Colonial Seaport Blog -Maritime Heritage Hampton, VA

Ahoy all,

the past couple of weekends have had us and the Custom House out and about.

March 16-18 found us in Jamestown at Military Through The Ages assisting our sister crew, Crew of the Archangel.  http://www.creweofthearchangel.com/ MTA is a judged living history event and the competition can be a bit unnerving.  The Archangel is a privateer group and our scenario was pretty straight forward. Its 1711 and the Archangel seized a French prize ship, bringing it to the Lower James River Custom District (convenient for us, eh?) of Her Majesty.

Historically, ships that had been seized, were condemned by the courts until an Admiralty Court could be held to determine if it was a legal capture. The goods would then be sold at auction with the Crown taking its cut, The Custom officer taking his cut, then the rest being turned over to the Ship owner.

The Foundations roll was pretty simple. Bring the Custom House and the Custom agent Richard Fitz-Williams to life, which we did in grand fashion. The Archangel set up a warehouse full of “seized cargo”, the local tavern, Sealkies Hyde was set up as well as numerous living history demonstrations.

Of the estimated 4000 visitors that came to Jamestown, I swear 3000 came through our camp! At the end of the day we received two awards. the first was second place for best camp for pre 1879 era. We then received the Re-enactors Choice Award, which is voted on by our peers! Quite exciting! To learn more about Military Through The Ages, visit http://historyisfun.org/military-through-the-ages.htm

Thank you to the Archangel for hosting us again. And now for some pictures from our friend Lauren Muney. Check back on this blog as I’ll add more pictures as they come in.