Joni's 14 year old sister, Ellen, scheduled a two week visit to our Northern Virginia home. One item on her long list of desired activities was a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. We drove for about 3 hours before checking in at the Governor's Inn, the least expensive of the expensive official Colonial Williamsburg hotels. After picking up our tickets, we walked through the rain into the historic district where we stood around waiting for the special evening program to begin, wishing that somebody had remembered to pack jackets or umbrellas.

The evening's entertainment was entitled "Legends: Ghosts, Mysteries and Myths". Three story tellers regaled us with accounts of real 18th century legends. A man in a dark apothecary told a tale about four escaped indentured servants who killed a man who offered them hospitality. One of the men, William Marr, felt remorseful and was tormented by a ghost calling his name.

A women doing mending by the hearth told the next story. While moving about the room and using her voice to great effect, she spoke of the female pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Reed.

The final story featured a man who felt permanently chilled after encountering a ship stuck in the Northern ice. He and his men boarded the silent, eerie, ship and found the captain frozen at his desk with his hand still holding a pen over his log book. The last log entry was thirteen years old.

The next morning we got our first daylight view of Colonial Williamsburg. Fortunately the rain had stopped. We walked along the main street in the hot sun and tried to decide where to go.

Hidden downstairs underneath the post office was our first stop: the printer's shop. We saw the printer at work. First he would place a fresh sheet of paper in the press. Then he would apply ink with large leather covered inking balls. Finally he would print a single sheet with the press. The type---little metal sticks about an inch long---is held in the press solely by pressure from the sides.

Behind the printer's shop was the book binder's shop. It was closed in the morning, but we returned later. In order to crease the pages for binding a book, the book binder would leave them in his press for a couple days. Books were covered with thin leather made from animal skins such as goat, calf and dear. The book binder referred to cow or horse skin, which is too thick for books, as "hide". In the 18th century, book binders could easily sell blank books for record keeping to the government and to businessman. Binding of printed pages was a chancy undertaking.

We wandered over to a demonstration behind a silver shop where a silversmith was hammering on a piece of silver. Working silver is like working clay, he said. The round end of the hammer is like the palm of your hand; the pointed end is like your fingertips. To make a teaspoon, he would hammer it out into the right shape and then use a lead mold to form the bowl of the spoon. Lead is used because it is soft and will conform somewhat to the shape of the silver, making it possible for the smith to leave extra reinforcing silver at the joint between the handle and the bowl. To serve tea in the 18th century you needed a teaspoon for everybody and a single "mote spoon" or strainer spoon which the hostess could used to strain out tea leaves. The elaborate holes in the bowl of the mote spoon are drawn on the bowl and painstakingly cut out using a saw with a very small blade. First a hole is drilled. Then the blade is threaded through the hole and fastened to the saw. The silversmith said it takes about an hour to make a teaspoon and four days to make a fairly plain mote spoon. But labor in the 18th century was poorly valued. The value was in the silver itself. The mote spoon had less silver than a teaspoon, and this reduction in weight compensated for the increased labor so that a mote spoon was worth the about same as a teaspoon. During this period it was common to shape precious metals into usable objects because this made it much easier to keep track of one's wealth.

During the 18th century, wigs were a critical fashion accessory. Everyone had several wigs of different colors and styles for different occasions. Big wigs were worn for official functions, thus the term "big wig". Wigs were even made with feathers in them to shed the rain. They could be made from yak, goat, horse, or human hair. We watched the wig maker deftly stringing hairs together as she worked on her next handmade wig. The wigs had elaborate curls which were set using a pomade made from a variety of scents and a bunch of sheep fat.

We waited in a long line to get into the capitol building where we saw the governor's meeting room (with maps on the wall showing Virginia's enormous extent in the 18th century), the meeting room of the House of Burgesses, and the court room. The court room was used two or three times a year to try "capitol crimes"---crimes so serious that they had to be tried in the capitol.

