TVHS’ Fall 2017 Program Kick-off: Sunday, September 17 – Tidewater Virginia Historical Society

TVHS’ Fall 2017 Program

kicks off with lecture and trip to

Historic Mathews County

On Sunday, September 17, TVHS will begin its 2017-2018 season with a lecture featuring historic Mathews County whose heritage goes back to 1635 when the entrepreneurial Hugh Gwynn received the first documented land patent and established a ship-repair business.


Brown holding an early 18th-century marble urn fragment from the garden at Fairfield

Dr. Dave Brown will discuss the architecture and archeology of Mathews County, one of the oldest counties in Virginia. Dr. Brown has overseen the creation of five historic districts in the county and has identified 300 historic structures and has also done considerable archeological work.

Dr. Brown has a PHD from William and Mary and is best known to us as co-director of the Fairfield Foundation, a not-for-profit in Gloucester County which focus on archeology, preservation and education on Virginia’s middle peninsula and surrounding areas.

Dr. Dave Brown Lecture

Sunday, September 17, 3:00 p.m.

at Williamsburg Library

free and open to the public

Mathews County Bus Trip


	Mathews Courthouse Square

TVHS’ first trip of the season is a bus trip to Historic Mathews County on Tuesday, September 26. The trip begins with a visit to Mathews Courthouse Historic District which contains 181 historic structures including James Store, thought to be the oldest surviving country store in the Southeast US, and Tompkins

Cottage, associated with Captain Sally Tompkins, the only female officer in the Confederate Army. The 1820 Courthouse and other sites will be visited after a lunch served at the 1858 Westville Christian Church.


	Tide Mill operated until about 1912


Glimpses inside James Store reveal tulip poplar and English frame construction

Next on the agenda is Maritime Museum which houses exhibits related to the ‘Mathews Men Who Went To War’, merchant mariners who provided the lifeline to America’s allies during World War II, and a short drive to the 18th century Tide Mill at Poplar Grove, at one time the summer home of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.