Governor's Palace (Williamsburg, Virginia)
The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia, was the official residence of the royal governors of the Colony of Virginia. It was also a home for two of Virginia's post-colonial governors, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, until the capital was moved to Richmond in 1780, and with it the governor's residence. The main house burned down in 1781, though the outbuildings survived for some time after. The Governor's Palace was reconstructed in the 1930s on its original site. It is one of the two largest buildings at Colonial Williamsburg, the other being the Capitol. History Williamsburg was established as the new capital of the Virginia colony in 1699, and served in that capacity until 1780. During most of that period, the Governor's Palace was the official residence of the royal governor. Construction and design The palace was funded by the House of Burgesses in 1706 at the behest of Lt. Governor Edward Nott. It was built from 1706 onward. In 1710, its first official reside ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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English Baroque
English Baroque is a term used to refer to modes of English architecture that paralleled Baroque architecture in continental Europe between the Great Fire of London (1666) and roughly 1720, when the flamboyant and dramatic qualities of Baroque art were abandoned in favour of the more chaste, rule-based neo-classical forms espoused by the proponents of Palladianism. It is primarily embodied in the works of Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor, John Vanbrugh, and James Gibbs, although a handful of lesser architects such as Thomas Archer also produced buildings of significance. In domestic architecture and interior decor, Baroque qualities can sometimes be seen in the late phase of the Restoration style, the William and Mary style, the Queen Anne style, and early Georgian architecture. Development Sir Christopher Wren presided over the genesis of the English Baroque manner, which differed from the continental models by clarity of design, a less restless taste in carving and e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Hamilton, 1st Earl Of Orkney
Field Marshal George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, KT (9 February 1666 – 29 January 1737), styled Lord George Hamilton from 1666 to 1696, was a British soldier and Scottish nobleman and the first British Army officer to be promoted to the rank of field marshal. After commanding a regiment for the cause of William of Orange during the Williamite War in Ireland, he commanded a regiment in the Low Countries during the Nine Years' War. He then led the final assault at the Battle of Blenheim attacking the village churchyard with eight battalions of men and then receiving the surrender of its French defenders during the War of the Spanish Succession. He also led the charge of fifteen infantry battalions in an extremely bloody assault on the French entrenchments at the Battle of Malplaquet. In later life, he became a Lord of the Bedchamber to George I and was installed as Governor of Edinburgh Castle. Early life Born the son of William Douglas, 1st Earl of Selkirk and Anne, 3rd ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Siege Of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German battle (from the presence of Germans in all three armies), beginning on September 28, 1781, and ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of the American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, and French Army troops led by Comte de Rochambeau over British Army troops commanded by British peer and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. The culmination of the Yorktown campaign, the siege proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War in the North American region, as the surrender by Cornwallis, and the capture of both him and his army, prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict. In 1780, about 5,500 French soldiers landed in Rhode Island to help their American allies fight the British troops controlling New York Cit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Executive Mansion (Virginia)
The Virginia Governor's Mansion, better known as the Executive Mansion, is located in Richmond, Virginia, on Capitol Square and serves as the official residence of the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Designed by Alexander Parris, it is the oldest occupied governor's mansion in the United States. It has served as the home of Virginia governors and their families since 1813. This mansion is both a Virginia and a National Historic Landmark, and has had a number of successive renovations and expansions during the 20th century. Adjacent and immediately north of Capitol Square is the Court End neighborhood, which houses the White House of the Confederacy. During the Civil War, the Virginia State Capitol, also in Richmond, housed offices of the Confederacy. Tours of the mansion are offered several days a week. History When Richmond became the capital of Virginia in 1779, there was no residence for the governor, but Thomas Jefferson rented one. The state was so poor that it ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Virginia State Capitol
The Virginia State Capitol is the seat of state government of the Commonwealth of Virginia, located in Richmond, the third capital city of the U.S. state of Virginia. (The first two were Jamestown and Williamsburg.) It houses the oldest elected legislative body in North America, the Virginia General Assembly, first established as the House of Burgesses in 1619. The Capitol was conceived of by Thomas Jefferson and Charles-Louis Clérisseau in France, based on the Maison Carrée in Nîmes. Construction began in 1785 and was completed in 1788. The current Capitol is the eighth built to serve as Virginia's statehouse, primarily due to fires during the Colonial period. In the early 20th century, two wings were added, leading to its present appearance. In 1960, it was designated a National Historic Landmark. History Colonial precursors in Jamestown and Williamsburg During the American Colonial period, Virginia's first capital was Jamestown, where the first legislative body, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), gaining independence from the British Crown and establishing the United States of America as the first nation-state founded on Enlightenment principles of liberal democracy. American colonists objected to being taxed by the Parliament of Great Britain, a body in which they had no direct representation. Before the 1760s, Britain's American colonies had enjoyed a high level of autonomy in their internal affairs, which were locally governed by colonial legislatures. During the 1760s, however, the British Parliament passed a number of acts that were intended to bring the American colonies under more direct rule from the British metropole and increasingly intertwine the economies of the colonies with those of Brit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jeffersonian Architecture
