Williamsburg, VA, Mini-Reunion October 8-11, 2015

Registration now open for our Williamsburg, VA, mini-reunion.

You are invited to join class members for another in our series of ’69 mini-reunions. We will again enjoy learning and experiencing facets of America’s history with our classmates, spouses and guests.

Our mini-reunion will take us to America’s Historic Triangle, located on the peninsula bordered by the James and York rivers in eastern Virginia, about a 3 hour’s drive south of Washington, DC.

We will start by exploring Historic Jamestowne, http://historicjamestowne.org, http://www.nps.gov/jame/index.htm, where on May 14, 1607, the Virginia Company explorers landed on Jamestown Island to establish the Virginia English colony on the banks of the James River. Our private tour will take us in the steps of Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas, where the English colonization of America began.

We will then head to Yorktown Battlefield http://www.nps.gov/yonb/learn/historyculture/historic-yorktown.htm, where in 1781 General George Washington, with allied French forces, defeated Lord Cornwallis’s British army and, on October 19, secured Cornwallis’ surrender, effectively ending the Revolutionary War and ensuring independence for the United States.

The following day we will explore Colonial Williamsburg http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com, where we will experience how, "a nation’s past is a foundation for its future,” as Colonial Williamsburg President Mitchell Reiss, formerly a U.S. diplomat, said in a statement. "It was here that the idea of American independence was first established, where our founding democratic institutions were conceived, and where our foundational values of human dignity and religious and economic liberty were first given voice. All that we are today—and hope to be tomorrow—started here.”

We will be headquartered at the Williamsburg Lodge, a short walk from Duke of Gloucester Street, which runs down the center of Colonial Williamsburg. Airlines have service to either Richmond or Norfolk, each less than an hour’s drive from Williamsburg, and to a limited degree to Williamsburg Newport News International Airport.

The tentative itinerary is as follows:

• Thursday afternoon – arrive and check in at the Williamsburg Lodge, welcome reception.

• Friday – private tours of Jamestown and Yorktown, cocktails and dinner at the Williamsburg Lodge, where we will be joined by current William and Mary President and former Princeton Trustee Taylor Reveley ’65.

• Saturday – -private tours of Colonial Williamsburg, with dinner at one of the historic taverns on Duke of Gloucester Street.

• Sunday – Optional class activities, including class golf outing at Ford’s Colony Country Club and hiking.

Clay & Pinky McEldowney