Colonial National Historical Park

Colonial National Historical Park is a National Park Service unit in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia that preserves and interprets some of the most historically significant landscapes in American history. The park comprises two major historic sites, Historic Jamestowne and Yorktown Battlefield, representing the beginning and end of English colonial history in America. For residents of and visitors to Virginia Beach, the park holds particular significance: one of its key components, the Cape Henry Memorial, sits within the city limits of Virginia Beach itself, marking the shoreline where English colonists first set foot on the continent in April 1607. The park recorded approximately 3.5 million recreational visits in 2023, making it one of the more heavily visited units within the National Park System.

Establishment and Administrative History

The Colonial National Monument, later redesignated Colonial National Historical Park, was created in 1930 in time for the sesquicentennial of the Yorktown victory in 1931. Its establishment was driven by approaching anniversaries of key historic events from 1607 and 1781, and by the restoration of the colonial capital of Williamsburg in the late 1920s. The primary goal of the new park was to commemorate and preserve the unique historical features of the James-York peninsula, including Jamestown, Yorktown, and the Yorktown Revolutionary War battlefield.

Colonial National Monument was authorized on July 3, 1930, and formally established on December 30, 1930. On June 5, 1936, it was redesignated a National Historical Park. The park represented some of the pioneering efforts of the National Park Service in historical research and management during that era. The Yorktown National Cemetery was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933. Jamestown National Historic Site is co-owned and jointly managed by the National Park Service and Preservation Virginia (formerly the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, a name the organization held until 2003) and was designated on December 18, 1940.

As with all historical areas administered by the National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park and Jamestown National Historic Site are listed on the National Register of Historic Places of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The park covers a total area of approximately 15 square miles (39 sq km) in southeastern Virginia, situated on a peninsula between the York and James rivers, and comprises five discrete units: Historic Jamestowne, Yorktown Battlefield, the Yorktown National Cemetery, the Cape Henry Memorial, and the Colonial Parkway connecting them.

In recent years, the park has undertaken a significant infrastructure initiative. The Colonial Parkway Rehabilitation Project, funded in part through the Great American Outdoors Act, is addressing long-deferred maintenance needs along the parkway's 23-mile length, including road resurfacing, drainage improvements, and tunnel repairs. The project represents one of the more substantial capital investments in the park's recent history and was ongoing as of 2025.

The park is also expected to play a prominent role in the United States semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026. As one of the few NPS units that physically connects the beginning of English colonial settlement with the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Colonial National Historical Park sits at the center of the nation's commemorative programming for that milestone.

The Cape Henry Memorial: Virginia Beach's Connection

The Cape Henry Memorial is the component of Colonial National Historical Park most directly tied to Virginia Beach. Located at Cape Henry on the south shore of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the memorial marks the site of the first landing of Captain Christopher Newport and the Jamestown colonists in April 1607. It sits within Virginia Beach city limits, accessible off U.S. Route 60 on the grounds of Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story. Civilian visitors must pass through a military security checkpoint to reach the memorial, and valid government-issued identification is required for entry. It's a detail worth knowing before making the drive.

After sailing from England in December 1606, three ships carrying investors of the Virginia Company and their hired men arrived off the coast of Cape Henry on April 26, 1607. A small party went ashore to explore but had a violent encounter with local Algonquian-speaking Indians that left two men wounded. Three days later, on April 29, another party came ashore and erected a cross of oak, naming the spot Cape Henry in honor of Henry, Prince of Wales. They planted the cross in the sand as both a Christian symbol and a formal claim of English presence on the continent.

A ten-foot granite cross now stands at the approximate location of that original landing, erected in 1935 by the National Society Daughters of the American Colonists in memory of the original wooden cross planted by the colonists. The memorial serves as a physical and symbolic prologue to the broader story told across the park: the moment of first contact between the English colonists and the American continent, before the ships turned up the James River toward what would become Jamestown.

The memorial site also commemorates a key naval engagement from the Revolutionary War. On September 5, 1781, nineteen British warships were surprised by a waiting fleet of twenty-four French ships commanded by Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse in what is known as the Battle of the Chesapeake. The two navies battled for several days, each sustaining heavy damage. On September 9, an additional French fleet arrived from Rhode Island, forcing the British to withdraw from the area and return to New York. The outcome proved instrumental in the American victory at Yorktown: the departing British ships had been carrying supplies and reinforcements for General Charles Cornwallis, and without naval support or resupply, his position at Yorktown became untenable. A statue of Admiral de Grasse, provided by the French government for America's bicentennial, was dedicated at the site in October 1976.

The Cape Henry site is also home to two historic lighthouses. The older of the two is among the earliest lighthouses built in the United States, constructed in 1792 shortly after the new federal government assumed responsibility for navigational aids along the coast. The second lighthouse was built in 1881 to replace the aging original structure. Both have guided mariners navigating the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay for generations. Visitors can tour the original 1792 lighthouse and climb to its observation deck for views over the bay entrance and the surrounding coastline.

