In late August, I was at the Heritage Center in Fredericksburg to check for various entries on Port Royal and St. Peter’s. The Heritage Center is a collection of repositories by both individuals and organizations that has been in existence for more than a decade. The volunteers index the data so that you may find references across various repositories that have been given to the center. I wanted to see if there was anything I had missed.
On that August day after looking at photographs, I notice an entry for a Port Royal map. Expecting a small highway map or real estate map I was pleasantly surprised when a volunteer brought out a map that was as tall as I was. It took up a whole table!
The map was of Port Royal in 1930 and showed current structures and also those no longer there. It contained a listing of the trees planted. It had been owned by Jim Patton, owner of Gay Mont and no stranger to those of us that appreciate him saving many of St. Peter’s historical archives. Most of Jim’s gifts tended to go to the Library of Va. so I was somewhat surprised to see his name there. The above image is at the bottom of the map to identify it. Since photography seemed to come to the village after 1920 you could use this map together with the photos of the 1920’s and 1930’s.
While this could supplement the map, a better look may be to compare what was there to our own time. What had been lost, gained or otherwise changed ? The biggest question – how does this change our view of the town ? Does it tell give us a direction of next steps?
The next thought was to break the map down by blocks to make it manageable. So in this series we will go block by block. Current photos will supplement the map with a description of what has changed. This series will appear periodically under the category "Block by Block" and it is being written as I go along rather than as a finished product.
Port Royal was organized into 5 streets moving horizontally and 4 streets vertically if Main Street is Counted based on Ralph Fall’s map adapted from a 1743 survey. There are 18 full blocks.
On the far side from Main Street. there is a half block bordered by Frederick Street. There are six of those. So there are up to 24 possible stories if each block is taken separately.
The town was established in 1744 and as Ralph Fall writes in Hidden Village its purpose was "to enhance trade and commerce rather than provide services the citizens could not provide individually." Already Port Royal had "many taverns and staables and several blacksmiths on the main-travelled road north and south from Williamsburg." "…Ships of large tonnage could sail up the Rappahannock River to its harbor."
It was Richard Talliaferro, one of the 18 magistrates appointed on the founding of Caroline County of 1727, who petitioned the Williamsburg governement to raise money by selling lots. Money was needed to "redeem the said mortaged premises andpreserve the negroes and personal estate of the said Robert Smith, for his widow and children." Robert Brooke did the survey.
The lots were 84 half-acre lots numbered starting on the river side. Thus each block contained 4 lots or two acres to the square. The basic streets and and names have not changed over time. What has changed is what is on those lots as we will see.
I will not do this in order of the lots. I will start with our own block at St. Peter’s. I will show the map at the top of the article and then the picture of what it looks like now with some description.