You can almost forgive the early visitors for their ignorance. What they took, what they left behind, seems quaint and antiquated. The damage they did, however, was permanent and marred irreplaceable treasures. Now their harmful handiwork serves as an example … Continue reading →
Used to be you had no problem seeing the Ghost Fleet. After all, there were 850 idle ships lashed together in neat rows of two dozen or more stretching five miles. Today, though, that vast armada is a dying flame. … Continue reading →
Revolutionary War earthworks–genuine ones that haven’t been touched up or reconstructed–are hard to come by anymore. They’ve been fending off the elements and growth for getting on two-and-a-half centuries. That’s why it’s so remarkable that a rural Virginia county contains … Continue reading →
The shorelines are indistinguishable from ones adjacent. They’re stretches of sand lapped by the Chesapeake Bay’s waves, full of life and memory, ceding ground as the sea level rises. These beaches are small slivers of the Bay’s 11,684 miles of … Continue reading →
Update: The City of Virginia Beach has promised local hotelier Bruce Thompson $18 million to help preserve the Cavalier. Thompson’s entire redevelopment will cost more than a quarter billion dollars, and will include the construction of 100 homes nearby, but the grand old structure is … Continue reading →
Concrete floats. Well, a concrete hull does, anyway. Form the material to make a vessel that displaces water and–voila–just like steel, concrete is buoyant. Go figure. I knew writing a book about the Chesapeake Bay’s abandoned history would lead me … Continue reading →
There are 50 keystones missing. Perhaps some adorn nearby mantles. Others maybe are forgotten, collecting dust in attics or as doorstops. Regardless, they’re gone, likely for good, wrenched from a once-palatial mansion that now shows just how cruel a curator … Continue reading →
The western end is an attractive backdrop for a trim, brick patio. The opening 4,000 feet east hides beneath jagged terrain and tangled thickets. These are the portals of the Church Hill Tunnel, ten blocks distant but a world apart. … Continue reading →
The April afternoon is hot–the first scorcher of the year–and I feel a sunburn rising as I stand on the dock at the Pamunkey Indian Reservation. That same heat tightening my skin has triggered some primal urge in the American … Continue reading →
Turn seaside at Eastville on Virginia’s Eastern Shore and you’ll be traveling on Indiantown Road. Most days this rural byway is lightly traveled. Traffic picks up just a hair when there’s some community activity–softball or basketball, for instance–at the Northampton … Continue reading →
There are 64 people buried at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach. 64 souls in a small circle of sandy ground maybe 20 feet across. This is no grown-over, out-of-the-way country cemetery so common on the rim of the … Continue reading →
Nothing says spring like two fat roe sacs on a plate. That’s what our great grandparents thought, anyway. Much of the food our forbears looked forward to arrived in the manner that many folks want theirs today–slowly, locally, seasonally. Sadly, … Continue reading →
On the forest floor behind a country churchyard near the forgotten village of Winterpock, Virginia yawn two deep holes. One is covered with a square frame of concrete and a metal grate. The bottom is underneath somewhere, but it’s concealed … Continue reading →
Drive west on Virginia State Route 6 from Richmond and you’ll come to the fringes of suburbia where the signs announcing new subdivisions end and the scenery has blended into countryside. Somewhere near here, more than 300 years ago, a … Continue reading →
John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin, would be aghast to see the spot where he met his end. After all, the vainglorious murderer scoffed at what he was told was the $140,000 price on his head. He thought it should be … Continue reading →
A news report I read recently quoted a local calling Deal Island, Maryland a dying community. That image was a potent siren call. I had no choice but to investigate, particularly since Deal Island is an icon of Bay culture, and … Continue reading →
No telling how many would-be immigrants to the United States actually believed the mantra that the streets of this prosperous land were paved with gold. What few people realize, however, is that there’s a spot just outside Washington D.C. where … Continue reading →
If you had to guess the origin of the gold that adorns us, Virginia might be one of the last places that comes to mind. Fact is, however, there’s a chance–albeit a small one–your jewelry once resided deep in the … Continue reading →
The way Benson Lossing tells it, the Abingdon willow really got around. Well, the fruit of her loins did anyway. The remarkable tale of the promiscuous weeping willow of Abingdon Plantation isn’t as much the story of lost structures as … Continue reading →
What happens when real estate appears more or less out of thin air? Turns out the answer’s not all that difficult to find out. Fisherman Island is at the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula. The most remarkable thing about … Continue reading →
