After the governor’s palace, I wandered over to the first house that had a flag. There was a waiting period for the tour and the lady out front told me that I was much better off getting in line to view the Wythe house across the street as it closes at 1:00 and there were only a couple of tours left.
This is because the house is one of the few period buildings remaining and it even still has all the original 18th century woodwork, including the floors. Of greatest importance to most guests is this is the house where Thomas Jefferson studied law, so you can actually walk on the same floor and through the same doors as he did.
George Wythe was the first American law professor and a prominent opponent of slavery. The Wythe house was a wedding gift from his second wife’s father. They had no children, but they did received nieces and nephews regularly, as well as the Jeffersons.
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- The Wythe house seen from the palace green.
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- Cemetery beyond stone walls near the Wythe house.
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- Surface coverings in Williamsburg are mostly gravel or brick-paved sidewalks.
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- We waited for the tour in a little building next to the Wythe house that might have been a kitchen. It was built on an original foundation.
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- The foyer of the Wythe house has this bright blue wall paper. All of the wallpaper in the house is an authentic reproduction by a company in England that has kept records of colours and patterns.
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- The bright green in the dining room is a little shocking! Meals were breakfast, dinner, and supper. Dinner was around 2:00 and the biggest meal of the day so you could cook and clean up in daylight.
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- The parlour had fuchsia wallpaper. Not normally my favourite colour, but it is exquisite here!
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- On all the tours, the rule was that women over 21 were seated first, men next if there were seats left, and children had to sit on the floor. In the Wythe house, seating options included these window seats.
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- All the windows in the house had big wooden shutters.
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- The upstairs master bedroom had my favourite colour scheme and decor of the house, cream and dark purple, with the walls being stripped and the bedding being flowered.
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- The master bedroom even had a closet!
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- This is the guestroom where Jefferson would have slept. I don’t much like the shade of green on the wallpaper.
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- But I really like the checkered green bed canopy.
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- In this room, Wythe, Jefferson, and others studied the natural world. They felt that they did not need God to explain the world to them if they only just observed and studied.
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- We were allowed to look through everything on the desk, including images of birds and insects.
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- We used this microscope to view a cow’s taste bud.
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- a reproduction of an 18th-century Bible
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- All the floors were rough wood because there was so much grit coming in from the streets it would have been nearly impossible to keep them shiny.
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- That’s about 250 years’ worth of the study door opening and closing.
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- This light pink room is where the nieces and nephews stayed.
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- There is a guest bedroom downstairs next to the dining room with this rather lovely carpet.
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- This guest bedroom is decorated in a darker shade of pink.
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- Another closet, this time inside Mr. Wythe’s office.
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- Downstairs, this is Mr. Wythe’s office where he practiced law.
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- Love these old secretaries.
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- View to the gardens from the office. There were many outbuildings on the property.
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- Stables.
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- Wythe house from the gardens.
