basic transportation need of an earlier period. we certainly hope that people understand the links, the extent that the confederates are actually going through to be able to conduct a war against an industrially superior opponent. this is the story of columbus, the story of the south, and the story of the war, how the war developed and was eventually won by the north. we also want to get a sense of local history. this is a real aspect of local history. this is a ship that was built right here on the chattahoochee river, built by local people coming together for whatever reason, but completing a project for a greater goal. >> throughout the weekend, announcer: find out where

c-span's cities tour is going next online. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. each week, american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn what artifacts reveal about american history. located in surrey, virginia, bacon's castle is the oldest brick dwelling in the u.s. occupied by nathaniel bacon's supporters during an uprising. we learned about the structure of the house and some of the virginians who called it home. jennifer: i am jennifer hurst-wender, the director of the museum. today we are bacon's castle. bacon's castle is on the national register of historic sites. my position allows me the

position of managing five historic places across the state. preservation virginia was formed in 1889. we are going to celebrate our 125th anniversary. where the oldest statewide historic preservation organization in the nation. preservation virginia acquired bacon cassel in 1973. for the next 10 years worked to preserve this structure. they did some of their largest preservation initiatives during this time pieroderiod, including replacing the entire summer beam and making many repairs to the original house. it was opened to the public in 1984. in 2014 celebrating its 30th year being open to the public. and in 2015 we'll be going into our 350th anniversary. we are the oldest brick dwelling

in north america. the house is a very rare architectural style. it is called high -- architecture. and there are only three examples of this style of architecture in the entire western hemisphere. the other two are in barbados. so this is the only one of the united states. the name bacon castle derives from actually the 19th century. through correspondence written by the cox family in 1805. they start referring to the house as bacon's castle through his association with the rebellion. in 1665 when the house was built and later during the rebellion the house was known as arthur allen's brick house. so it's interesting that we now refer to this as bacon castle, but especially since the owner of the property during thie time o-- this time of bacon's --

was in large opposition to the rebellion. it is interesting his family would later change it to bacon 's castle. the house was sight to 70 of bacon's rebels through december of 1676. their reason for targeting arthur allan's house, occupying it and destroying most of the tobacco crops really predated september 1676. when we look at the causes of bacon's rebellion, most of them are in direct result from the relationships with the virginia indians. in january 1676, they raided 35-60 virginians, including nathaniel bacon's lower penetration 0---- lower

plantation. the governor ordered for 500 men to be sent out against the india ns. it before they banded, he changed his mind, the governor did, and his band of the troops. those colonists along that western front felt that they werent'saving the folder support -- the full support from the governor. so they felt the need to organize together in order to build up their own militia against these native americans. in april 1676, a group of volunteers of those colonists who lived along the western front organized together and are looking for a leader. and nathaniel bacon is voted in as their leader. in june, 1676, bacon ordered 400 of his men to return to jamestown to renegotiate terms with governor berkeley.

barkley threatens to hold bacon accountable for treason, calling him a traitor. sir bacon met with berkeley in front of the statehouse in june, 1787. barkley opened up his coat and offered bacon a cheap shot. bacon was once again vying for the commission of the committee to go against the virginia indians. so here, barkley has opened his coat offering bacon a cheap s hot. bacon takes this as a personal offense, and he and his. men retaliate now it started focused on the virginia indians turns towards governor berkeley himself. those who supported himself included the landed gentry, such as arthur allen ii who was owner of bacon's castle during this time. so, by september, bacon bacon

and his rebels -- bacon and his rebels have targeted several of the landed gentry's homes, including arthur allen ii's. he caught wind they were coming. he was only -- the only member of the surrey county court to vote against sunday provisions to bacon. he hid bvaluables and waited for governor berkeley who he knew was going to be fleeing to the eastern shore. so allen was not present on site on 70 of bacon's rebels arrived. while they were here, they killed all of arthur allen's livestock, they plundered his tobacco crop they drank his wine. in september, they get an open shot at jamestown after the governor and his friends have fled to the eastern shore. they burn the entire town. all that was left was one tavern

