Williamsburg Through Time

Today, each visitor to Williamsburg, Virginia, takes a step back in time to the small town that for nearly a century was capital of Virginia, one of the most influential of all of England’s thirteen American colonies, and the focus of a significant plantation society. Eighteenth-century buildings, furnishings and gardens again take their original form in this historic community. Colonial-period carriages once more clatter along Duke of Gloucester, a broad public thoroughfare once described by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as “the most historic avenue in all America.”

Since 1927, when the first preliminary drawings illustrating the restoration of the entire town were completed, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. moved to acquire the first key properties toward restoration of Williamsburg, the American past has been brought to life in an area nearly a mile in length. In this sacred hollow of America’s past were enacted some of the most dramatic scenes of our history—and with it some of the nation’s most famous patriots and future Founding Fathers.

Restoration and discovery continue to be carried out by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the premise that the future should learn from the past.

AMY WATERS YARSINSKE is the author of several best-selling, award-winning non-fiction books. Her drive to document and investigate history-shaping stories and people has already led to over 60 non-fiction books, most of them spotlighting current affairs, the military, history and the environment. Amy graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and Economics. She earned her Master of Planning from the University of Virginia School of Architecture, where she was a DuPont Fellow and Lawn/Range resident.