WILLIAMSBURG. The county-seat of James City County. Va., 48 miles east by south of Richmond• on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (Map: Virginia, 4). It is on a peninsula about midway between the James and York rivers, in a region of great historic interest. The chief feature of the city is the William and Mary College (q.v.), the second oldest college in the United States, having been opened in 1693. There is also the Eastern State Hospital for the Insane, erected in 1769. Other features are Bruton Par ish Church, dating from I678 and rebuilt in 1713; the Powder Ho•n building (1714) ; the old court house (1769) ; and Fort Magruder. Williamsburg is the shipping point for the farm and garden produce of the vicinity, and manu factures knit. goods, brick, lumber. etc. There are also important fish and oyster interests. Population. in 1890, 1831; in 1900, 2044. Wil liamsburg was settled in 1632, and was called Middle Plantations until 1099. In 1693 it sup planted ,Jamestown as the capital of Virginia, and in 1722 obtained a city charter, the oldest in the State. Here in 1765 Patrick Henry offered his resolutions against the Stamp Act, and de livered his famous Cresar-Charles I. speech. In
1779 the capital was removed to Richmond. At Williamsburg', on May 5, 1862, during the Civil War, occurred the first serious engagement of the Peninsular campaign. a part of Johnston's Confederate trumps under Longstreet, which had evacuated Yorktown on May 3d, checking the pursuit of a part of the Army of the Potomac, under• General Sumner. The fighting began at about 7:30 A.m. and continued during the greater part of the day, gallant though ill-organized at tacks living made by Federal divisions under Hooker and Hancock; lint neither side gained any decisive advantage, and during the night the Confederates continued their retreat toward Rich mond. The Federal loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 2228: the Confederate, as reported by Longstreet. 1560. Consult a sketch of Wil liamsburg by Lyon G. Tyler in Powell's Historic TO17IS of the southern States (New York, and for the battle. Webb, The Peninsula (New Yo•k. 1881), in the "Campaigns of the Civil iVar Series."