The customs office for the Upper James River was kept at Williamsburg but 
the ships entered and cleared at Burwell's Landing now a part of Kingsmill 
Golf Course. Williamsburg was never really a "port." The two landings could 
only accommodate small vessels.
HBG
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Henry Wiencek" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 3:20 PM
Subject: [VA-HIST] Was Williamsburg ever "quite a port"?


> In his 1873 newspaper statement about being the son of Thomas Jefferson a=
> nd
> Sally Hemings, Madison Hemings stated that his ancestor Capt. Hemings was=
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> "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 Williamsb=
> urg
> had a landing accessible from the York River by Queen's Creek, and I foun=
> d 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 receiv=
> e
> them off-list.
>
> Henry Wiencek
> Charlottesville
>
>
> -- 
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> :19 PM
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>