The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1955-07-01
VIRGINIA PLANS
CELEBRATION TO
LAST FULL YEAR
Paul Green Doing Another Drama
For jamestown Festival To
Be Staged in 1857

While Roanoke islanders wonder
about what this season will bring
forth for the Lost Colony, Amer
ica's Pioneer Outdoor Drama, fore
runner of several that have become
more successful, plans are going
strong at Williamsburg and
jamestown, Virginia for a state
wide observance to run the full
year of 1857. The following is the
report sent out by their public
relations department:
Williamsburg, Va.-Plans are
well under way here for the year
long, Statewide observance in
1857 that will be called the James
town Festival and will see the
premiere of another symphonic
drama by Paul Green, North Caro-
lima playwright.
The Festival will celebrate the
350th anniversary of the first
permanent English settlement in
America, which began at James
town in May, 1907. Mr.. Green has
not yet completed or piven title
to his play, but it will deal with
the drama of hardship and suffer-
ing undergone by the colonists.
Two commissions here, one
State and one Federal, are plan
ming the observance-the Virginia
350th Anniversary Commission
headed by Delegate Lewis A.
McMurran, Jr., of Newport News
and Warwick, and the Fed
eral J m e W Williamsburg
Yorktown Celebration Commission
headed by Robert V. Hatcher,
Richmond insurance executive.
The State commission has set up
another group, the Virginia 350th
Anniversary Celebration Corpora
tion headed by retired Lieutenant
General Withers A. Burress, of
Richmond, to direct the fund-rais-
ing and other commercial aspects
of the observance. All three groups
share offices in the Travis House
here.
Parke Rouse, Jr., of Williams
burg, is executive director of the
State commission, and Colonel
Harold X. Roberts, of Richmond,
is administrative director of the
Federal commission.
Colonel Roberts pointed out that
Governor Thomas B. Stanley had
suggested cooperation by localities
in an open letter to Virginians
and that President Eisenhower had
just written to Chairman Hatcher
approving the basic plans for the
Festival to date.
These plans call for centering
the Festival, in general, around
the historic triangle of Jamestown
Williamsburg and Yorktown, and
between the dates April &c, 1857
anniversary of the colonists' land
ing at Cape Henry, and October
30, 1857, anniversary of the provi-
sional agreement at Paris in 1882
by which the world recognized the
independence of the United States.
But the plans call for year-long
observance of the 1857 milestone
by as many communities as pos
sible by all those, in fact, that
have attractions to show the public
or can create an attraction on the
theme of Virginia's Importance to
the nation, present or past. A
special effort will be made to in
vite Virginians now living else
where to visit the State for a
homecoming reunion with friends
and family.
The celebration will be "decen-
tralized." The Norfolk area, for
example, will be the scene of the
April &c ceremonies commemorate
ing the April 26 landing. The
State Fair will display in the fall
of 1857 the States progress since
1907 in agriculture and commerce,
and enable Richmond to be the
scene of another Festival event.
So the Festival will go, reaching
down to many smaller commmi-
ties.
Preparations are moving along
in this immediate area of the
Festival.
The National Park Service has
authorized and has in hand
$4,6OO,00O, for improving tour
roads in the Yorktown Battlefield
area and for extending the
Colonial Parkway, which now links
Yorktown and Williamsburg, from
Williamsburg to Jamestown. Work
is well advanced.
The State Highway Department
has allocated $7S0,00O for road
improvement, including extension
on dual-laning between Williams
burg and Richmond, in the year
beginning July 1, 1856.
The Association for the Preser-
walton of Virginia Antiquities has
just given permission for the State
to restore Virginia's Third State
House, built in 1866 and burned in
1876 by Nathanial Bacon's rebel