Petersburg High School - Missile Yearbook (Petersburg, VA)

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YOEKTOWN MONUMENT

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Refuge To Forget By Frank Myers Down by the sea where the breeze is cool, Down by the sandy shore, In evening when the sunset fades. And bathers swim no more. There alone I sit and talk To the much experienced waves. Which always seem to relieve my mind Of the weary thoughts it saves. ' Tis there I go on summer nights When memories bother me ; It is the place, the only place. That my mind and I are free. A Woodland Shrine By Bob O’Leary Deep in the forest dark and green. There is a sight which few have seen. There I go to sit and dream Beside a gentle, flowing stream. In this lovely God-made shrine All the world seems to be mine. The sunshine flickers through the trees. And all of nature is at ease. When my troubles bother me, I close my eyes and I can see The little haven in the dell. Where I am king and all is well. THE MISSILE Page twenty-one

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Down Y orktown’s History Lane By Jean Ide HERE Yorktown is to- day, about three hundred years ago there were only a forest of trees and per- haps a few Indians. Then one day Ben- jamin Read came to Gloucester Point, which is directly across the river. He had a very large farm, which covered all of Gloucester Point and crossed the river to include the land on which Yorktown is now. Years later, in 1621, a surveyor, by the name of Lawrence Smith, was sent to buy the land on the shore opposite Mr. Benajmin Read’s home on Gloucester Point for the purpose of laying out a shire-town (which means a court-house town) . Mr. Read received ten thousand pounds of tobacco for his land. The tobacco was paid to him from the king’s treasury. The river which runs between Gloucester Point and the Shire of York was call- ed at first the Charles River, but it was changed later to the York river and the shire was called Yorktown after the town of York in England. Mr. Lawrence Smith laid out the town in little plots. There were sev- enty-five of them. Anyone could buy one of these half-acre lots — if he built a house on it within a year. If he did not build a house, he had to for- feit his land. The price of the land was one hundred and eighty pounds of tobacco for each lot. When the town was first laid out, there were seven streets that ran across the one main street which was parallel to the river. This street’s name was just plain Main street. The other streets were (and still are) called Pearl, Bacon, Grace, Smith, Read, Ballard, and Buckner. In its early days Yorktown was the first port of entry for all ships from abroad. Each ship as it came into North America went to this port to the Custom House to get its papers before going to the northern cities to trade. Yorktown during these early years was probably a very peaceful, or- dinary little village that went to the Episcopal church on Sunday and fish- ed or grew tobacco during the week. But Yorktown was very gradually growing. As more and more ships came to the New World, more and more people would stay and settle in Yorktown until at the outbreak of the Revo- lutionary War there were about 3,600 people living there. THE MISSILE Page twenty-three