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Lake Matoaka

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Lake Matoaka is a mill pond on the campus of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, located in the College Woods. Originally known both as Rich Neck Pond for the surrounding Rich Neck Plantation and Ludwell's Mill Pond for Philip Ludwell who owned it, Lake Matoaka was constructed around 1700 to power a gristmill.[1][2] The pond was renamed after acquisition by the college to bear the Powhatan name for Pocahontas.[3] Construction projects by the Civilian Conservation Corps, college, and others have contributed to the lake becoming a site for outdoor entertainment and recreation.

Discover more about Lake Matoaka related topics

Mill pond

Mill pond

A mill pond is a body of water used as a reservoir for a water-powered mill.

College of William & Mary

College of William & Mary

The College of William & Mary is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and the ninth-oldest in the English-speaking world. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High Research Activity". In his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities, Richard Moll included William & Mary as one of the original eight "Public Ivies".

Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg is in the northern part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is bordered by James City County on the west and south and York County on the east.

Rich Neck Plantation

Rich Neck Plantation

Rich Neck Plantation was located in James City County, Virginia in the Colony of Virginia.

Philip Ludwell

Philip Ludwell

Philip Cottington Ludwell was an English-born planter and colonial official who sat on the Virginia Governor's Council and briefly served as speaker of the House of Burgesses. Ludwell, in addition to operating plantations in Virginia using enslaved labor, also served as the first governor of the Carolinas, during the colony's transition from proprietary rule to royal colony.

Gristmill

Gristmill

A gristmill grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding.

Powhatan language

Powhatan language

Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian was an Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian languages. It was formerly spoken by the Powhatan people of tidewater Virginia. Following 1970s linguistic research by Frank Thomas Siebert, Jr., some of the language has been reconstructed with assistance from better-documented Algonquian languages, and attempts are being made to revive it.

Pocahontas

Pocahontas

Pocahontas was a Native American woman belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of a network of tributary tribes in the Tsenacommacah, encompassing the Tidewater region of what is today the U.S. state Virginia.

Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that supplied manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to supply jobs for young men and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States.

Description

Paddleboarding and kayaking on Lake Matoaka, 2020.
Paddleboarding and kayaking on Lake Matoaka, 2020.

Lake Matoaka is located on the western edge of the College of William & Mary's campus in Williamsburg, a city in southeastern Tidewater Virginia. Bordering the eastern portion of the roughly 150 hectare College Woods, the body of water is roughly 0.17 km2 (0.066 sq mi) with a maximum depth of 4.8 m (16 ft).[4][5] Water from the lake empties into College Creek.[2] The dam on the south side of the lake is traversed by Jamestown Road.[6]

The lake is heavily populated by fish and turtles despite poor water quality.[3] The "Near Side" is adjacent to developed campus and has in recent years been a prothonotary warbler breeding site. Also on the Near Side are the Keck Environmental Field Lab, the renovated original amphitheater, and the ruins of the second amphitheater.[7] A small boathouse operates from this side, with paths and bridges connecting the lakeside to campus near the William & Mary Police Department offices.[8]

The core samples from sediment in Lake Matoaka have been studied for the lakebed's capacity to retain historic atmospheric information. Among the discoveries were microscopic spheroidal carbonaceous particles left by fly ash from coal-fire furnaces in the Eighteenth Century during Williamsburg's industrial and political peak and lead particulates traced to production in 19th-century Galena, Illinois.[9]

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Standup paddleboarding

Standup paddleboarding

Standup paddleboarding (SUP) is a water sport born from surfing with modern roots in Hawaii. Stand up paddleboarders stand on boards that are floating on the water, and use a paddle to propel themselves through the water. The sport was documented in a 2013 report that identified it as the outdoor sporting activity with the most first-time participants in the United States that year. Variations include flat water paddling, racing, surfing, whitewater SUP, yoga, and fishing.

Kayaking

Kayaking

Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving over water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits facing forward, legs in front, using a double-bladed paddle to pull front-to-back on one side and then the other in rotation. Most kayaks have closed decks, although sit-on-top and inflatable kayaks are growing in popularity as well.

