Why YPS?

To aid in fulfilling its mission, YPS has undertaken a number of ongoing programs and individual projects through its history as APVA/PV Yorktown Branch and now YPS.  A sampling of these major programs and projects is:

  • Funding the restoration or conservation of many of the ancient York County documents, many of which date to 1633.  Previously, there were approximately 50 documents restored or conserved as a result of this effort by the APVA/PV Yorktown Branch.  Continuing this effort, YPS has just completed funding the conservation of York County Marriage Licenses dating between 1866 and 1876.
  • Securing one of the cannons from a British warship from the Revolutionary War from the York River and arranged for it to be mounted and displayed at Riverwalk.
  • Preserving Secretary Thomas Nelson’s home site from being destroyed when Zweibrucken Street in Yorktown was being resituated.
  • A project was funded in part to document the results of 1980’s and 1990’s excavations in Yorktown that uncovered a large number of historic artifacts from Nicholas Martiau’s original seventeenth century Fort and considerable evidence of the use of the site by the Chiskiak Indians.  The project document is entitled Yorktown’s Buried History From Chiskiak to the Civil War (currently unpublished).  UPDATE November 1, 2018–the book has been published and is available for sale at the Gallery at York Hall.
  • Providing financial contributions to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Compte de Grasse Chapter Custom House where original documents and maps are on display.
  • On-going support as one of 13 organizations to serve on a rotating basis as the lead organization responsible for Yorktown Day Celebration each October 19th in celebration of the surrender of British forces led by Lord Cornwallis in Yorktown on October 19th 1781, effectively ending the American Revolutionary War.
  • Instrumental in having the Sessions House placed on the National Register as a National Historical Landmark.