The technology of the day could not make gun barrels by drilling. The gunsmith told us that they were made instead by welding a tube of metal around a spacer bar. Then a drill-like device would be used to smooth out the inside, and rifling could be cut using a device that spirals as it drags cutting teeth down the barrel. Each of seven spirals is cut separately. A rifle needed custom cast bullets---it came with its own mold. It also needed carefully measured gunpowder. In contrast, muskets used standardized balls and were loaded using ball/powder packages that were prefabricated. Trained men could fire their muskets every 15 seconds. Speed of firing, and uniformity of ammunition made the musket a much better military weapon than the rifle.

Fancy women's clothing could be obtained at the milliner's shop. The milliner told us that people in the 18th century were worried that young children who hit their heads too often would be damaged by the blows and get "pudding head". To ward off this danger, a special padded cap could be worn. In those days one who was "soft in the head" had mental flexibility and the capability to learn--a desirable characteristic.

At various houses we saw some of the different daily activities. Potato starch was laboriously extracted by grating potatoes for the starching of clothing. John Locke's "Letter Dice", which seemed like a precursor to Boggle, were used as an educational tool. At the house of a wealthy silversmith, the daughters all learned their sewing properly. We saw a sampler which looked like cross stitch on both sides---it had no back side.

We lunched on pepperoni and pita bread that we had brought with us. Our first "18th century" meal was our dinner at the Kings Arms tavern. First came the peanut soup which was served with bread sticks called "sippets" that we dipped in it. We had a sampling of traditional relishes: one made from corn, one from beans, one from Virginia ham and one from watermelon rind. I ordered a passionfruit guava drink with lemon sorbet in it (not traditional, according to the waiter). Dinner comprised smoked trout and game pie. Dessert didn't look intriguing enough to be worthy of tasting.

The next day we started by listening to the saddle maker's description of "horse furniture," which is used to model the horse. He measures the horse and rider and selects (or makes) an appropriate structure to act as a model horse to build the saddle on.

We left the saddle maker's shop and crossed the street to the Bruton Parish Church. The church was cross shaped with the pulpit in the center. The pulpit had a sound reflection board above it. Everyone sat in boxes which had seats on 3 sides (so some would sit with their backs to the pulpit). The governor had a fancy chair right across from the pulpit. Church skippers in Colonial Williamsburg faced a stiff fine.

Various people are buried under the church and have engraved tombstones as part of the floor. The previous director of Williamsburg felt that for historical accuracy it was necessary to spread sand on the road in the colonial area. As a result, in a mere fourteen years, one of the engraved tombstones was almost completely worn away. The new director is a former curator and has done away with the sand.

After leaving the church, we noticed a line forming outside a small house. The house belonged to Wythe, a prominent lawyer who had a part in the education of such notables as Thomas Jefferson and George Mason. On the extensive grounds of Wythe's house we learned that everyone who could access imported goods used high quality soap. Lye soap was used only by the very poor---but the revolution cut off the supply of imported goods and led to a definite decline in the standard of living. The washing was done by an educated slave who lived next to the wash room in better conditions than many poor free men. An elevated house dotted with small holes caught our attention. It was a dove cote. Doves would take up residence provided the Wythe residents with a steady supply of eggs and the roast dove. Rather than eating the eggs, they might hatch them and eat the chicks. Wythe was wealthy enough to afford an expensive "clock jack", a device dating to the time of Leonardo Davinci that automatically turns the spit so the cooks have one less thing to worry about. In the 18th century food was prepared in the kitchen and kept hot around the fire until meal time at around 2. Then the food would be served, generally between room and blood temperature, in a two hour long meal.

After leaving the Wythe house, we went directly to the Governor's Palace. The striking thing about the Governor's Palace is the decor. The walls and ceiling of the first room are decorated with 800 guns and weapons. This is the result, according to the guide, of letting the men handle the interior decorating. The ceiling of the first room has a circle of muskets. The walls have pistol circles and small swords. These were a show of power, not the palace arsenal. In another room, red curtains, red carpet, red silk chairs, and even red gingham checked covers on the chairs all displayed the governor's wealth. Red dye was expensive.

Lunch at Shield's Tavern was excellent---much better than the Kings Arms. We had fried chicken with gravy and Indian fritters with crab and a sweet pepper veloute sauce.

