COLONIAL Yorktown's Main Street Historic Resource Study

This report deals in depth with a number of phases of the Yorktown story and the sites and areas associated with them. It is not a chronological presentation of the story of the town. There is some new material here and there and some new conclusions and modifications of others, particularly in regard to:

1. The British inner line built around Yorktown in 1781, its modification by the French in the winter of 1781-1782, and the ultimate disappearance of these earthworks from view. (Appendix G contains information on the wintering of the French in Yorktown).

2. The Main Street of Yorktown, its nature and the development that stood along it in colonial, revolutionary, and into later times, considered lot by lot.

3. The windmill that overlooked Yorktown Creek through much of the 18th and into the 19th centuries.

4. The Secretary Thomas Nelson Town Mansion (where Cornwallis first established headquarters) — its nature, disappearance, and first commemorative marking.

There is a plan of Yorktown that shows its original form along with the additions that were made to it from time to time. The 27 illustrations grouped at the back represent an assembly that is not found elsewhere containing several items difficult to see, such as Nos. 5, 6A, 8, 11, and especially 21.