If ever you wanted a taste of our forefathers’ hardiness, you’d find it at Wash Woods. There, in thickets of low-slung evergreens, far from any human population, are the hidden ruins of a community that had no roads in or … Continue reading →
The treasure buried by Charles Wilson would be worth ten million dollars today–ten chests filled with precious gems, silver and gold bullion that have never been found, despite that Wilson wrote explicit directions to the stashed riches. As alluring as … Continue reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
