History
Petticoat Hill receives its name from a family of seven daughters, who, according to local tradition, lived on the hill and regularly hung their petticoats from a laundry line where they "wave in the wind visible for miles around when the did their laundry on Mondays."
By the early 19th century, the area around Petticoat Hill was the most populated section of Williamsburg. The current reservation property, except for a field of boulders, was mostly sheep pasture. When farming interests moved to the Midwest by the late 1800s, the hill gradually reverted to forest. Old stone walls, foundations, and cellar holes are the only remains of the hill's former use.
The east side of Petticoat Hill was donated to The Trustees of Reservations in 1906 by Mrs. Edward W. Nash in memory of her husband. Additional land was donated in 1924.
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“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
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“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)