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Date: | Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:25:48 -0400 |
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College Landing on the south side was the other "port" of
Williamsburg. Neither was by any stretch of the imagination a major
port. Check with any good map source and the physical/topographical
limitations are glaring. Both were ports because Williamsburg was the
Capital at the time. I can't think of a major VA port not on a large
river, unless at a creek mouth providing some limited upstream access
for boat traffic.
Lyle Browning, RPA
On Mar 13, 2007, at 3:20 PM, Henry Wiencek wrote:
> In his 1873 newspaper statement about being the son of Thomas
> Jefferson and
> Sally Hemings, Madison Hemings stated that his ancestor Capt.
> Hemings was
> "captain of an English trading vessel which sailed between England and
> Williamsburg, Va., then quite a port." He is speaking about the
> 1730s. Is
> it correct to say that Williamsburg was "quite a port"? Though
> Williamsburg
> had a landing accessible from the York River by Queen's Creek, and
> I found a
> reference to a "Comptroller of the port of Williamsburg" in 1773, I
> have
> never heard Williamsburg described as a major port. This may seem
> like a
> trivial point, but it is one of several assertions in Madison Hemings'
> narrative that seem to be wrong and I am trying to pin them all down.
>
> I am not trying to launch a general Hemings/Jefferson discussion,
> and if
> anyone has any comments on that broader subject I will be happy to
> receive
> them off-list.
>
> Henry Wiencek
> Charlottesville
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