7/10/11 – Yorktown Victory Center

Like Jamestown Settlement, Yorktown Victory Center is another living history museum run by the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Before you even get to the Visitors Center, you walk down the Road to Revolution Timeline which traces the beginnings of the American Revolution. 

Inside we watched the movie, then toured the exhibition galleries.  There’s some pretty interesting stuff there about the development of that radical document, The Declaration of Independence.  They’ve recorded excerpts from journals so you can get a personal viewpoint on how ordinary people felt about the whole independence and revolutionary period.   

Then we went outside to swelter in the heat along with the soldiers at the Continental Army Encampment.  At least we weren’t wearing wool uniforms like the costumed interpreters were.  They did a mock firing of a mortar, but had a little difficulty in firing the musket…

I liked the demo by the camp surgeon.  Pretty amazing that anybody survived that war if they were wounded at all!  If the lead bullets didn’t kill you, the doctors would!  Or maybe malaria or dysentery or small pox...   (And, no, I haven't a clue what George is looking at!)

Next stop was at the 1780s farm, with replica buildings, fields and gardens, and more interpreters to answer questions. 

They have a huge turkey.  I didn’t know they have blue heads that change to red when they get upset!  George upset him more than I did--his head is a lot redder in the 2nd pic where he's shaking his feathers at George!

BTW, if I haven’t said it before, I will definitely admit here that I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been born in the century I was! 

More pics here:  Yorktown Victory Center