Remember when

In 1968 a group of locals organized the Williamsburg Reunion to reminisce about the good old days. To get in, you had to have been living here for 40 years, all the way back to 1928.

One of those who could have told quite a tale was Vernon M. Geddy, the lawyer who put the Restoration together for the Rev. W.A.R. Goodwin and the benefactor of Colonial Williamsburg, John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Goodwin came here in 1903 on a mission to repair a rift in the membership of Bruton Parish Church. In the process, he got to restoring the church, and that led in later years to his famously seeking out Mr. Rocke­feller to restore the rest of the town.

Geddy retold the story in a lengthy interview given to the late Parke Rouse Jr., then on the staff of Colonial Wil­liamsburg. It was not transcribed until after Geddy’s death in 1952 and remains part of the Goodwin Building archives.

The minister had left town to take a parish in upstate New York. In1923 J.A.C. Chandler recruited him back to join the faculty at the College of William & Mary and to start an endowment fund. They raised hundreds of thousands to build what is known today as the Old Campus. After funding the new Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall, Goodwin began working his way down Duke of Gloucester Street. It was pretty audacious, when you start to think about it.

They began with the Ludwell-Paradise House and eventually paid out $2 million for some 300 parcels, an astonishing sum in its day. Half the money was spent before any announcement was made about the grand plan. Geddy recalled:



I never asked the Doctor who was putting up the money, because he told me it was confidential. But I must say he threw me off considerably by always speaking of his associates. So I for some time had the erroneous opinion that it was a syndicate or some group of men putting up the money. Later, when I faced Dr. Goodwin with this statement about associates, he said, “I considered Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller as my associates,” and therefore justified the plural.



Some people were bitter about selling for a lower price even though it was their fair asking price. Others came to worry about an invasion of Yankees. “Two or three of our citizens didn’t want to be disturbed. They thought we would be goldfish in a goldfish bowl,” Geddy said. To discourage speculators, Goodwin disclosed that he would not buy property from anyone who had not owned it prior to the announcement before City Council.

The project was in full swing in 1928 and 1929. The streets were dug up to underground all the utility wires. Duke of Gloucester no longer had a grass median.



By that time the project had grown tremendously, and we had terrific problems with moving people out of their houses so that restoration and repairs could take place. It was like a gigantic game of checkers. Dr. Goodwin would purchase a store down on Duke of Gloucester Street, a perfectly modern building that he wanted to wreck. So he’d move them all out to another vacant store uptown or somewhere else. Then he’d go in and wreck, building something, and put them back in.



A general manager was hired by Mr. Rockefeller who didn’t work out, largely because he wasn’t cleared by Goodwin and the architects Perry Shaw & Hepburn. He was replaced by Kenneth Chorley, who went on to become president after Col. Arthur Woods’ health gave out. Chorley is credited with bringing order out of chaos in those early years. Had it not been for him, “there never would have been the Restoration of Wil­liams­burg as we see it today,” Geddy said.

The Raleigh Tavern opened in 1932, followed by the Capitol and the Gov­ernor’s Palace in 1934. The idea evolved of colonial garb for hostesses. That same year President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Duke of Gloucester. The emphasis on architecture began to shift toward historical interpretation.

The Depression discouraged visitation, and by 1941 the thousands of tourists who came were further stymied by gas ration­ing. An ingenious training program aimed for soldiers and sailors saved the Res­tora­tion as troops came through town to learn the history of what they were fighting for.

Abby Aldrich Rock­efeller underwrote construction of a USO in town.



I remember particularly the day the building was dedicated because it was so significant of the sincere simplicity and humility of Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller. All of the Army brass and the Navy brass from the nearby camps arrived, most of them in their Cadillacs with enlisted personnel driving them. The last to arrive were Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller. They drove up in a little Ford driven by Mr. Rockefeller himself. After[ward] a very remarkable picture was taken of Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller standing with their arms around one soldier and one sailor and one Marine.



Vernon Geddy in time became mayor, and so did his son, Vernon Jr. His grandson, Vernon III, continues the family tradition of practicing law.

Today the Williamsburg Reunion is getting ready to celebrate its 40th year. The one-day event has expanded to two days and evenings, Oct. 18-19. The rules have been relaxed to embrace anyone in James City County as well as Williamsburg. But you still need 40 years in the community, which sets the cutoff neatly at 1968.

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