproducing it. But it isn't old and it may not
even be all that accurate.
Everywhereyouturnyouareconfronted,exasperatingly,withbogustouches.AttheBruton
Parish Church, the gravestones looked like they were faked or at least the engravings had
been reground. Rockefeller or someone else in authority had obviously been disappointed
to discover that after a couple of centuries in the open air gravestones become illegible,
so now the inscriptions are as fresh and deep-grooved as if they had been cut only last
week, which they may well have been. You find yourself constantly wondering whether
you are looking at genuine history or some Disneyesque embellishment. Was there really
a Severinus Dufray and would he have had a sign outside his house saying, GENTEEL
TAILORING? Possibly. Would Dr. McKenzie have a note in florid lettering outside his
dispensary announcing, DR. MCKENZIE BEGS LEAVE TO INFORM THE PUBLIC
THAT HE HAS JUST RECEIVED A LARGE QUANTITY OF FINE GOODS, vlz: TEA,
COFFEE,FINESOAP,TOBACCO,ETC.,TOBESOLDHEREATHISSHOP?Whocan
say?
Thomas Jefferson, a man of some obvious sensitivity, disliked Williamsburg and thought it
ugly. (This is something else they don't tell you.) He called the college and hospital “rude,
misshapen piles” and the Governor's Palace “not handsome.” He can't have been describ-
ingthesameplacebecausetheWilliamsburgoftodayisrelentlesslyattractive.Andforthat
reason I liked it.
