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 →
Cities are as much a vault for abandoned history as the countryside, and there’s something logical and engaging about urban exploration. The whirr of production, the odor of industry, the energy are all as much a part of the bay’s … Continue reading →
John Roberts and his wife were surely crushed. Their six-year-old daughter had been missing almost a week when she turned up, accidentally drowned, caught in a fish trap in the swiftly-flowing James River. It was 1862. Even with news trickling … Continue reading →
The Towles sisters, Florence and Marion, must have wondered what they’d gotten themselves into. On dark nights they huddled together in a ramshackle cabin, terrified, miles from civilization, listening, Florence recalled, “to the thunder of flying horses’ feet and the … Continue reading →
Surely the oddest spectacle in all the Chesapeake Bay’s tributaries is Mallows Bay. You can’t help some sense of bewilderment paddling about the 170-odd burned and weather-beaten hulks, their remnants barely breaking the surface of the murky water, their keels sunk fast … Continue reading →
