CCC Camp NHP-4 (former) – Yorktown VA

Description

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp NHP-4 was created at Yorktown, Virginia, for the purpose of developing the Colonial National Historical Park (Jamestown Settlement, Yorktown Battlefield, Colonial Parkway). Camp NHP-4 housed CCC Company 1351, a World War I veterans company that had been formed at Langley Field, Virginia, on May 26, 1933.

Company 1351, along with four other African American CCC companies, developed Colonial National Historical Park. This work would continue until at least the end of 1941 – essentially, the entire life of the CCC program. The CCC enrollees worked under the direction of the National Park Service (NPS), which had just taken over the job of caring for military and historical parks from the US Army.

A history of Company 1351 described some their projects at CNHP: “The first work was the restoration of the French battery… Construction of the Ship Museum is an outstanding project, started in June, 1935, and completed in October, 1935. This involved the reproduction of a section of the gun-deck and the Captain’s Cabin of an English Frigate. Every detail has been observed to make the reproduction as accurate as possible. Guns and other items salvaged from the York River have been given their proper places… locating and throwing up trenches, battery positions and redoubts of the second ring of fortifications around Yorktown. At the end of September, 1936, the Fusileers Redoubt, which was the outpost of the west side of Yorktown protecting the British flank, was completed” (Dist. 4, Third Corps Area history, 1937).  (See our various project pages on Colonial National Historical Park, here.)

We don’t know the exact location of Camp NHP-4, but suspect it was near Surrender Field, where other CCC camps were located.

NB: CCC camps in the South were always segregated, but that was not true everywhere until 1935; for further discussion, click here.