When was williamsburg the capital of virginia

However, when Lt. In , the statehouse at Jamestown was once again destroyed by fire. Students from the College of William and Mary, established ten miles inland at Middle Plantation in , urged the General Assembly to move the capital there. The new capital city would be known as Williamsburg. By , the population of Virginia had grown form the colonists of to more than 60, people, most of them living east of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Only about Powhatan Indians remained on reservations located in the English-controlled parts of the colony. Jamestown declined rapidly after the capital moved to Williamsburg.

In the Associates of Dr. Bray , a group formed in by the Anglican clergyman Thomas Bray to proselytize and educate African Americans and Native Americans, established a school in Williamsburg. On May 29, , the House of Burgesses adopted five resolutions put forward by Patrick Henry condemning the Stamp Act—which taxed colonists by requiring them to purchase stamps for virtually every piece of paper—as a violation of their rights as Englishmen.

A few months later, the Stamp Act provoked another act of protest, this one on the east end of the Duke of Gloucester Street. George Mercer, the appointed stamp distributer for Virginia, described the event in a letter written to the people of Williamsburg and dated October 31, Discontent and revolutionary sentiment continued to find expression in subsequent years.

In December , the House of Burgesses hosted a ball at the capitol in honor of Governor Norborne Berkeley, baron de Botetourt , and the attendees followed the lead of recent protestors by not wearing clothing that was either imported or made of imported materials—meaning they refused to pay what they considered to be unfair taxes on such materials.

Following a brief period of popularity, he dissolved the General Assembly in May after its members protested the Coercive Acts, measures taken by Parliament in the wake of the Boston Tea Party. The burgesses continued to meet extralegally at Raleigh Tavern, on the Duke of Gloucester Street, and other public and private buildings in the city, where members elected delegates that summer to attend the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Other acts of protest followed. Four years later, as war raged to the south, concerns mounted over the vulnerability of Williamsburg. Encyclopedia Virginia Grady Ave. Virginia Humanities acknowledges the Monacan Nation , the original people of the land and waters of our home in Charlottesville, Virginia. We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia.

Skip to content. Contributor: Katherine Egner Gruber. Establishment of Middle Plantation. Print Made from Bodleian Copperplate. Dudley Digges House, Williamsburg. February 1, The General Assembly orders a palisade built around a settlement it calls Middle Plantation, between the York and James rivers. It is located within the palisade wall. September 19, A day after the capital is abandoned by Governor Sir William Berkeley, Nathaniel Bacon orders his men to "laye itt level with the Ground.

May 29, Cockacoeske signs the Treaty of Middle Plantation, and at her request several tribes are reunited under her authority. But having been free of Powhatan domination since , the Chickahominy and Rappahannock stubbornly refuse to become subservient to her or to pay tribute. February 8, A royal charter is granted for the College of William and Mary. October 20, Fire destroys the statehouse in Jamestown. May 1, Students from the College of William and Mary deliver orations in support of moving Virginia's capital from Jamestown to Williamsburg.

October The College of William and Mary is destroyed by fire. February 18, Queen Anne signs Alexander Spotswood's commission as lieutenant governor of Virginia. July 28, The Crown grants Williamsburg a royal charter, providing for a mayor, aldermen, and council. Northern Neck members renewed the effort to move the colonial capital from Williamsburg to "a more convenient place" in the York or even the Rappahannock watershed.

Williamsburg supporters skillfully blocked any shift by forcing a decision on a specific new location, splitting the opposition to remaining in Williamsburg. First, the do-not-move-from-Williamsburg burgesses joined with advocates of moving to a location on the York River and blocked a proposed move to Bermuda Hundred on James River. Then the do-not-move-from-Williamsburg burgesses united with Bermuda Hundred advocates, and blocked a proposed move to West Point on the York River.

In the Capitol building in Williamsburg burned. Gooch supported a move, initially, but the House of Burgesses specifically rejected a moving to Newcastle in Hanover County or to a location on the James River. The Upper House of General Assembly, appointed by King of England, rejected any move because "most of them lived in Williamsburg or within a day's carriage ride. After the House of Burgesses rejected rebuilding plans, in it had to reconsider what to do.

The burgesses considered Cumberland, on the Pamunkey River downstream from Newcastle, where a ferry provided access to Williamsburg from the north , but ultimately voted to stay in Williamsburg. Then the House reconsidered and voted for Newcastle, but the other have of the General Assembly the appointed Council split and rejected the change.

The supporters of moving the capital argued for Newcastle that "it is much more central being Fifty miles higher upon the Country, consequently so much nearer the bulk of the people," but lost. In , the Northern Neck burgesses tried again. Once again the burgesses approved a shift to Newcastle, and once again the Council killed it. Landon Carter said rejection came because the Council members lived "all in a Neck.

In , a bill to move the colonial capital from Williamsburg came within one vote of succeeding in the House of Burgesses. A effort also failed in the House. In the customhouse for District of the Upper James River was moved from Williamsburg to Bermuda Hundred, but in the Council blocked a proposed move of the capital further inland.

That same year, the General Assembly approved a canal to connect Williamsburg to the York River and the James River, a maneuver that may have preserved Williamsburg as the capital - if the canal had been built. According to an analysis of the decision to move the capital away from Williamsburg, published by Alonzo T. Dill and Brent Tartar in Virginia Cavalcade in , changes in the demographics of Virginia helped drive the decision: 3. The creation of new counties in those regions and the consequent election of more burgesses from the southern and western parts of the colony strengthened the James River faction.

Also, the appointed Council was replaced with elected Senate members after