Rocke Hall – Home to Reverend Alexander Whitaker

Henricus Historical Park is proud to reveal an image featuring construction of Rocke Hall. This two-story structure re-creates the home of Reverend Alexander Whitaker. As minister to the settlement, Reverend Whitaker was an influential and highly respected man. His position as minister made him the logical choice to provide a home for Pocahontas when she was brought to Henricus in 1613. He tutored Pocahontas in the English traditions and oversaw her conversion to Christianity. As a close acquaintance of John Rolfe, Reverend Whitaker probably introduced Rolfe to Pocahontas, his future bride. Rocke Hall is on schedule to be completed in time for the next 400th commemoration event about Henricus Colledge on March 26-27.

Welcome to 2011 and the blog for Henricus Historical Park!

Henricus Historical Park would like to invite you to several upcoming events commemorating our 400th anniversary – so mark your calendars now!

All 400th commemoration events at Henricus Historical Park are open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. General admission is $8 for adults and $6 for children 3-12. Park admission fees are waived for Publick Days 2011 when the 400th anniversary of the founding of Henricus will be commemorated. Additional details about each event and directions to the Park are available at www.henricus.org.

For more information about all Henrico County 400th anniversary events click visit: www.henrico400th.com/calendar

Henricus Historical Park 400th commemoration events in 2011:
• March 26-27: Henricus Colledge – First University Chartered in North America
• May 7-8: Mount Malady – America’s First Hospital
• July 23-24: Tobacco – First Successful Commercial Export
• September 17-18: Publick Days and the Godspeed – 400th Anniversary of Henricus

Henricus on YouTube

Hi everyone! Check out our new video YouTube. There are many more to come!



Also, we recently had the Henricus Dauber Dash, sponsored by Sportsbackers, on August 22nd. This was a 'mud run', where participants run a 5 mile course that takes them through all kinds of obstacles, including a giant mud pit. Check out video of the event!

The last thing I think I need to mention is our upcoming Publick Days on September 19th & 20th. Admission is free for the public and we'll be welcoming the Godspeed from Jamestown. More information is available at our website!

Fences of Henricus

You know how those posters of "The Doors of Dublin" are so popular? I thought I'd do a photo essay of the fences around Henricus.

Every fence is different - but every fence is a period style and illustrates a technique used for building fences in the 17th century. Most of the fences our interpreters build are either made with recycled materials found around the site or are from materials harvested on site.



(Mosaic made using the Mosaic Maker)

Springtime in Virginia

Before I do anything else, I have to apologize to everyone for being so slow with posting new things on the Henricus blog. We've been terribly busy with everything on site. I'll give you a brief update of what has been happening...

Happy Spring! (Which is quickly becoming summer...) We've been growing a lot of things on site. Our gardens, under the care of Lindsay, our Agricultural Specialist, as well as the rest of the Henricus Staff, sprouted and grew faster than we knew what to do with what was growing there. The Tobacco Plantation had a full crop of lettuces, spinach, carrots, onions, turnips, and radishes. We're still waiting for our pease to take off, as well as the beans. The Citie Garden, which is located behind the Court de Guard (or the soldier's house) looks equally as terrific.





New Animals! We also have a few new additions at the Tobacco Plantation, whom I should introduce. First is Buttercup the pig, who arrived at Henricus back in April. If you subscribe to our Facebook page, then you've already seen her smiling piggy face. She's a Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig that was donated to our site. While the breed isn't exactly period correct for our site, she is interpreting 17th century pig life on the farm.





We also received 10 new Dorking chicks from Jamestown. They're still babies, but they're the same size as the Old English Bantams. They also don't really understand the whole "going into the coop at night" thing yet, but we're working with them.

Events-A-Rama! Over the past two months, Henricus Historical Park hosted two events. The first, Extraordinary Labors, was held back in April. This event featured the trades and crafts of the 17th century.

The last event we hosted was our annual Musket, Sword, and Pike. It just happened to fall on Memorial Day weekend, which went along well with the military theme of the event. Not only did we have musket demonstrations and cannons firing, courtesy of the Virginia Militia and the New Amstel Militia, but we also had Powhatan Indian weapons demonstrations, tunes from Tom Rivers on Sunday, and numerous other demonstrations by our dedicated volunteers and staff. I was staked out at the laundry back at Mount Malado, the first colonial hospital, where we were interpreting the roles of women in 1614 Virginia, when Henricus was still under martial law.

We really have been busy! In addition to all of that, we also planted our crops for the summer - tobacco and corn. All of our crops are loving the late spring showers we've been getting at least once a week. There is still a lot of construction going on, including the new fireplace in the Court de Guard and the mantle piece in the Planter's House.


Check back soon!

