I had read that shipping was pretty much the main way the residents  
supported themselves when the legislature was not in town- taverns,  
ordinaries, inns, selling things the sailors and ships needed, etc.  
and it could be a pretty wild place when the ships were in. Maybe the  
definition of it being a "major port" was relative, esp. for someone  
who had not seen a really big port.

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Mar 13, 2007, at 3:25 PM, Lyle E. Browning wrote:

> 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