A Splendid Coincidence

My name is Ed Way, and at Colonial Williamsburg I am a character interpreter, and I am presently portraying Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, co-founder of Colonial Williamsburg.

He was an extraordinary personality. So much of his success as a fundraiser and a preservationist, a restorer of ancient structures had to do with this fantastic personality. He was an ultimate extrovert. Loved people, drew energy and strength from interacting with people. He was charming to the point of being charismatic.

He needed somebody of enormous wealth who shared his fascination with colonial America, who shared his enormous sense of American heritage, and who was wanting to have an opportunity to enshrine an extraordinary moment in history. It wouldn't be easy to find someone like this, but the man turned out to be John D. Rockefeller Jr.

It's sort of like there was a splendid coincidence. Goodwin had the vision, and desperately wanted a benefactor. Rockefeller, fascinated with history, had the fortune and was waiting for an opportunity to prepare an extraordinary gift for future generations of the American people. Now, people often think that Goodwin gave Rockefeller a hard sell. Goodwin says, "No, I never did much more than talk enthusiastically about my dream and vision."

He said it didn't take much to draw Rockefeller in because he was ready. He had the desire for that kind of involvement. Now, they took three walks through the restored area in 1926-'27. Rockefeller says at one point, "Some people get taken for a ride, I got taken for a walk that cost me $68 million," implying that perhaps he was given a hard sell. Actually that was not the case.

The men were part of the same movement: colonial revivalists who loved to look back in the midst of a period of enormous industrial capitalization and to admire and want to create certain aspects of the colonial past – architecture, furniture, art, attitudes, and values. That's what they shared.

Mr. Rockefeller said to Dr. Goodwin, "What is it about Williamsburg that is so unique that I would wish to enter into this enormous restoration process, or project?" And Dr. Goodwin said, "There are indeed many historical sites all over the east coast: Boston and Philadelphia – but the historical sites, the structures, are spread out. How would you ever draw them together into a community when you're talking about such size? But Williamsburg is a little jewel of 300 acres. One-half mile square, and all the history takes place within these convenient boundaries. It's a jewel just waiting to be restored."

I think that was a significant part of Goodwin's presentation that convinced Mr. Rockefeller to undertake what really, nobody had done before: to restore an entire community. He had been a scholar of history and philosophy and theology from the time he was a teenager.

He also was a man very skilled at saying the right things in terms of fundraising. His instincts were good, he knew what to say, and when to say it. So he just had this talent. It would have served him well in so many fields that could have made him a rich man, but he always, regularly, showed very little interest in money, and for a number of years, refused to allow Mr. Rockefeller to compensate him in any way for his early involvement in the restoration.

He had a favorite spot in Williamsburg, and that was Bassett Hall, the old 585-acre farm on the periphery of the restored area. As a young man in 1903, as a young rector of Bruton Parish, he had been drawn to that site and loved to sit beneath a 300 or 400 year old white oak tree located at the edge of cleared land at the south part and sit under there and do what he called "commune with the ghosts of the past."

He communed with the ghosts, he liked to say, of Jefferson and George Washington, Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison. It was during those times when he would sit under that tree that he first conceived the idea of a restored Williamsburg.

So that site, and that old tree, have particular significance to the story of Colonial Williamsburg. I think in his latter years, it was a very satisfying thing. It was taking shape very nicely by 1934. So between '34 and Goodwin's death in '39, as his health was failing, and he had a little more free time, he had opportunity to gaze over this beautifully emerging restored city, and look with some pride at what he had accomplished and was accomplishing with every passing month.

He was a man humble by nature, but I think, like all of us, he couldn't help but to enjoy it when people refer to him as an institution – the man who grasped the vision, the man without whom there would have been no Colonial Williamsburg. It gave him an opportunity to talk with people in his latter years, to reminisce, and to do what we older men love to do: talk about the past.