Colonial Williamsburg–The Governor Fled

Each day in Colonial Williamsburg VA different parts of America’s story is told. You can follow it start to finish over several days or just jump in on the parts you are interested.

We ended the previous day’s activities with the recruitment effort. Next we heard about uprisings over gunpowder confiscation, and the Governor and his family fleeing their estate.

There were some big chunks of the story we missed because of other sight seeing we were doing but each venue did their best to keep tourists informed of where they were in the time line. We started our day off with a tour of the Governor’s Palace.

Our guide played the part of one of the Governor’s staff and she was a hoot!!! Very knowledgeable, stayed in character, and used lots of period dialog.

The entryway or foyer of the mansion was incredible! The guns, the swords, all used in the war eventually, were beautifully displayed on the walls.

Off of the entryway there are several rooms, or parlor type rooms. Notice the rough looking mirrors high up on the walls. These were not used for fulfilling the Governor’s vanity, they were too high and not very clear.

These mirrors were placed to catch sunlight, firelight and candle light to help brighten the room.

The mantels around the fireplaces were very impressive as was the artwork on the walls.

Next we went upstairs to checkout the bedrooms. Our guide reminded us often that the family had returned to England because it was becoming to dangerous for them to remain, citing the gunpowder riots and the war efforts.

Here is Lady Dunmore’s bedroom, quite different from the tavern sleeping quarters.

Lady Dunmore’s daughter’s bed. Our guide was sure that the child was probably quite distressed because she never went anywhere without her beloved doll. She hoped that meant someday the family would return, but she doubted it, “don’t ya know?”.

The carpets are imported from somewhere, can’t remember. Love how they match it to the canopy for the bed.

There were fireplaces in almost every room. Each one was different.

Lady Dunmore’s dressing room. Shoot, it was bigger than most of the other rooms in the house!!!

The stairways and doorways were bigger than you would think for the small statured people back then (average height was less than 5 feet) But the hoops on the women’s dresses dictated a different type of new architecture.

The stairwell to the first floor was huge, but it did make for a nice place to hang long guns.

We wrapped up our tour with a look at the ball room. There were large portraits of the king and queen and a couple others I can’t remember. Each room in the palace was a different color many with coordinating carpets.

Off of the ballroom we spied the powder room. Used for powdering wigs, what else?

Our guide ended the tour of the mansion and invited us to tour the gardens next. So off we went to play in the biggest “secret garden” in town!