Rare Winter Solstice in James City County, Virginia

The Moon at 9:30 p.m., Dec 21, 2010

Goeff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory is perhaps the most quoted man of the day. He inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years to find out how rare it is to have a total lunar eclipse fall on the same day as the northern hemisphere's winter solstice. "Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 December 21," says Chester ... over and over again on many websites. 

1638. The date made me look toward the Christmas-week night outside and think about this plot of land where I live. Less than 3 miles east of Jamestown, I imagined this spot in the headwaters of Mill Creek was darker and quieter tonight than it was 372 years ago. No Christmas lights or shushing traffic. The forest was still thick and lush. John Page had not arrived to settle Middle Plantation (now Williamsburg) and Richard Eggleston had not arrived to settle his Powhatan Plantation (now a resort near today's Mid-County Park). However, my closest neighbors, Richard and Elizabeth Kemp, were building a 35 by 20 foot house on their plantation, Rich Neck (today's Holly Hills subdivision). Other English were living on Archer's Hope (Colonial National Historical Park) and Joachim Andrus had settled Jockey's Neck (the Williamsburg Winery). Most settlers still lived on or very near Jamestown Island.

Farther away, Edward Hill I established his family business at Shirley Plantation in 1638. The family farm continues to operate today. Tobacco cultivation made Hill's risk worth taking. More than 700 tons had been exported to England by this time and slaves were being sold to Virginians. In December of 1638, Sir John Harvey was replaced as governor by Sir Francis Wyatt. Indians were a weakening threat, although 500 English would be killed in a 1644 uprising. (But Opechancanough was rounded up and shot at Jamestown. His followers soon faded into the west.) In 1638, Virginia was holding on by its fingernails.

Virginia was taken from the Virginia Company in 1624 and became a royal colony the next year, when Charles I became King of England. The colony had a population of less than 1,000 people then, about one-fifth of the total who had come to the colony since its founding. The Virginia colony struggled to hold on and Charles I was too preoccupied with troubles at home to attend to his foothold in Virginia. It would be a few more years until Sir William Berkeley became governor in 1642 and turned the tide with an influx of distressed Cavaliers, who came seeking refuge once the English Civil War broke out. 

December 21, 1638, a winter solstice night in the midst of the Little Ice Age. It was a bleak and lonely night in this part of James City County, Virginia.