The wheelwright told us that elm was used for wheel centers because its irregular grain resists splitting. The sides were made from oak or ash which was roughly shaped and then dried for a couple years before the final forming. Cone shaped axles are more versatile than cylindrical ones because they are easier to fit and they handle wear better.

Bare footed women in the brickyard were standing in a mud filled pit. They begin with dry clay and water and mix it with their feet. It is formed into bricks and dried in the sun for a few days until it can be moved and stacked in a shed. At the end of the summer they fire all of the bricks. Unlike other professions, brick makers did not apprentice. They were paid on the first day at work...but prospects for advancement were grim.

Reproductions of 18th century furniture sat along the walls of the cabinet maker's shop. I asked how long a particular modestly ornate chair takes them to make using traditional 18th century methods. "Fifty hours" was the reply. A table that went with the chairs might take 140 hours. Chairs were sold in sets of a dozen. More elaborate work might feature a hand sawn 1/8" thick veneer. The curved sides of a harpsichord were formed by softening the wood in boiling water.

Next we rushed across town to the Wallace Decorative Arts Museum where a glass armonica concert was beginning. We arrived late, but in time to hear Dean Shostak give the history of the instrument. Ben Franklin invented the glass armonica in 1761. It produces sound the same way that a rubbed wine glass rings. Glass bowls are mounted on an axle. The glass bowls spin and Shostak plays the instrument by placing moistened fingers on the bowls.

The glass armonica became fairly popular, but performers became mysteriously sick, and people became superstitious about the "pure" tones produced by the instrument. By the 1830's it had vanished. The modern theory is that lead used in the glass or in the paint on the armonica was responsible for this ailment. Recently Gerhard Finkenbeiner started making glass armonicas again using lead free quartz bowls and pure gold on the inside to color the rims. Each of the 29 bowls on Shostak's armonica cost $250. Shostak speculated that the real trouble faced by armonica performers was not lead poisoning but anxiety about breakage.

In order to improve his playing, Shostak studied the complete works of Ben Franklin. Franklin was very accessible---he would answer letters from anybody. So Shostak had to hunt through a large body of work to identify the relevant material to get tips on playing. He recently played on an episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. He also told us of a work composed by Saint Saens for the glass armonica which was never played on the original instrument. Then he performed it for us (with a recorded orchestra).

After the concert we wandered around the museum where we saw a tiny fiddle with a proportionally oversized neck used by dancing instructors to play for their students. An exhibit of mote spoons, which included some highly ornate specimens, reminded us of our morning chat with the silversmith. Another exhibit featured marrow spoons with high sides (a U-shaped cross section) designed for scooping bone marrow to spread on toast.

We dined on pepperoni sandwiches on the lawn in front of the museum and then presented ourselves for "Dance our Dearest Diversion at the Capitol". There we learned that Virginians had an obsession with dance that was remarked upon by visitors from other colonies. Dancing parties would begin with the minuet, done one couple at a time in descending rank order. The minuet consists of various synchronized steps done with the partners at least arms length apart. Country dancing would follow the minuet. We saw a square dance and some dances in longways sets. The cotillion was a square dance with more elaborate footwork that appeared late in the 18th century. This pattern of increasing complication continued into the 19th century with the quadrille. This program was in the Capitol building. And that was historically accurate. The capitol was used by the government only at certain times of the year for short durations, so it would be rented out for dances and other gatherings the rest of the year.

Thursday we went to Carter's Grove, a plantation house. Our first stop was the slave quarters where a guide told us that 18th century slaves were treated tolerably well. The master would let his slaves go for two weeks to a slave party 100 miles away. They got hand-me-down clothes and kitchenware from the master. They owned 80% of the poultry in Virginia and sold eggs. At the slave quarters were chickens and a rooster in a pen made from 300 saplings. The rooster crowed frequently, and the guide expressed a heartfelt desire that an eagle would come down and take the rooster away.

Unlike Colonial Williamsburg, Carter's Grove was not restored with historical accuracy. It was renovated and drastically remodeled in the early 20th century so a rich couple could live there. The roof was raised to add a 3rd storey, the two outbuildings were enlarged and connected to the main building. We found this building boring.

