Taverns & Churches

Continuing the posts from a recent trip to Colonial Williamsburg...

Supper at the James Shields Tavern
Emily and I rounded off our full Saturday with supper at the James Shields Tavern, one of the Colonial Williamsburg eateries that is based off of an actual 18th-century establishment. Both the menu and the ambiance are designed to give diners the feel of eating in Mr. Shields' restaurant, so we ate by candlelight and munched on fare typical of the time (for Emily, pork ribs and potatoes; for me, chicken and vegetables. Not everything has changed since then!).

The Apollo Room at the Raleigh Tavern
One of the main social hubs in 18th-century Williamsburg was a business called the Raleigh Tavern, where local residents and visitors alike gathered to eat, drink, and share news. This was a place I wanted to see in particular for its connections with the Phi Beta Kappa Society. PBK was founded by students at the College of William & Mary in 1776, and the early members reportedly used to gather in the Apollo Room at the Raleigh (a venue also used often by members of the House of Burgesses in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War). They had Sunday morning tours, so we went!

I mentioned in an earlier post that the character actors and tour guides in Colonial Williamsburg are good. Our guide at the Raleigh Tavern was particularly good - both in his knowledge of the tavern itself and in his ability to connect with our group. The Raleigh is a reconstruction (like most of the buildings in the old colonial town), but it has been built on the same spot and is supposedly a facsimile of the original.

Sunday Worship at an Historic Church
We had already planned to find the nearest United Methodist congregation to join for worship on Sunday morning, and it just so happened that Williamsburg UMC was less than a block from the Autumn Leaves B&B where we were staying. Great church. Great worship service. And historic, too! Check out the picture below that I took of a plaque hanging on the brick wall of the sanctuary.