Queen to help Virginia note 400th year

NORFOLK, Va. — Virginia's governor traveled to England in December to help mark the date three ships set sail across the Atlantic to the Virginia colony 400 years ago.

In May, England's Queen Elizabeth II will return the favor, heading to Virginia to recognize the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, America's first permanent English settlement.

Although it's not known yet whether the queen will visit Jamestown during the actual anniversary in May or some other time that month, her trip will add luster to the commemoration and already is piquing interest, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said.

"If the people who have been angling with me to get invitations to things are any indication," Kaine said with a chuckle, interest in the anniversary "dramatically increased" when the queen announced her plans for a state visit to Virginia in May. She also visited Jamestown in 1957, the year of its 350th anniversary.

"The queen's announcement is the thing that will really put the kind of double exclamation point on this," Kaine said in a telephone interview before his trip to England.

Planners say they are on target to at least meet their goal of attracting 2.4 million visitors throughout the 18-month series of Jamestown 2007 events.

"We're six months away from anniversary weekend, which is the pinnacle ... but we are actually also six months into the commemoration, and I think we already have a success," said Jeanne Zeidler, executive director of Jamestown 2007, part of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, a state agency that runs two history museums and is coordinating commemoration efforts.

For example, a total of more than 456,000 people attended the free festivals held at each stop when the commemoration kicked off last May with a replica of one of the settlers' ships visiting six East Coast ports. Organizers had expected 250,000.

Jamestown-related events in England were another opportunity to call attention to the commemoration and to celebrate the friendship between the United States and Great Britain, Kaine told reporters from London on Dec. 19, the anniversary of the launch of the settlers' three ships bound for Virginia.

The settlers brought with them "powerful founding virtues" of the rule of law, trial by jury, elected legislative leadership and religious freedom, said Kaine, who was in London at the Museum in Docklands for the opening of an exhibit about the outfitting and planning of their voyage.