On the grounds of the house we saw a man playing the part of Mark Catesby, a naturalist who came to America to study the plant life. He became fascinated by the birds and would paint the plants and animals together on the same page, with the plant simultaneously depicted in a variety of developmental stages. He did this to save paper and also show what things lived near each other. Sending specimens back to Europe could be challenging. Some animals could be stuffed, but many had to be preserved in rum. But then sailors might drink the rum and leave the specimen to rot. Plants had to be packed with soil in barrels open to the air which often did not survive the journey. In the other direction, Catesby had to get his paints from France by way of England (because products could not be imported directly from countries other than England).

Catesby's sister lived in Virginia (which is why he chose that colony to visit). On various occasions she played the matchmaker. When he was ready to depart, Catesby mentioned that he had been late to a recent appointment his sister set up because he came upon an opossum stuck in a trap. It had 11 babies on its back. He freed it and kept a small baby in his pocket. When he showed it to his sister's friend, she women ran away in fright. He did finally marry at the age of 64. He died 2 years later leaving behind his wife and an 8 year old son.

Catesby was a gentlemen and did not have to work, but his fortune was depleted by his travels, so by the end of his life he was unable to afford a professional Dutch production of his work; he also disliked the use of hatch marks which he thought rendered the animals stiff and unnatural. So for the publication of his work he learned copper etching and did his own plates. He then individually hand colored each copy. By the end of his life he had hand colored 30000 plates. His book was very highly regarded.

We rushed through an archaeology museum which described the history of Carter's grove. The most memorable exhibit concerned gabled coffins whose existence was inferred from the pattern of nails found by archaeologists. This lead to a long story about the search for evidence that gabled coffins were actually in use at that time. After we left Carter's Grove we went to our final stop in Williamsburg, the Folk Arts Museum. There I saw a bucket made of bottle caps, and the work of a lunatic who believed he was the prophet of a new religion and made enormous sculptures out of tin foil. Unfortunately he died before amassing enough followers to propagate his insights. They also had a large wooden rhino with a record player inside that wags its tongue when the record is playing.

We left Williamsburg and headed for Chincoteague. This required a drive across the Chesapeake tunnel bridge which stretches 18.7 miles from shore to shore. Visibility was poor, so it wasn't long before the shoreline vanished and we were surrounded entirely by water. We saw a large ship get closer and closer. It looked like the ship was heading straight for the road. Then suddenly we entered a tunnel and passed beneath the ship. When we approached the second tunnel, the bridge curved so that we could see the bridge disappear beneath the water and then reappear farther away. It was an eerie sight.

Once we reached the far shore we stopped briefly at a nature preserve where we saw innumerable laughing gulls---seagulls with black heads---and an osprey nest. We continued on to Chincoteague where we checked into the Watson House. After looking through restaurant reviews written by previous Watson House guests, we decided to eat at Etta's Channelside Restaurant where we had the crab duo featuring crab cakes, which weren't bad, and crab imperial, which was very good, with excellent hush puppies for the appetizer.

Some daylight still remained after dinner, so we went to the Chincoteague wildlife refuge. The road on the refuge was bristling with signs warning us to drive carefully and avoid hitting the endangered squirrels that inhabit the refuge. Endangered squirrels? The visitor center was closed, but the trails were still open so we drove around the wildlife loop. There we saw a large white bird (perhaps a snow goose), egrets, ibises, a small brown bird with a black & white stripes on the head (a bobolink), some deer, four wild ponies, and big and little blue herons. Some of the deer looked strange---not like the deer I'm used to seeing. But there was no sign of the endangered squirrels.

The next morning we went to the visitor center and signed up for a bus tour of the refuge. There we learned that some of the "deer" we had seen were actually sika elk. We got onto our hot stuffy tour bus. The guide had us open up the window to air out the bus but warned us to close the screens to prevent people from being pulled out of the bus by the mosquitos. He spoke with a fairly strong accent---the local one not a foreign one. It took me a long time to realize that when I heard "merlin" he was saying "Maryland".

