Are you ready?

Sorry, you just gave me such a hard time about asking that yesterday.

Welcome to Talk With History.

I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.

On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels,

YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations

with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

Now, Jen, we're recording this a couple of weeks before it's going to

be released, but a couple of days ago, it looks like we just got a new review.

We got a five, five star review from someone, and we were talking about

this just before we hit record.

Cause I, I've said multiple times, Hey, leave me a five star review,

whether it be positive or negative, I'll take a five star review.

And someone left us a negative five star review.

And so I'm going to read it here real quick.

I won't, their, their handle is someone61450.

You can go and see it if you're curious and you can look it up in Apple Podcasts.

But the, it's five stars, so thank you for that.

The title is Misstep.

So I guess this person had listened to our Loretta Lynn podcast episode.

It says, Loretta Lynn builds hurricane mills, not hills.

So this person commented, The background music is very overwhelming

and not relatable at all.

It mentions something about a trumpet, which I'm, I'm kind of

confused because we use a lot of bluegrass music in, in that episode.

So I'll go back and re listen to it.

You do a fabulous job with the history and a five star podcast, but this

episode falls very, very short for me.

There's a lot more Loretta that is missed and having just

gotten home from this area.

I'm unsure if you can do the Hatfield McCoy's justice, if

this is all you produced for her.

So that's, I'll always take all sorts of feedback, you and I were just joking

that you get all sorts of feedback when it comes to the YouTube channel

a lot, so you're getting used to it.

But this person kind of brings up a good point that we didn't, not a good

point, but a point that we didn't go deep into the Loretta Lynn history.

and I want to stress.

If that's what you're looking for, yeah, that's a, that's a fair review

because we don't go into Loretta Lynn history, we, and we won't talk

specifically about Loretta Lynn's career.

This podcast is a location, historical location podcast.

So we're going to go into the history of the location.

So we talk about Loretta Lynn's birthplace, we talk about her in

where she grew up and then getting married and then leaving the area.

So we really don't go much into her career because her career really

wasn't started anywhere in the area where her with her cabin is.

And he's right.

She does build a ranch in Tennessee.

And I must have mispronounced it.

But that the ranch Hurricane Mills is, the ranch she builds in Tennessee.

And that's the longevity of her career.

Yes.

the things, too, is the, it's not that we haven't gone into depth

on certain people, but it's oftentimes when we go to a location, like a

museum, John Wayne Museum, Abraham Lincoln Museum, that is a location

fully about the history of that person.

And so that's, those are the times when we typically will dive deep into a person's

Sure.

And we, we center it more on the artifacts in the museum.

So we'll talk about their life with that artifact.

Or if I'm going to talk about Washington crossing, I'm going to talk about

George Washington at the time in 1776.

So I'm not going to talk, I never will talk entirely about one person's life.

I will not talk about George Washington's entire life, but if I'm at a location,

Mount Vernon, I'll talk about the time span he spent at that location.

And probably some lead up and some after, which is what we did for Loretta Lynn.

And so I hope he gives us another listen.

Please listen to Hatfield's McCoys.

We are going to go location by location that we visited and some

that we weren't able to make it out to because they were pretty far out.

But we're going to give it.

The location by location history as we go.

And that's really what this podcast

Yeah, and again, I just appreciate the someone reaching out via

a, a podcast review that to me that's more valuable than anything else.

And, and for whoever someone 61450 is I really do appreciate it, whether

it's, and I'll go back and listen to the, to the episode again to kind

of listen to the music because I can adjust that stuff after the fact.

That's the one nice thing about podcasting.

So positive or negative, it's a five star review.

It's valuable, valuable feedback and we really do appreciate

Yes, thank you.

Situated along the banks of the James River in Virginia,

Jamestown holds a special place in the tapestry of American history.

Established in 1607, it was the first permanent English settlement in the New

World, but visiting this living museum requires more than just a curious spirit.

It demands a strategic approach and a keen eye for historical detail.

So grab your tricorn hats and Buckle up your shoes as we embark on a virtual

journey to Jamestown, uncovering the tips and tricks that will enhance

your visit and transport you back to the dawn of American history.