which, of course, the tavern owner was a friend of bacon's. but that was subsequent -- news of jamestown finally read to the relocation of the capital from jamestown to waynesburg in -- to williamsburg. nathaniel bacon fell ill and died in the gloucester area in 1676 before the british were able to suppress the movement in january of 1677. bacon was a newcomer to virginia. he was wealthy but it was a new,. he was not considered part of that elite 200. so they were also newcomers who had come this way and for an indentured servants who were trying to establish their own way along the western front of what -- and so bacon's able to gather a lot of support. in 1676 he is noted as having anywhere between 1200 and 2500 men in support of his cause. so he led the largest uprising to date against the governor.

moving forward, the landed gentry is concerned that there would be similar uprisings. so in a preventive measure, they start to separate servants quarters based on race, either identifying them as europeans or african. and some historians have at your beaded bacon's rebellion as -- have atrtributed bacon's rebellion as the cause of race-based slavery. the room were arein in is based at a 17th-century probate court. probate inventory notes all the pieces of furniture in the rooms of the house. all of the household belongings after someone passed away. in many case, s, when historians are going to restore houses, they may not be left with the original pieces. over time, transition of a

family from the house, and other circumstances. but through these inventory records, they are able to restore the rooms pretty accurately. so what we see in this room are mostly period pieces based from the 1711 inventory. even though the inventory dates to the 18th century, most of the pieces date back to the 17th century, including in the corn er a 17th-century linen fold. a jacobean piece. we also have the scroll as part of the bevil collection. the signing table. this is another unique character sick of these chambers. in the -- another unique characteristic of the chambers. chambers were multipurpose. upstairs they would've entertained with special or privileged guests. they would have dined in their own chamber unlike the way the

victorians used their bedrooms. by that time you had the complete division of public and private space. so one of the advantages of bacon's castle is that we do have the addition from 1854 which shows that the station of how those rooms were used from how these rooms were used here. the first time we hear of arthur allen i is in 1650 when he makes a land patent for 200 acres. and then by 1665, arthur allen had completed arthur allen's bricmkk house. by the time he had completed building this house he's already in his 60's. he lives here for four years and then passes away. he was born and raised in england, which has a very high number of jacobean architectural

structures. so it makes a lot of sense that this is what he was used to growing up. this is the high-fashion. so when he builds his house out in the wilderness of surrey county he decides that what he wants to do is build a house in the style he remembers -- the high-fashion. so he does a style that has cornish gables, that has these triple sec chimneys. -- triple stack chimneys. he belted in a two room above a two room plan. you have four very large rooms. you have a porch tower. a room in the back. it is already out of date. so nobody in england has been building jacobean architectural style for the past 50 years. it is just not being done.

which is why this style is so arerare to find in this hemisphere. there is nobody in north america that is going to be building to that level at that time. so, after he passes away, the estate goes to arthur allen ii. arthur allen ii has been educated back in england. the time period he's sent back england is right after th english civil ware. so during the english civil war, you have cromwell who has pretty much taken england and made it a very conservative country. and so, after the restoration of the monarchy, you have the pendulum swinging from very conservative to the complete opposite of that. so this resurgence of a culture and art is really prolific. and one of the things that comes out of this is the idea of the restoration of a pleasure g

arden. you are not gardening just to feed your family. you are also enjoying the beautiful flowers, the smells. you are enjoying taking your friends or your sweetheart and walking them around these gardens. so, during his education, he comes back and he brings that idea with him. and so again here we are out in the wilderness of surrey county. you have almost a medieval style house that his father has built. and arthur allen ii is going to bring some of the culture that he learned in england and establish that here. so he builds an acre and a half english pleasure garden. they're planting things so that he can invite his friends over and they can take a stroll through the gardens. he is establishing himself as a leader in the virginia colony. his really good friend is the governor of the virginia colony,

