On to Jamestown

I have kind of a strange job with NIAHD- I am a fill-in or floating instructor- so I am here if one of the instructors is ill or cannot teach a class for some reason and I also fill in one day for each of them so they can have a day off and I can get some experience working directly with the students. So it is a very different experience than Keio where I got to know my group of students really well. I haven't had to fill in for anyone yet so I have just gone on the field trips and then get to go home- I feel a little guilty because I haven't had to work all that hard yet and have had fairly short work days.

Anyway- the whole point of me mentioning that I am the floating instructor is to say that there won't be a natural timeline- or progression of the sites I visit. Some days I go with the Colonial group (which focuses on American History from Jamestown to the Revolution) and other days I go with the Civil War group (which focuses on American history from the Revolution to the Civil War).

Yesterday I went with the Colonial group to Jamestown Island - which is the actual site of the original Jamestown Fort where there is an ongoing archeological dig. Part of the fort's remains have been eroded away into the James River but about 3/4s of the land where the fort stood is still there and it is an incredibly active and rich site. I have been there before, last summer, and already shared those pictures so I tried not to post duplicate images- fortunately the dig has moved from where they were last summer so there are new things to see and we were allowed to go into the vault where they keep a lot of the remains they have found.

We were also incredibly fortunate with the weather- it was the perfect day to go there, apparently almost every other year they have had students who have passed out on the Jamestown Island day because it is usually so miserable (hot and humid) when they go there- and it has been a very hot couple weeks but we lucked out and went while the weather was not only bearable but actually quite lovely.

This building wasn't there last summer (at least I don't think so).




Here we are standing around a site in the fort that is actually both a Civil War site and a Jamestown Fort site- meaning CIvil War soldiers (Confederates if I am not mistaken) built some earthworks here on the Jamestown site. And the statue you can see is on John Smith.



In this picture you can see the church, one of the digs, and the obelisk in the background.



And these two pictures are from inside the "vault."