The focus of the tour was on the famous Chincoteague wild ponies. The origin of these animals is unknown--they have been living wild on Assateague island for hundreds of years. One story claims that the ponies are refugees from a Spanish shipwreck. In 1922 the East of Chicoteague island burned down. In 1923 the West of the island burned. In 1924 the residents decided to create a fire department. But money was scarce. To raise money, they eventually hit upon a solution: they rounded up the wild horses and auctioned off the foals. This lead to the modern situation. The Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company owns the horses and are allowed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service to keep 150 animals on the refuge. The horses live on special fenced areas of the refuge, so you can't see them unless you go on this tour, spot an escaped animal, or hike out fifteen miles. Every year they auction off horses to keep the number down to 150.

The horses are auctioned in July. Because the horses are being sold, they must receive proper medical treatment. A few months before the auction the Fire Company rounds up the horses and gives them medical examinations and immunizations. The day of the auction the Volunteer Firemen drive the horses across the channel to Chincoteague Island. At first, the horses are reluctant to enter the channel. Perhaps the fifty thousand people waiting on the far shore are a little intimidating. People come out as early as 4am to wait so they can be really close. Those early birds discover a few hours later that the tide has come in and they are up to their waists in water. The horses are auctioned for an average of about $1600. Occasionally the Fire Company must keep a few foals to maintain the herd. In this case they will have a "take back" auction where people buy a foal and receive papers declaring themselves the owner of the animal, but the horse stays on the island so they don't have to take care of it. This arrangement suits people who want the prestige of owning a Chincoteague pony without the hassle of caring for it.

Assateague is a refuge for other foreign animals as well. A collector had thirteen sika elk from Asia. When he died they ended up in the hands of boy scouts who set up an elk petting zoo. But the cost of elk fodder exceeded the venues from admission, so they released them on the island. Now they are such a problem that the hunting of sika elk on the refuge is permitted. Elk meet is better than deer meat, and the Assateague elk are particularly tender since they live an easy life on the island.

The endangered Delmarva (DELaware-MARyland-VirginA) Peninsula Fox Squirrels are yet another foreigner. Originally, Assateague island had no squirrels at all. The Fish and Wildlife Service decided to introduce them to the island where they wouldn't face competition from the more aggressive gray squirrels. According to our guide, the pines on the island don't rot from the inside like hardwoods, so nesting cavities are scarce on the island. To alleviate this problem, the Fish and Wildlife Service has put up numerous squirrel nesting boxes, "government housing" according to our guide.

The tour bus took us past a sign reading "Nudity Prohibited". Assateague used to be the site of a nude beach. Then Playboy did an article on nude beaches which fell into the hands of local baptist women. They got the local government to pass an ordinance proscribing nudity. But the guide did mention that the new law is occasionally violated. One of his tours featured a naked man "in full breeding plumage".

After the tour we had lunch at Luna Seas Cafe, wasted some time at a boring decoy museum, and then returned to the refuge where we went in search of Delmarva Peninsula fox squirrels. Mosquitos swirled around us as we walked along the woodland trail were we saw some deer, some elk, and at last we spotted the elusive squirrels. They were similar to gray squirrels but a bit lighter colored with a frosty look to them. Now that we are back home we can tell that they were bigger---the local gray squirrels all look tiny.

We then walked on the marsh trail where we didn't see much. There were more herons and egrets and ibises. We also saw a snow goose (we think---red legs, pink bill w/ black stripe and orange towards the front of head.) The snow goose use to be an endangered bird. The efforts of the Chincoteague Refuge were so effective at reviving this species that now they are overwhelmed with snow geese. Unfortunately their meat is not as tasty as elk meat. I saw a mystery bird that was a finch/warbler with black and orange.

We ate at the Chincoteague Inn for dinner and had food that was so-so. they served oil and vinegar where both were vinegar.

We decided to leave hours earlier than we had originally planned. I don't know if it was the excitement of Williamsburg or my spoiled Florida upbringing, but there just didn't seem to be much to do on Chincoteague. We certainly weren't going to swim in that cold water and we had had enough shopping in Williamsburg. It was a good trip all in all and some day we might even go back to Williamsburg.