governor berkeley. governor berkeley is involved -- he's governor during the skirmish that ends up being called bacon's rebellion in 1676. arthur allen ii and governor berkeley and the majority of their families that lend -- nathaniel's bacon's rebels and him taking over jamestown and this house, they flee together. and so, it's arthur allen iii arthur allen's son, who marries elizabeth. so it's elizabeth who makes a first-round revolutionary changes to this house. when we are talking about elizabeth ray allen and her husband, arthur allen iii and arthur smith. this is the third-generation that has lived in arthur allen's

brickh ouse that would eventually become bacon's ho castle. by this time, they have established themselves as one of the first families in virginia. they are very upper-class. they're entertaining the current governor. they are friends with the landed gentry. so they are also in a tobacco economy. most of this plantation and the surrounding plantations are all working with seliling tobacco. the estate rakers that we have at this time -- records that we have at this time have most of the financial records being traded in. hogshead tobacco so we are very heavily in a tobacco economy at this time. the room we are in now is one of two period room inside of bacon 's castle. this room would have been in a

1755 probate inventory. after arthur smith passed away. he was matted to the longest resident of this house. elizabeth gray allen smith. she lived in the house for 63 years. this room really represents the second wave of changes to the house. the house being built in 1665. by 1755, styles and tastes have changed drastically in the american colonies. pso at this point -- so at this point, we have elizabeth gray allen smith making changes like adding a partition to make a hallway. this room prior to elizabeth would have been open. it would've been about another six feet more open. and when you entered into the house, you would've entered into one large hall rather than coming into a foyer. she added handling.

-- paneling. she change the. windows to make the house symmetrical she brought life and vibrancy and a level of entertaining that we so typically picture in the virginia colony's. she was one of the first families of virginia so she was entertaining people like the harrison's and the carter's, people who would go on to in succeeding generations end up meeting presidents. so these other people that the allens at that time were entertaining at bacon's castle. so, this room really reflects the things that show the class of the -- what was at that time called arthur allen's brick house. the moniker of bacon's castle had yet to appear.

some of the things you will see is a chinese tea set coming all the way from china. by ship. it's arriving in rural virginia. you will see draperies. and she had installed things like closets in order to put awa y things that were not for everyday use. on the wall we have fashion plates that represent, even though it was tin very rural surrey, she was able to have a style that was the top of the fashion in paris. it gives you more of the idea that she really brought style and culture to this house. because it is done to the appropriate inventory, we know the age of the objects in this room this room is unique. because it is like our own home. we do not have everything that dates to one time period. even though the inventory is to

1755 you have objects that date to the 17th century and were most likely passed down from the family, the previous generation. which is really interesting to see multigenerational objects being listed in a probate inventory and that we re-created here. that brings it home that this was a lived in space. this room was a parlor. so this was a more formal level of entertaining. the room across the hall we consider that to be elizabeth's chamber. so, she would have had her bed in that room as well as that room she would have worked out of. so when people are visiting to meet with her they would have gone to the room across the hall. whereas, this room would have been for more general entertaining. we're now down in the kitchen. as this basement was used for.

up througthh 1860. normally we do not expect to see kitchens inside historic houses in virginia or for the software here fordue to the heat. for the 1600s, that is not that uncommon to find a kitchen on the ground floor. because men such as arthur allen were just modeling the practices they knew from england and using -- it here. so, this was the main kitchen up through 1860. however, within 50 years, they realized the mistake as the cook -- the smoke would rise here after they were cooking over the fireplace up through the floorboards and the rest of the house would be, unbearably hot. so they did build a summer kitchen now back. within 50 years. unfortunately, we lost that to fire in 1979. this still was the main kitchen

after 1860. it was cut off from the interior. so you're only access would've been through a door and the wine cellar or a door to the corner of this room. so if you were the cook, servant carrying food, you would be going outside back up into the house. you can just imagine unpleasant weather days, that is good not going to be an easy task for you carrying food. the room where the stairs are now leading down to the basement, this is a root cellar. and there is one across mid-which is the dairy. this is where they stored all their meat dairy larder -- we are bacon's castle. we get asked whether or not they stored bacon. we have in the kitchen behind us the wine cellar. this space stored other beverages, including arthur

