The Prentis Store, pictured to the right, was built circa 1739-1740. Another one of Williamsburg's eighty-eight original eighteenth-century buildings, "the Prentis Store is Williamsburg's best-surviving example of a colonial store. The firm of Prentis and Company (named after the store's original merchant-shop keeper, William Prentis), operated a highly successful general store in this handsome original building from 1740 until the Revolution. A classic example of store architecture, its gable end faces the street. Through the door above, merchandise could easily be lifted into the loft. Windows along the sides were located toward the rear of the building to light the counting room and to leave long, blank walls for ample shelving in the sales area."
(Source: Michael Olmert and Suzanne Coffman, Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg [Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007], 52-53).
]]>(Source: Michael Olmert and Suzanne Coffman, Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg [Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007], 103-104).
]]>(Source: Michael Olmert and Suzanne Coffman, Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg [Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007], 103-104).
]]>Historical documentation also suggests, however, that the building may have been repurposed later as a guardhouse. “In July 1730 the Governor’s House was reported as being ‘very inconvenient for want of a covered way from the offices into the House’ and ‘a Sum not exceeding one Hundred Pounds’ was appropriated ‘for Building a Covered Way from the Offices belonging to the Governor’s House into the said House.” In 1745, historian Henry Howe apparently referred to the Palace’s Advance Buildings as “’…two small brick structures, the remains of the Palace…that on the right was the office, and the one on the left the guard house.’”
(Sources: A. Lawrence Kocher and Thomas T. Waterman, “Governor’s Palace Advance Outbuildings: Block 20, Buildings 3B & 3C Architectural Report,” [Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1952], 6-7; Ed Chappel, in-person communication in Special Collections Dept., John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, 11 April 2014, Williamsburg, Va.).
]]>The Robert Carter House (out of view, but whose front yard is pictured here) is one of the original eighty-eight buildings at Colonial Williamsburg. It served as the gentry-class townhouse residence of various members of the Carter family throughout the eighteenth century, beginning with Charles Carter, the son of Robert "King" Carter, and ending with Robert Carter III of Nomini Hall. Governor Dinwiddie also briefly resided in the house during the renovations of the Governor's Palace between 1751 and 1752.
(Source: Michael Olmert and Suzanne Coffman, Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg [Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007], 88-89).
]]>(Source: Michael Olmert and Suzanne Coffman, Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg [Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007], 88-89).
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