So, Jen, the title of this podcast episode is pretty obvious, so

let's talk about Jamestown.

So Jamestown It's part of that historic triangle here in Virginia,

and so if you're here visiting Colonial Williamsburg or Yorktown,

you're going to want to hit Jamestown.

It's part of that nice little triangle.

They have a Colonial Parkway that connects all three, makes it easy

for you to drive to, and it is a big part of American history.

So you're getting the very first permanent English settlement at Jamestown.

And then of course you're going to get Yorktown for the American

revolution and you're going to get Colonial Williamsburg that kind of

is the gap between the two of them.

So you're getting a nice part of the birth of America in this historic

Yeah, and it really was one of the first places because we

live, less than an hour away that we ventured out to when we were, when

we moved here a couple years ago.

Yeah.

So we did not know what.

You're visiting when you're visiting Jamestown and when you put things into

the GPS Jamestown Two locations pop up and we thought they were the same thing.

So Jamestown Settlement will pop up and Jamestown Visitor Center will pop up.

And a lot like Williamsburg, which we had been to before, we thought,

Oh, the Visitor Center must just be the place you go visit before

you go to the Jamestown Settlement.

So we thought they were in conjunction with each other and they are to

some extent, but they are really.

two entirely separate locations and you do want to go to both.

and they actually even and we'll talk about this more later that we found

out because we just visited last weekend they actually just kind of even separate.

I'll say separated just a smidge more.

So there's actually a little bit more.

It's brand new as of 2024.

Brand, brand new things that you need to consider when you are visiting because

it's different even than the, the first time we went, about three years ago.

Yes.

So the national park service, and we'll get more into the

used to run the visitor center.

And so if you had a national park pass, just like going to Yorktown,

you could get in for free and you could walk into the whole.

preservation site, the archeological site, the original site of the

Jamestown colony, the James Fort.

Now it has been separated into a Preservation Virginia group that has

basically circumvented the whole original site because they are actively digging.

And because they are actively digging, they are asked, they

require an entrance fee, which is pretty steep for family five.

And even though they, they really push that their nonprofit, which I 100 percent

agree that they probably are, they do need those funds to fund their dig.

So we'll, we'll go back into that site a little bit more.

If we were going to tell someone, recommend to someone,

hey, where should we start?

Well, let's, let's start there as far as recommending.

If, if you're listening to this and you want some tips and tricks to

visit, where should someone start?

Definitely, if you only have one day and four hours or three

hours, go to the Jamestown settlement.

That is the museum, it is the recreation, it is the place where you can walk through

what that original colony look like, and what the original Powhatan village

looked like, the original first peoples that the English colonists encountered.

And it has a recreation of all three ships that came over.

Plus, it's an amazing museum with artifacts and tells a great story.

really good.

It's incredibly kid friendly.

There's lots of stuff both indoors and outdoors and we'll talk

a little bit more about that.

So when you're putting it into the, your maps app of choice, you're putting in

Jamestown Settlement.

Settlement.

And that's the museum.

That's the museum.

So the Jamestown Settlement is the museum you want to go

Yes.

So in 1957, it was the 350th anniversary of Jamestown.

Think, they landed in 1607.

So they decided to put all this money into building a site to educate people on what

Jamestown was and, and what it looked like and what those original ships look like.

So that's when they built everything, the museum.

The recreation of the James Fort, the recreation of the Powhatan Village,

and the recreation of the three ships.

And so for that anniversary, Vice President Nixon was

there, Queen Elizabeth II came.

That was a big deal.

And, they, the fort is amazing.

If you ever saw the Jamestown miniseries that they had made for

a while, it looks just like that.

It recreates what that fort looked like from 1607 to 1614.

So just a few outbuildings that they had, the church, that recreation of

that church there is the second church from 1610 that Pocahontas is married in.

Oh, so that's, that's the recreation

the recreation of that church that we stand in

in the other

at the other spot, the actual archaeological site.

We stood there, we have a picture of us standing there, but that's a

recreation of where they were married.

So you can see what it would have looked like.

Yeah, and I will say at the Jamestown Settlement, again, this

is the, where we are recommending you would start if you, if you

had to pick one, pick this one.

Going into the museum itself, it is, it is full blown, almost,

Disney level type experience.

It's, it's very, very good.

Very worth going.

And it walks you through the way the land has changed since being settled.

So from 1607 on how it's kind of trend, the colony has transformed

and building and the the different types of crops planted and what

has happened to the people there.

And it had, they have interactive games you can play with your children,

which I really appreciated with the kids, kind of kept them involved.

And then you can walk through recreations of what a street in London looked like

that the, the, the colonists were leaving or What the houses look like that they had

built there, what a typical house would look like for a plant or a farmer, what a

typical house would look like for a power 10 first people, what a typical house

would look like for an enslaved person.

So you got to see those, those three different home styles

and then lots of artifacts.

And that was really nice to see how they lived and what was going on because

this is the first permanent settlement.

So this is 1607.

We've done Roanoke, which is 1585.

So you kind of think 20.

20 plus years later, they're trying this again.

They keep coming over and it's just not

Yeah, they're like, there's land there, we're gonna figure this out.

And this is the time it actually works, but they actually

go through another starving period.

And we'll, we'll talk more into that where they almost don't make it again,

but this time it actually sticks.

And what is really cool is they have the three ships.

So when the ships came over, there was three with, they had the

hundred and four colonists, all men.

came over on the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery.

And they've recreated those three ships so you can see them.

You can walk on

You can walk on board and they're fantastic.

I mean, our kids, again, they didn't really remember too

much from their first visit.

So they wanted to kind of go do all the stuff again.

And we tend to, we've each time we've gone, we've kind of

gone, it's a little bit cooler.

But even, even in the wintertime, it's still nice enough that for

the most part, you can go out there and the ships are great.

They're good size or recreated.

Well, I think the one guy was telling us like, they still kind of take them out

They still sail them.

They're still seaworthy and they, they recreate what it

was like to sail in the 1600s.

So they're going to leave London 20th, 1606.

And then they take the Southern route.

Through the West Indies, basically all, the Virgin Islands, the, what

we know today is the Caribbean.

And then they come up the Southern part of America and then settle in Virginia.

I remember the Spanish are in Florida.

So they, that's kind of why that route is kind of the favored route, plus

with sea currents and things like that.

And they're going to pick the, the area to Jamestown.

settlement May 14th, 1607.

So it takes about five months.

And so you can imagine these three ships, the, the Susan Constance, the big

one, it has about 70 colonists on it.

And John Smith is on that ship.

And, and it's not as big as you would think.

not, when you think of 70 men on there, I mean, the

captain's Christopher Newport.

So when you think of Newport News,

don't remember how long it was, but it wasn't like, it wasn't a very long

No, it's not.

And they're,

Like it's, it's, I guarantee you, if you're listening to this podcast,

picture a ship in your mind that you think they sailed across the ocean.

It's probably 20 feet shorter than that.

yeah, it was, the keel length is 55

Yeah, so that that is not long at all like when I was in college I did kind

of some summer training stuff that the Navy kind of had us do and so I I I picked

You know being on a 44 foot sailboat and I was on there with I think eight

people and it was still pretty cramped

They say from bow to stern, it's 116 feet.

Yeah, now they do have it's It's much kind of deeper and more

much more built up than you know The sailboat that I was kind of hanging

out on for a couple weeks when I was in college But 70 men and it's men only

only

And I think the women came over how much later

they had servant women come over relatively quickly after.

so it wasn't like multiple years

women came over.

Pretty much right away, probably within the next year, but they didn't

have, they didn't, they weren't coming over in a capacity to be wives.

They didn't have wives come for another five years where they

actually sent women over to marry the colonists and be their wives.

So they came over as wives like pick them pick one and let's start

to have kids like so they were settling they're settling the area.

So they had women come over as servants, right and and Maids and

cooks and things of that nature.

So you do get women there in that capacity, but not You know not a lot of

yeah, yeah.

Again, the ships are great.

That's one of those outdoor things.

Now, to get to the ships,

So you go to the museum and you do have to pay.

It is, it is a museum that you, you pay to get in and for family five, it wasn't too

I think it's 50

Yes.

And then again, it's walking you through the years and it's very interactive.

Then you walk outside and you're going to walk through the Powhatan village first.

So the first people they encounter.

And usually there's a couple reenactors in there and you get to see their

huts, how they built their huts with the wood that they would bend

And these, these are full scale.

scale.

And then they show you how they weave together the cat tail

spines and made kind of like.

And the mats laid over the wood and that's how they made their housing.

And I mean, they have people kind of in kind of a full Native American

regalia sitting by a fire and they're either cooking something or they're making

something like they're, and you can go up there and kind of interact with them just

like you would at Colonial Williamsburg.

Ask them questions.

And how, what did you eat?

What did you do?

What, what jobs did you have?

And they have a big kind of cooking center where the big fire would be in

the middle and they have kind of store places where they had like goods stored.

And they even had a game section where the kids and I could throw basically

arrows without a point on it through hoops and from there you walk to Fort James

or James Fort and the James Fort again is from 1607 to 1614 so that early fort

If you're listening, picture, think you're reading a history

book in high school and picture the fort with kind of wooden fence all

around it and the buildings inside.

That's what it looks

yeah and for protection and then Just a couple buildings, right?

You have the church, you have a storehouse, and you have a baker,

a big bakery, a big blacksmith location, and then basically it's

just housing, lodging for people, but again, reenactors and reenactors.

They have animals out there, chickens.

My kids were very excited about the chickens.

And they show you how they cooked and how they, what they ate.

And you can walk into the church and see what that would have looked like.

was really

It actually was really cool.

And you get to see how they stored their goods and what

kind of goods that they have.

So that's really neat.

And then from that path, it leads you to the three ships because

it leads you to the waterway and they're, they're pulled off.

They're pulled out off beside the pier.

Yeah.

Again, very family friendly.

You know visit kind of morning or afternoon you could do a full day.

I think it's more of a half day type thing

That's what I think.

Honestly, really no matter what time of year unless it's like snowing

or raining but indoor activities outdoor activities The kids love the whole

Powhatan area because these are full sized It's kind of huts that they've,

they've built and so you can go in, it's like a little fort and then you go on the

ships and the kids are climbing around.

So it's a really great area.

Highly recommend visiting this place first.

and they have a great food court.

So for the kids to grab a snack and have a really great gift shop.

So two cool things that kind of gifts that you wouldn't find everywhere else

and looking for very nautical themes or early American history kind of themes.

It was very cool.

Now from, from here we can go to the actual site.

We would say if you're going to do a full day in the Greater Jamestown

area, you go to the settlement where the museum is kind of first, and then

you're going to go to the visitor center.

And this visitor center, this is the one this is the National Park one.

Yes, this is historic.

Jamestown visitor center.

And the reason why it's not as much to see there, they do have a museum.

It's not as large as the Jamestown settlement.

It's not It's kid friendly, interactive, it's more traditional, but it's

cool to see, to be in the actual space of the recreations you just

Yeah, they've got a lot more actual artifacts

Yes, and they're, they're finding the real artifacts to tell the story.

And so, It's not as fun for the kids, although they have the cool statue of John

Smith there and it is right on the water.

So that's kind of neat.

But that is the actual site run by the National Park Service.

So if you were looking for your junior ranger badge like Madison or your stamps

for your stamp book, those are all there.

They also have a gift shop too.

It's not as, not as many items in there as the one at Jamestown

settlement, but still cool.

I definitely.

If you just want to go to the National Park Service side, which is visiting

that visitor center and seeing Jamestown later years, which is like

1700s on another side of the site,

it Newtown.

you can visit that all for free.

With your national park pass or the small entrance

Yeah, but the, but the,

but you're not seeing the

seeing the actual location.

So the actual location, it probably covers what Maybe a couple acres,

and it's right on the water

It's right on the water and it's the actual site of the fort.

It's where they actually built that fort.

It's where they actually built that church.

It's if you want to actually stand where Pocahontas married John

Ralph, like that is the location.

If you,

they have active digs going on there.

So if you've got kids that are really into that, it would be, that would

be one thing that's pretty cool.

it was designated at the historic site in 1940.

So again, these things are relatively mid 1900s, where they really

started to take notice and, and want to preserve their history.

They have had, active digs.