Historic Jamestowne

Historic Jamestowne encompasses all of Jamestown Island, the original site of James Fort and the first successful English settlement in North America. The more than 1,500-acre island is connected to the mainland by a manmade causeway via the Colonial Parkway. Historic Jamestowne is located in James City County, Virginia, just outside Williamsburg, and anchors one end of the "Historic Triangle," which includes Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown.

The story of Jamestown starts in April 1607, when 144 Englishmen made landfall on the eastern coast of America and anchored their ships in the protected waters of the Chesapeake Bay. By May 13, 1607, about three weeks after the initial landing at Cape Henry, the colonists had traveled up the James River to Jamestown Island and established the first permanent English settlement in North America. Under the leadership of John Smith and the Reverend Robert Hunt, the colonists endured severe hardship during the early years. Starvation, conflicts with American Indians, inclement weather, and chronic lack of supplies threatened the survival of the colony, and many of the original settlers died during the first winter. The colony eventually persisted and grew as the colonists found ways to survive and establish relations with the Powhatan Confederacy, which historians estimate had a population of 13,000 to 14,000 in the Tidewater Virginia area in 1607. The Powhatan had a significant and ongoing impact on the survival and everyday lives of the colonists throughout the early decades of the settlement.

After the Jamestown statehouse burned during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 and again in 1699, the colonists moved the capital of Virginia a few miles away to Williamsburg. Most of Jamestown's merchants followed the government to Williamsburg, which brought about Jamestown's steady decline as a populated town, even as the island retained its historical significance.

Today, Historic Jamestowne is jointly managed by the NPS and Preservation Virginia. Preservation Virginia owns 22 acres containing the remains of the original 1607 fort. In 1994, with the quadricentennial year approaching, Preservation Virginia agreed to fund a multi-year archaeological project called Jamestown Rediscovery to search for the remains of James Fort, led by archaeologist William Kelso. That project succeeded in locating and excavating substantial portions of the original fort structure, and excavations continue to yield new discoveries. In 2007, Preservation Virginia and the National Park Service rebranded the site as "Historic Jamestowne," where both organizations now provide tours, programs, and events year-round.

The on-site museum, officially named the Nathalie P. and Alan M. Voorhees Archaearium, houses excavated artifacts and interpretive exhibits about the Jamestown settlement. The building sits over the excavated remains of the last statehouse in Jamestown, the foundations of which are visible to visitors below. The museum's 7,500-square-foot gallery space displays objects belonging to Jamestown colonists unearthed from the long-lost James Fort site, integrating both the life and death experiences of the colonists with the landscape they occupied and shaped.

Yorktown Battlefield

On October 19, 1781, American and French troops defeated the British at Yorktown in the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War. General George Washington's allied army forced the British forces under General Charles Lord Cornwallis to surrender, effectively ending armed conflict in the war and setting the stage for American independence to be formalized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The town of Yorktown itself had been established in 1691 by Virginia's colonial government as a place to regulate trade and collect duties on imports and exports, and by the time of the Revolution it had grown into a prosperous colonial port town on the York River.

The Yorktown Battlefield unit of the park preserves the siege lines, earthworks, and associated structures from the 1781 campaign. The Thomas Nelson House, built around 1724, served as Cornwallis's headquarters during the final stages of the siege and remains standing today. Both the house and the historic siege earthworks underwent significant restoration in 1976 in preparation for the American bicentennial. The Moore House, located in the eastern part of the park, is where the terms of surrender were negotiated in October 1781 and is open to visitors on a seasonal basis.

The Yorktown Battlefield Visitor Center screens a short film about the Siege of Yorktown and maintains exhibits displaying artifacts recovered from the battlefield. Adjacent to the NPS-managed battlefield, the state-operated American Revolution Museum at Yorktown offers complementary programming and exhibits. The Yorktown Riverwalk Landing area along the York River provides additional dining and recreational amenities for visitors to the area.

The Yorktown National Cemetery, one of the five discrete units of Colonial National Historical Park, is located near the battlefield and contains the graves of Union soldiers from the Civil War era. It was established during that later conflict on ground that had already witnessed the decisive battle of the Revolution.

The Colonial Parkway

The Colonial Parkway is a 23-mile scenic roadway stretching from the York River at Yorktown to the James River at Jamestown, physically linking the three points of Virginia's Historic Triangle. It runs through the historic district of Colonial Williamsburg and passes through James City County, York County, and the city of Williamsburg. As both a transportation corridor and a park unit in its own right, the parkway is a defining feature of Colonial National Historical Park, the connective tissue that allows visitors to experience the Historic Triangle