College of William & Mary

College of William & Mary

The College of William & Mary is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and the ninth-oldest in the English-speaking world. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High Research Activity". In his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities, Richard Moll included William & Mary as one of the original eight "Public Ivies".

Tidewater (region)

Tidewater (region)

Tidewater refers to the north Atlantic Plain region of the United States.

Virginia

Virginia

Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. Its geography and climate are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay. The state's capital is Richmond. Its most-populous city is Virginia Beach, and Fairfax County is the state's most-populous political subdivision. Virginia's population in 2022 was over 8.68 million, with 35% living within in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.

College Creek

College Creek

College Creek is located in James City County in the Virginia Peninsula area of the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia in the United States. From a point of origin near the independent city of Williamsburg, it is a tributary of the James River.

Prothonotary warbler

Prothonotary warbler

The prothonotary warbler is a small songbird of the New World warbler family. It is named for its plumage which resembles the yellow robes once worn by papal clerks in the Roman Catholic church.

Core sample

Core sample

A core sample is a cylindrical section of (usually) a naturally-occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, such as sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube, called a core drill. The hole made for the core sample is called the "core hole". A variety of core samplers exist to sample different media under different conditions. More continue to be invented on a regular basis. In the coring process, the sample is pushed more or less intact into the tube. Removed from the tube in the laboratory, it is inspected and analyzed by different techniques and equipment depending on the type of data desired.

Fly ash

Fly ash

Fly ash, flue ash, coal ash, or pulverised fuel ash – plurale tantum: coal combustion residuals (CCRs) – is a coal combustion product that is composed of the particulates that are driven out of coal-fired boilers together with the flue gases. Ash that falls to the bottom of the boiler's combustion chamber is called bottom ash. In modern coal-fired power plants, fly ash is generally captured by electrostatic precipitators or other particle filtration equipment before the flue gases reach the chimneys. Together with bottom ash removed from the bottom of the boiler, it is known as coal ash.

Coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of fossil fuel, formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.

Lead

Lead

Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, lead is a shiny gray with a hint of blue. It tarnishes to a dull gray color when exposed to air. Lead has the highest atomic number of any stable element and three of its isotopes are endpoints of major nuclear decay chains of heavier elements. Lead is toxic, even in small amounts, especially to children.

Galena, Illinois

Galena, Illinois

Galena is the largest city in and the county seat of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, with a population of 3,308 at the 2020 census. A 581-acre (235 ha) section of the city is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Galena Historic District. The city is named for the mineral galena, which was in the ore that formed the basis for the region's early lead mining economy.

History

While serving as deputy secretary of the Colony of Virginia, Philip Ludwell purchased the property of Rich Neck Plantation in Archer's Hope Swamp in Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg.[10][11] In 1693, letters patent issued by King William III and Queen Mary II chartered the College of William & Mary in Virginia, establishing the boundary of the college property on the edge of Archer's Hope Swamp and the Rich Neck property.[12] Some time in the early 1700s, a gristmill and the mill pond to power it were constructed for Ludwell by damming College Creek.[2][3] During this period, the mill pond was known as Rich Neck or Ludwell's Mill Pond.[1] The original mill is thought to have been destroyed in 1863, though a rebuilt mill may have operated through the 1920s. This later mill is reported to have burned in 1945. The location of some of the plantation's structures have been located by identifying concentrations of dispersed bricks.[11]

The College of William & Mary acquired the property containing the lake and much of the College Woods in the 1920s, renaming the former to Lake Matoaka after the Powhatan name for Pocahontas.[3] By 1933, this area was designated to become one of the few Virginia state parks and was inaugurated as Matoaka Park in October 1934.[13][14] The still-preserved College Woods are now the largest contiguous forest in Williamsburg.[4]

The arrival of a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) encampment in the fall of 1933 on the college's campus saw many new structures and trails built around Lake Matoaka.[12]: 25  While on the campus, the CCC men received educational support from the college.[15] The CCC constructed Cary Field, and in 1935 a boathouse on Lake Matoaka–this latter structure rapidly falling into disuse and decay by the 1950s.[16][17] Additionally, the CCC also constructed more than 10 mi (16 km) of trails, many of which survive unimproved,[18] and bridle paths along the shore of the lake.[19]: 152  When heavy rains washed out the lake's spillway in 1937, CCC men rebuilt it.[12]: 25 

