The Virginia Society has presented its first award recognizing outstanding achievements in Colonial history to Dr. William M. Kelso, C. B. E., at a ceremony on September 20, 2025 at the Commonwealth Club in Richmond, Virginia Governor Blair H. Nelsen reported.
“As part of the events during our hosting of the General Society of Colonial Wars’ 44th General Assembly, we have recognized Bill Kelso, a renowned archeologist and historian who revolutionized the knowledge and understanding of Jamestown, the first permanent English colony on the American continent,” Nelsen said.
Kelso is currently the Emeritus Director of Archaeology and Research at the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, having retired in 2021. In the 1990s, as Director of Archaeology for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now Preservation Virginia), Kelso was convinced that the original Jamestown fort had not, as prevailing opinion held then, washed into the James River over the centuries.
His team’s excavations on Jamestown Island uncovered the footprint of the fort’s southern palisade in 1994. That discovery and subsequent excavations profoundly and permanently changed what we know about our nation’s founding and earliest years.
“The award, known as the Russell Cecil Scott Award, will be given from time to time to a person or organization whose work is judged to have made significant contributions to our understanding of the Colonial era, its people and events, “said Nelsen.
Scott, a Virginian and engineer whose career included work on guided missile programs for the Navy and on guided missile propulsion at Experiment Incorporated in Richmond, died in 2018. He had served as Governor General of the General Society of Colonial Wars and Governor of the Virginia Society as well as a member and participant in numerous other lineage groups such as Society of the Cincinnati, Sons of the Revolution (past member of the board of managers of the Virginia Society) and Order of First Families of Virginia 1607-1624/5.
He led many efforts as Governor General to identify and memorialize important Colonial era events and landmarks and was, in addition to his interest in history, an avid waterman and a dedicated environmentalist for the Chesapeake Bay.