~ Jenny
Historical Interpreter, Domestic Skills

Rainy days and Sundays

Everything is becoming greener around the site, which means spring is coming soon! We're starting to turn over and plant our gardens, the wattle fencing is nearly finished, and the chickens are finding bugs again. But it's still cold out there, and raining, so we interpreters are hanging out inside for some training brush-ups. (Lots of stuff about Sir Thomas Dale, Great Charters, and 1622 Massacres.)

I hope the weather is nice for this upcoming weekend because that is our first of three springtime events, Colonial Crafts and Games. We will have interpreters on site and our education staff joining in to present visitors with period crafts and games. If you're in the area, come on out and visit!

This same weekend, ironically, is the anniversary of the Bloody Friday Massacre. On March 22, 1622, 347 English colonists were killed when they were attacked by Powhatans led by Opchanacanough, Chief Powhatan's brother. It's one of our main interpretive points at our Tobacco Plantation - and that means our time frame will be changing from 1622 to 1620 for the start of the spring/summer season.

Welcome to Henricus!

While this is technically my second post, I wanted to introduce the blog - and Henricus - properly. When I started writing this out, I realized there was no way I could introduce Henricus without writing a small novel. But you do need some kind of introduction before I suddenly launch into behind-the-scenes and historical interpretation from the front lines. Henricus is turning 400-years-old in two years, after all.

Henricus Historical Park is a 32 acre living history museum located along the James River, just south of Richmond. We have a dedicated group of interpreters and volunteers who portray the daily lives of English soldiers, tradesmen, indentured servants, the goodwives & single women, and Native Americans who lived in the areas of Coxendale and Henrico between the years 1611 to 1622. To do that, we have 13 structures on site, in which we interpret the 17th century. We perform the activities and chores, wear the same types of clothing, and eat the same meals they may have done 400 years ago.

As interpreters, we use "encounter third-person interpretation" to speak to visitors. So if you were to speak to us, we'd speak to you from a modern perspective. But for special occasions, we might break out the character interpretation. :)

To give you a glance around the site, I thought I'd post a few pictures. We had a rare occurrence on Monday: 4" of snow! (More about that later!) I hope you enjoy a look at the Henricus buildings in the snow...



This is the Powhatan village where we interpret the Native Americans who lived in Virginia 400 years ago. Arrohateck (the name of this particular village) is mostly used for school programs.



Walking from Arrohateck, you enter into the English village. The first place you'll see is 1611, the Court de Guard, where sergeants of the guard would spend their time in the fort at Henricus.



Up the road from the Court de Guard is the trades area. Here we have the Citie barn, which is where our carpentry shop is located. There is also our working blacksmith's forge where the blacksmith and his apprentice work.





As you leave the trades area, the road takes you past the tavern, which we use for school programs and events. It is modeled after the 1640s Ordinary at St. Mary's City.



The original "Mount Malado" was built on a hill over looking the James around 1614. It would have served as a guesthouse for colonists just arriving to Virginia, but it is credited as being the first English hospital. Our recreation of Mount Malado is a lot smaller than the original, which would have had 80 beds and five fire places.





The next building being constructed at Henricus Historical Park is "Rocke Hall". This was the parsonage for Reverend Alexander Whitaker. Right now, it looks like a swimming pool, but that is the foundation for what will be a really cool two story structure once it is finished.



Following the path from Mount Malado and Rocke Hall, you'll come across the tobacco plantation. This represents a farm from the 1620s. We don't have a lot of animals living there right now - just chickens. The barn is solely for tobacco. The house is a typical dwelling of a yeoman farmer.









I'll go into more detail on the buildings in a later post, but that's the basic tour around the buildings. I hope you enjoyed seeing Henricus in the snow!

Stay tuned!


Jenny
Historical Interpreter, Domestic Skills

Going LIVE March 1st!

The Henricus Blog will go live starting March 1, 2009!
(We were going to start the blog on March fourth, the most commanding day of the year, but I'm more inclined to keep it tidier with the first of the month. I'm sure Sir Thomas Dale would have approved, however...)

It's about time we brought the 21st century to the 17th century out here! :)

I guess I'll introduce myself before I go further. I'm one of the historical interpreters who works in the recreated historic citie. My name is Jenny and I will be updating this blog weekly with all of the tales of toil from the recreated settlement we call Henricus.

The real Henricus (or "Henryco"...or "Henericus"...there are a lot of ways of spelling it!) was founded by Sir Thomas Dale in 1611 as a second settlement following Jamestown. Today, we're not positive where the original settlement of Henricus stood. There's been a lot of development in this area and a lot of changes following the Civil War in the 1860s. While progress is great, it's a little rough on us historians who are trying to find our own 'Atlantis'. But, for now, Henricus Historical Park has 13 structures that we interpret as the years 1611 to 1622. I'll save descriptions of them for a later post. ;)

Until we go live, check out Henricus Historical Park on Facebook. Oh - and our website (http://henricus.org) too!


Jenny
Historical Interpreter, Domestic Skills