Recreation on Lake Matoaka previously permitted non-boating activities in the water, with winter sports recorded as including ice skating in 1940.[19]: 161  Following the sharp degradation of water quality in the 1980s due to multiple sewage spills and other factors, swimming in the lake was prohibited. The lake still rates as hypereutrophic with annual algal blooms, resulting in its continued closure to swimmers.[3] A portion of Lake Matoaka that extends higher into campus and is partially dammed by trails is known by the neologism "Grim Dell," a corruption of Crim Dell referencing the neck's extremely poor water quality.[20]

Amphitheaters

Matoaka Amphitheater located on the shore of Lake Matoaka, 2022
Matoaka Amphitheater located on the shore of Lake Matoaka, 2022

The Martha Wren Briggs Amphitheatre at Lake Matoaka is an amphitheater with space for up to 2,000 patrons. The amphitheater was built by the Jamestown Corporation in 1947 to host The Common Glory, a historical outdoor drama by Paul Green recounting the story of Williamsburg during the American Revolution which also lent its name for the amphitheater's original name.[21] The play would play through the summer from 1947 until 1976.[22] With the folding of the Jamestown Corporation, the amphitheater was acquired by the college in 1976 and renovated in 2006.[22]

A second amphitheater was constructed in 1956 to host another Jamestown Corporation play, The Founders, which told the story of the Jamestown Settlement. This second amphitheater, known as the Cove Amphitheater, could host 1,700 attendees. The play and the amphitheater closed after two years. The Cove Amphitheater is now rewilded and overgrown without restoration or maintenance, though its dressing room has survived as an art studio.[22]

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Colony of Virginia

Colony of Virginia

The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583 and the Roanoke Colony by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 1580s.

Philip Ludwell

Philip Ludwell

Philip Cottington Ludwell was an English-born planter and colonial official who sat on the Virginia Governor's Council and briefly served as speaker of the House of Burgesses. Ludwell, in addition to operating plantations in Virginia using enslaved labor, also served as the first governor of the Carolinas, during the colony's transition from proprietary rule to royal colony.

Letters patent

Letters patent

Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title or status to a person or corporation. Letters patent can be used for the creation of corporations or government offices, or for granting city status or a coat of arms. Letters patent are issued for the appointment of representatives of the Crown, such as governors and governors-general of Commonwealth realms, as well as appointing a Royal Commission. In the United Kingdom, they are also issued for the creation of peers of the realm.

Gristmill

Gristmill

A gristmill grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding.

Mill pond

Mill pond

A mill pond is a body of water used as a reservoir for a water-powered mill.

Pocahontas

Pocahontas

Pocahontas was a Native American woman belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of a network of tributary tribes in the Tsenacommacah, encompassing the Tidewater region of what is today the U.S. state Virginia.

List of Virginia state parks

List of Virginia state parks

This is a list of state parks and reserves in the Virginia state park system.

Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that supplied manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to supply jobs for young men and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States.

Bridle path

Bridle path

A bridle path, also bridleway, equestrian trail, horse riding path, ride, bridle road, or horse trail, is a trail or a thoroughfare that is used by people riding on horses. Trails originally created for use by horses often now serve a wider range of users, including equestrians, hikers, and cyclists. Such paths are either impassable for motorized vehicles, or vehicles are banned. The laws relating to allowable uses vary from country to country.

Ice skating

Ice skating

Ice skating is the self-propulsion and gliding of a person across an ice surface, using metal-bladed ice skates. People skate for various reasons, including recreation (fun), exercise, competitive sports, and commuting. Ice skating may be performed on naturally frozen bodies of water, such as ponds, lakes, canals, and rivers, and on human-made ice surfaces both indoors and outdoors.

Algal bloom

Algal bloom

An algal bloom or algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems. It is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from the algae's pigments. The term algae encompasses many types of aquatic photosynthetic organisms, both macroscopic multicellular organisms like seaweed and microscopic unicellular organisms like cyanobacteria. Algal bloom commonly refers to the rapid growth of microscopic unicellular algae, not macroscopic algae. An example of a macroscopic algal bloom is a kelp forest.