allen's wine. he produced and sold his own wine. he cultivated an indigenous grape of virginia known as the norton bridie. we also have -- the norton bridie. we also have his -- norton var iety. we also have his wine bottles of stairs. so, this room is really used to demonstrate the preservation efforts that preservation virginia undertook once we purchased this prophecy and some of the decisions we made in order to restore it and preserve it. one of the interesting ways we show cast that is -- showcased that is that in this room, you can see the fireplace is shallow, efficient purity can compare that to the window cutouts that expose the original levels. and you can see the original

masterpiece -- mantelpiece went to about here. it was one very large piece of wood. it's cut with a pattern that is called lamb's tongue. originally it would have been -- thseese hatchetmarks were put into adhere the plaster. it greatly enhance the efficiency of the fireplace to make it smaller. one of the other things to note in thi we have also left this area ofs room, here, exposed to that you can see the original 1665 bricks. you can see where some of that made way for us, for the original builders to put in the windows. ahobove that is one of the original beams to the house.

and during the preservation of bacon's castle, preservation virginia made every attempt to save all parts of the original fabric if at all possible.price apple , h-- for exmaple, rather than replacing the entire beam, it was only the joints that needed to be replaced. as much as the original material was salvaged, the new material was put in for preservation. you can see the same thing with the brick. kind of going up over here, you can see the continuation of the original beams. again, t example of theh l amb's tongue grooving that matches the fireplace. this is all part of the original house. we have done paint analysis. some of the earliest players were gold. we have our 1711 probate inventory and the room is done

to with the house most likely look like when completed. but you have to imagine there is a possibility that these beams are painted gold, which would have been neat. by the time preservation virginia or acquired the property, it would have needed a lot of restoration. why don't we keep the 1864 wing of the house? or bring it back to its original state? we wanted to show this house as 350 years worth of people living in the space. so we not wholly have kept a lot of the changes at the time but we preferred -- preserve them to show how the changes over time and the different ways that people used the space. we are now in the -- this room

would have been directly above where visitors would have initially entered into bacon's castle in 1665, up until the point that the 1865 addition was built and the entrance was moved. but it is from this room that you can really get a fantastic view of why we specifically refer to this house as being in the jacobean style of architecture. and that would be, if you look out the window, you can tvs cornish gables -- can see these cornish gables and the triple stacked chimneys. they are on a diagonal. and there are three chimneys on each side of the house. and on the side of the house, you have a chimney in the garrett, one on the first floor and one on the second floor. and on the opposite side, we have a chimney on the second floor, the first floor, and also a kitchen fireplace.

but this is where our -- we get a chance to get up close and personal look at that architectural stop your2015 is the 350th anniversary. it was built in 1665. so we are very excited that we are able to continue our preservation efforts in order to hopefully keep it around for another 350 years. announcer: you can watch this and other american artifacts programs any time by visiting our website c-span.org/history. tonight, on q&a, eric larson on his new book " dead wake, the last crossing of the lusitania." larson: the story gets complicated when the question

arises as to what ultimately happened to the lusitania? why was the lusitania allowed to enter the irish sea without escort without the kind of detailed warning that could have been provided to captain william thomas turner but was not? and this has led to some very interesting adulation about was the ship -- interesting speculation about was the ship s et up for attack by the admiralty? i found no smoking memo. believe me, i would've found a smoking memo. that is to say, there is nothing from churchill or jackie feature or somebody else in the admiralty saying, let's let the lusitania though into the irish sea because we wanted to get sunk. nothing like that exists. announcer: nothing like tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on

c-span's q&a. monday on "the communicators," we look at new technology products. >> if there is something you want to capture, you take it off your wrist. and it will be very simple to take off your wrist. and it will expand. and it will be as easy as gesturing. it is completely autonomous. there is no remote required. it is smart enough to know the direction you talk, the pressure. [indiscernible] if you throw it, it will go farther away. it will compose a photo, take a photo and come back, completely autonomously. announcer: "the communicators" monday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. announcer: up next, heather cox richardson author of "to make men free," she chronicles the evolution of the party of lincoln