Colonial National Historical Park

Yorktown
VA

Portrait by Artist to Come

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The park includes Historic Jamestowne and ...

Yorktown

1. Cape Henry Memorial
Site of the Jamestown settlement which also overlooks Chesapeake Bay where the Battle of the Capes (between British and French) helped secure the victory at Yorktown in 1781.
2. Yorktown National Battlefield
Site of the battle (1781) that effectively brought the Revolutionary War to an end. Includes Visitor Center and park ranger tours.

[George] Mason’s obvious legacy is in his contribution to America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence through the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Constitution through his role at the Philadelphia Convention, and the Bill of Rights through his dogged opposition to a Constitution without one. Mason may have taken a circumscribed view of the rights he advocated — limiting the right of representation to white men or restricting freedom of the press to a ban on prior restraint — but he put words on paper that could be given more expansive meanings by later generations.

Jeff Broadwater
George Mason: Forgotten Founder (2006)