Jeffersonian architecture is an American form of Neo-Classicism and/or Neo-Palladianism embodied in the architectural designs of U.S. President and polymath Thomas Jefferson, after whom it is named. These include his home (Monticello), his retreat (Poplar Forest), the university he founded (University of Virginia), and his designs for the homes of friends and political allies (notably Barboursville). More than a dozen private homes bearing his personal stamp still stand today. Jefferson's style was popular in the early American period at about the same time that the more mainstream Greek Revival architecture was also coming into vogue (1790s–1830s) with his assistance. Sources and inspiration In colonial Virginia during the 18th century there were no schools of architecture, so Jefferson learned the profession on his own from various books and by studying some of the various classical architectural designs of the day. As a self-taught architect and classicist, he was most heav ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Amson
John Amson (1698 – death unknown, possibly 1765) was an English physician and amateur botanist who moved to Virginia and served as alderman and mayor of Williamsburg, during the Colonial period, from 1750 to 1751. Biography Amson owned lots 212–217 in Williamsburg from 1746 to around 1758. In 1762, he bought 180 acres of land from Henry Tyler, of the noted Tyler family. In 1760, a perennial flower, the genus of ''Amsonia'' Blue Star, was named after Amson. It came about after then-General George Washington, on campaign during the French and Indian War, contracted what he believed to be the consumption, called tuberculosis today. In 1758, on his way to Williamsburg, Washington sought a definitive answer as to his illness, stopped for a medical consultation at the Governor's Palace, where Dr. Amson lived on the north-west edge of town. Amson diagnosed Washington with a common cold and convinced him he was not going to die. Legacy To commemorate Amson, John Clayton John ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Murray, 4th Earl Of Dunmore
John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730 – 25 February 1809), known as Lord Dunmore, was a British people, British Peerage, nobleman and Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies, colonial governor in the Thirteen Colonies, American colonies and The Bahamas. He was the last List of colonial governors of Virginia, colonial governor of Virginia. Lord Dunmore was named List of colonial governors of New York, governor of the Province of New York in 1770. He succeeded to the same position in the Colony of Virginia the following year, after the death of Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt. As Virginia's governor, Dunmore directed a series of campaigns against the trans-Appalachian Native Americans in the United States, Indians, known as Lord Dunmore's War. He is noted for issuing a 1775 document (Dunmore's Proclamation) offering freedom to any enslaved person who fought for the Crown against the Patriot (American Revolution), Patriots in Virginia. Dunmore fled to New York after ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sir William Gooch, 1st Baronet
Sir William Gooch, 1st Baronet (21 October 1681 – 17 December 1751) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1727 to 1749. Technically, Gooch only held the title of Royal Lieutenant Governor, but the nominal governors, Lord Orkney and Lord Albemarle, were in England and did not exercise much authority. Gooch's tenure as governor was characterized by his unusual political effectiveness. One of his greatest successes was the passage of the Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730. The Act called for the inspection and regulation of Virginia's tobacco, the most important crop of the colony. Tobacco planters were required to transport their crop to public warehouses where it was inspected and stored. The Act raised the quality of Virginia's tobacco and reduced fraud; this greatly increased the demand for Virginia tobacco in Europe. Gooch's military policy focused on protecting the western territory from Native Americans and Fre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hugh Drysdale
Colonel Hugh Drysdale (died 22 July 1726) was an American governor of colonial Virginia. He was educated at Kilkenny College and Trinity College Dublin. More officially, his title was ''Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia''. He served as governor from September 1722, until his death in July 1726. Because of the relative peace and calm that marked his time as governor, comparatively little is known about him today. He is generally held to have been a just and competent leader, though some have questioned his ability to govern. See also * Colony of Virginia * Governor's Palace *List of colonial governors of Virginia *History of Virginia References External linksBiographyat Encyclopedia Virginia Virginia Humanities (VH), formerly the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is a humanities council whose stated mission is to develop the civic, cultural, and intellectual life of the Commonwealth of Virginia by creating learning opportunit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norborne Berkeley, Baron De Botetourt
Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt (c. 1717 – 15 October 1770), was a British courtier, member of parliament, and royal governor of the colony of Virginia from 1768 until his death in 1770. Life Norborne Berkeley was born about 1717, the only son of John Symes Berkeley of Stoke Gifford, Gloucestershire by his second wife Elizabeth, the daughter and coheiress of Walter Norborne of Calne, Wiltshire and the widow of Edward Devereux, 8th Viscount Hereford. The Berkeleys of Stoke Gifford were descended from Maurice de Berkeley (d. 1347), who had acquired the manor of Stoke Gifford in 1337, the second son of Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley (1271–1326). In 1726, Berkeley was admitted to Westminster School. He succeeded his father to Stoke Park in Stoke Gifford in 1736 and remodelled both the house (now known as the Dower House) and the gardens in the 1740s and 1750s with the help of the designer Thomas Wright of Durham. He was appointed Colonel of the newly ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |