[Inspired by my
annual Virginia pilgrimage with the boys, this year’s series will focus on
AmericanStudying interesting places in the Commonwealth. Leading up to a
special weekend post on my presentation at the Historical Writers
of America conference in Williamsburg!]
Three ways that
transportation revolutions contributed to the development of a coastal city.
1)
That unique name: There are apparently multiple
theories about where the name Newport News came from, but to me the most
plausible is also the most historically interesting: a group of Jamestown
colonists led by Captain
Christopher Newport abandoned the colony during the horrible winter of
1609-10, only to encounter an arriving ship carrying new governor Thomas West
and resupply. While some returned to Jamestown, others stayed in this new
place, and named it after both their famous Captain and
the unexpected good news. As with Plimoth Plantation and the Massachusetts
colonies, it’s difficult to overstate both the period’s uncertainty over
arriving ships and the role that such ships played in Virginia’s early English
histories. Such news quite literally meant the difference between life and
death for many individuals and communities (if not indeed
the entire enterprise), and I like the idea that Newport News offers a
permanent memorial to that historical reality.
2)
A railroad magnate: Newport News remained a
small fishing village for more than two and a half centuries after that origin
point, and might have continued in that role if not for a post-Civil War
invitation that exemplifies the
idea of the “New South.” Not long after the war’s end, former Confederate
General Williams Carter Wickham invited California railroad magnate Collins
Huntington to contribute his expertise and funds to a new southern railroad
line. Huntington linked another line on which he had worked, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, through Richmond
and down to Virginia’s coast, a development known as the Peninsula Subdivision. While his
initial goal was to transport coal eastward from West Virginia, he quickly saw
the shipping possibilities of the Newport News area, and created the Chesapeake
Dry Dock & Construction Company (later the Newport News Shipbuilding
& Dry Dock Co.) there. I don’t want to overstate Huntington’s individual
role—obviously many people and communities were involved in and affected by these
shifts, as in every industrial and corporate development—but the emphasis on
him in the narratives reflects quite potently the role of such magnates (or robber
barons) in the Gilded Age generally, and the New South specifically.
3)
The
Great White Fleet: Even a prescient industrialist like Huntington couldn’t possibly
have foreseen just how much shipbuilding work his dry dock would soon be
offered, though. When he became president after William McKinley’s assassination,
Theodore Roosevelt made the development of an American
naval fleet one of his top priorities, and turned to the Newport News docks
for the bulk of that construction. Not only did the company build seven of the
first sixteen warships, but when the Great White Fleet (as it had come to be
known) set sail in December
2009 for its 14-month worldwide voyage, it did so from nearby Hampton
Roads. Both the area overall and Newport News in particular have been
intimately associated with the navy and armed forces ever since, with Newport News Shipbuilding still
primarily serving those government contracts, the joint Air Force and Army base Langley-Eustis one
of the city’s largest employers, and three naval
vessels to date named after Newport News. But while such a longstanding connection
might seem inevitable from our vantage point, it’s always worth thinking about
the multiple transformative moments that have contributed to any city’s 21st
century identity.
Next VA place
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Interesting places (in any state) you’d highlight?
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