plantation row to the first peninsula
Two of America's oldest roads share one peninsula: VA 5 down the James past the river dynasties (Shirley, billed as America's oldest family business; Berkeley with its 1619 Thanksgiving claim and the bugle call Taps, composed on its grounds in 1862; Tyler's Sherwood Forest), then the Colonial Parkway's brick-tinted miles stitching Jamestown's actual 1607 fort to the siege lines at Yorktown. Four centuries in ninety minutes of driving, if you refuse every temptation, which you will not.
📍 The Parkway is its own interpretive system; the plantations post their histories, enslaved communities included, at the gates.
Shirley, Berkeley and Westover in procession along the river road's oak tunnels.
A 1613 land grant still farmed by the same family eleven generations on, billed as the oldest family business in North America; the flying staircase has no visible support and no equal.
Claims America's first official Thanksgiving (1619), grew two Harrison presidents, and heard Taps first: the call was composed here during the army's 1862 encampment.
John Tyler's home, said to be the longest frame house in America, and still owned by Tylers; the grounds walk past a president's actual privacy.
The ferry option, the island fort, and the archaearium's recovered lives.
The real 1607 site: the fort's rediscovered footprint, active digs, and the archaearium's recovered settlers, told bones-first.
No trucks, no billboards, 45 mph of brick-red concrete to the surrender field.
The Parkway tunnels directly beneath the restored capital; surface for Duke of Gloucester Street or save the full immersion for its own day.
The 1781 siege lines and Surrender Field where Cornwallis's army stacked arms; the Revolution's endgame, walkable in an afternoon.
More in the Atlantic Coast: Kings Highway & the Lowcountry · Golden Isles & the First Coast · Outer Banks & the Sound Country · US 301: The Ghost Road · Sherman's Carolinas Campaign · The Inner Banks · The Northern Neck · US 13: The Eastern Shore