Colonial Williamsburg
8/26/09
We spent one of our afternoons in Colonial Williamsburg wandering around. We used the "Historical Williamsburg for Kids" map and it did not disappoint. The first stop was at the Geddy House. They taught the kids about how they used to actually cut coins in half, quarters, and bits (Averill pointed out the term "2bit hooker"). Alec was much more fascinated with using his spotting scope (our map) to watch out the window for bad guys.
Then we went on to pull water from the well, water plants and check out the gunsmith.
From there we climbed some trees (Alec's first attempt at tree climbing)...
watched brickmakers do their thing and assisted by pounded mud with our feet. As we wandered around town we got to see Ox, a man spinning and carding wool, and shop for wares.
Another good (and hot) day in Williamsburg. I truly can't even imagine getting dressed in all those clothes and doing the kind of labor they did with no air conditioning - shesh!
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Intersting triva about the term "Ox". While in Colonial Williamsburg, we learned from a man that was handling the Oxen on-site that the term "ox" refers to working animals of the cattle family; and not a specifc animal. So I looked it up on-line to see what I found; here it is. An ox, to early American farmers who used the beast, was a mature castrated male belonging to the domestic cattle family, or genus Bos, most likely trained (like draft horses, some never got trained) to work, and at the end of its life inevitably used for meat.
Here is the source:
http://www.ruralheritage.com/ox_paddock/ox_whatis.htm
-Averill
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