Neologism

Neologism

A neologism is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often driven by changes in culture and technology. In the process of language formation, neologisms are more mature than protologisms. A word whose development stage is between that of the protologism and neologism is a prelogism.

Source: "Lake Matoaka", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, February 15th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Matoaka.

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References
  1. ^ a b Rouse, Parke (16 August 1992). "Mills Once Dotted Williamsburg Area". Daily Press. Williamsburg, VA. Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Lake Matoaka once a meeting place". Daily Press. Williamsburg, VA. 19 May 1991. Archived from the original on 15 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Lake Matoaka". Williamsburg, VA: The College of William & Mary in Virginia. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  4. ^ a b "Facts about Lake Matoaka". Williamsburg, VA: The College of William & Mary in Virginia. Archived from the original on 15 February 2022. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  5. ^ Balascio, Nicholas L.; Kaste, James M.; Meyer, Meredith G.; Renshaw, Madison; Chambers, Randolph M. (March 2019). "A high-resolution mill pond record from eastern Virginia (USA) reveals the impact of past landscape changes and regional pollution history". Anthropocene. Future Earth. 25: 100190. doi:10.1016/j.ancene.2019.100190. S2CID 134310256. Archived from the original on 15 February 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2022 – via ScienceDirect.
  6. ^ "Jamestown Road". Williamsburg, VA: Department of Historic Researches, Commonwealth of Virginia. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022 – via The Historical Marker Database.
  7. ^ Anthony, Matt (15 February 2018). "Matoaka Lake & Woods". Birding Virginia. Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  8. ^ Peng, Carol (7 November 2013). "Follow the Bridge to Sparkling Lake Matoaka". The Flat Hat. Williamsburg, VA. Archived from the original on 14 February 2022. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  9. ^ McClain, Joseph (2 July 2019). "Decoding Lake Matoaka's sedimental history of the anthropocene". Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily. Williamsburg, VA. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  10. ^ McCartney, Martha W. (2000). Land Ownership Patterns and Early Development in Middle Plantation: Report of Archival Research. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library Research Report Series. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library. p. 18. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  11. ^ a b Muraca, David (2009). Archaeological Testing at Rich Neck. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library Research Report Series. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library. Archived from the original on 12 February 2022.
  12. ^ a b c McCartney, Martha W.; Kiddle, Christina A. (1996). Williamsburg Cultural Resources Map Project City of Williamsburg. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  13. ^ Wirth, Conrad L. (January 1944). "Civilian Conservation Corps Program of the United States Department of the Interior: March 1933 to June 30, 1943". Service Learning, General. United States Department of the Interior: 31 – via University of Nebraska Omaha.
  14. ^ "Crim Dell, Dedicated 1966". Williamsburg, VA: Special Collections Research Center, William & Mary Libraries. Archived from the original on 13 February 2022. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  15. ^ Carvalho, Joseph (1977). "Race, Relief and Politics: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Virginia, 1933–1942". Williamsburg, VA: The College of William & Mary in Virginia. Archived from the original on 12 February 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  16. ^ "Civilian Conservation Corps, New Deal Project: Virginia Still Enjoys Projects Today" (PDF). National Park Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  17. ^ Dickon, Chris (2007). The College of William and Mary. The Campus History Series. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. p. 55. ISBN 9780738543796. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  18. ^ "Matoaka Trails". Williamsburg, VA: The College of William & Mary in Virginia. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  19. ^ a b Kale, Wilford (2016) [First published 1985]. Hark Upon the Gale: An Illustrated History of the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: Botetourt Press.
  20. ^ "Grim Dell". 21st-Century Interdisciplinary Dictionary. 19 April 2016. Archived from the original on 14 February 2022. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  21. ^ "'Common Glory' To Be Given On July 17th". Daily Press. Newport News, VA. 25 May 1947. p. 20. Archived from the original on 15 February 2022. Retrieved 14 February 2022 – via Newspapers.com.open access
  22. ^ a b c Hogan, Claire (11 March 2019). "Stranger Places: Cove Amphitheater". The Flat Hat. Williamsburg, VA. Archived from the original on 14 February 2022. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
External links

Coordinates: 37°15′58″N 76°43′24″W / 37.26611°N 76.72333°W / 37.26611; -76.72333

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