They have an active dig now.

As I said before, this is the first permanent English

settlement, May 13th, 1607.

From 1609 to 1610, they had this lack of food and supply, so

they call it the starving time.

And only 60 colonists survived the starving time.

And so what you find there is they have found the graveyards.

They have found where these bodies have been buried.

And in one of these archaeological digs, they found basically a trash chute.

And in that trash chute, they found bones.

And some of the bones were of a young girl, 14 year old girl, who they could

tell from the markings on her bones that her body had been used to, for as food.

It had been cut in a way with a knife or something that they could tell

that they were trying to preserve the flesh or the food of her body.

And so they were able, because they found her skull and her.

I think one of her leg bones.

They were able to facially reconstruct her face.

And so her, they call her Jane and her face is in the museum.

So there is a little walk through museum there.

And it's built over the state house, one of the original state houses there.

So you can look through the glass floor and see some of the.

dig that they had found there.

And so they have the recreation of Jane's face in there, along with the

bones that they found, along with other little artifacts and things

that were left behind, that they're able to piece together this story.

It's very interesting if you're into archaeology, if you're a historian,

if you want to see these actual artifacts from the first colonists.

The issue is it's just not as kid friendly and it's, that's a difficult

story to tell children if, they're not quite ready to hear stuff

Yeah, I mean, I don't think we really got into it with our kids,

they were kind of running around.

It's close to the water.

So there's some rocks there.

And then there's the big John Smith statue that's right there kind of overlooking the

And that's pretty cool.

So there's a big statue of John Smith since he's first governor comes over.

It was put up in 1909.

There's a Pocahontas statue there too.

That was put up in 1922.

So again, these things are relatively newer.

And but it is neat.

You and I took a picture standing in the church where Pocahontas was married.

If when you're over at the Jamestown settlement standing in the recreation

of that church, that is the actual spot where that church was.

So it's neat to put the story together with the two locations

and to be like, this is where I just was in a recreation of it.

This is where it actually was.

How neat.

This is where those ships actually were.

This is where they actually touched ground.

And so.

That's a neat story because we all have heard the Pocahontas

story, the John Smith story.

And so to be able to put it all together and stand there and to, stand

in the place of giants of history, it's really, that's really cool.

So if you wanted to do both and, and kind of, again, marry that experience together,

that's kind of how the two locations work.

Yeah.

And I will say, if you want to do a full day.

doing Jamestown.

You can put both those together.

You could, if you didn't want to pay kind of basically a second full fee to

go see the actual archaeological site, you can go over to the New Town site and

there is more stuff to do over there.

We didn't do it on our most recent visit, but I was looking on some of

the maps and it looked like there might be some more kind of interactive stuff

for the kids in, in that New Town area.

So there's, there's plenty to kind of make a full day of it.

If, if you are interested in going over to the.

The Jamestown Historic

Yeah.

And then the 400th anniversary happened in 2007 and President Bush came there

and Queen Elizabeth II visited again.

Oh, that's

So it's kind of neat.

She got to see all the changes and things.

So it is again, if you want to see these important places of

American history, again, this is the first English settlement.

So not the first settlement of America from Europe, but the first

English settlement is Jamestown.

It was very, very fun.

Highly recommended, but do the, the settlement first and the visitor center

second, if you really want to do that.

From immersive exhibits to architectural marvels, we talked about some of

the must see landmarks and hidden gems that make Jamestown a time

capsule waiting to be explored.

Whether you're a seasoned history buff or a first time visitor, this episode

has you covered with Insider Insights that will make your experience truly

unforgettable, at least we hope.

So tighten your bonnet straps and prepare to navigate.

and travel the sites of historic Jamestown.

Avoid the crowds and capture that Instagram worthy shot.

Consider this episode of Talk With History your personal guide to

unlocking the past of Jamestown.

Thank you for listening to the Talk With History podcast and please

reach out to us at TalkWithHistory.

com.

If you know someone else that might enjoy this podcast or you They

might need some insider travel tips for their visit to Jamestown.

Please share this with them.

Shoot them a text and tell them to look us up.

We rely on you, our community, to grow and we appreciate you all every day.

We'll talk to you next time.

Thank you.