CHESAPEAKE, Va. — I recently visited Chesapeake to check out a piece of local history at the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Museum.
"This item is very important. It is about five to six feet long, perhaps 24 by 18 inches, very rough, brown, has sort of a tarry look. It has the appearance as if it's been submerged for some time. I find a key actually to the story here at Great Bridge," said museum docent Jon Stull.
This large timber dates back to the early 1700s and was part of the “great road” connecting Norfolk to the Carolinas.
Stull described the bridge as, "A key to the connection of bringing two great watersheds, the Chesapeake Bay and the Abemarle Sound together."
There are only about 10 miles separating the southern branch of the Elizabeth River and the northern extent of the North Carolina sounds.
"So the colonists said, 'We'd like to connect it with water.' Short of that, can we build a road? This road went through swamp and marsh and so we built causeways and corduroy roads to keep us up and out of it," Stull explained.
These timbers not only provided a foundation for colonial transportation: they also played a significant role in American military history.
According to Stull, "Come 1775, both the crown, Lord Dunmore and the Patriot movement needed this particular bridge. And hence, on the ninth of December 1775, they gave battle on that causeway. And that battle was the battle of Great Bridge."
The Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Museum is located at 1775 Historic Way, just off of Battlefield Blvd in Chesapeake. They are open Wednesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $8 with discounts for military, seniors, and youth.
