The Hampton Roads Area

I recently spent a wonderful few days few days (9/6 to 9/11) with Craig in Chesapeake, VA, and its surrounds. It was a work trip for Craig, but I went with him to celebrate our anniversary on Sunday, September 9. As we were there over the weekend, we had time to do some sight-seeing. We also enjoyed sampling some of the local restaurants.

I was initially a bit puzzled that the area is called Hampton Roads. Roads? Apparently the word comes from roadstead, meaning a sheltered body of water and defined in maritime law as "a known general station for ships, notoriously used as such, and distinguished by the name." In this case, the "notoriously used" body of water incorporates the Chesapeake Bay, and the mouths of the Elizabeth, Nansemond, and James Rivers, along with several smaller rivers, which empty into the bay. "Hampton Roads" refers both to the roadstead and the surrounding metropolitan area in Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina, which includes Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach in Virginia, and Elizabeth City and Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina.

The area felt like a resort with its beaches, waterways, lush foliage, heat, and humidity. Being used to dry heat, I found the humidity somewhat novel and surprisingly relaxing, although I also appreciated the A/C and the hotel pool.

While we were out there, we visited the Virginia Aquarium. We didn't get out into the marshland hike, but we enjoyed the usual sampling of sharks, jellyfish, and rays.

On Sunday, which was our anniversary, we visited Dismal Swamp State Park, with its canal, creeks, and dense forest,  just across the state border near South Mills, North Carolina. As we walked along the boardwalk, just a little above the marsh, we saw lots of butterflies, a turtle,  and several dainty, little white-tailed deer. At the end of the boardwalk, we saw an exhibit containing two very playful North American river otters. The beauty of the site is tarnished by its association with slavery. Slave labor was used to drain and log the swamp, and a long canal was built with slave labor. Escaped slaves (sometimes called "maroons") took refuge in the swamp, and it was used as a route along the Underground Railway. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captured the contrast between the natural beauty of the site and its cruel past in the poem The Slave in the Dismal Swamp. Two stanzas that juxtapose the natural beauty of the swamp with the suffering that occurred there are:

"A poor old slave, infirm and lame;
     Great scars deformed his face;
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,
And the rags, that hid his mangled frame,
     Were the livery of disgrace.

All things above were bright and fair,
     All things were glad and free;
Lithe squirrels darted here and there,
And wild birds filled the echoing air
     With songs of Liberty!"

Possibly as a response to Longfellow's poem, David Edward Cronin, who fought for the Union during the Civil War, painted Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia, in 1888.

Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, 1888

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote an anti-slavery novel,  Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, about maroons living in the swamp.

For our anniversary dinner, we revisited an Italian restaurant, Reginella's Trattoria & Pizzeria in Chesapeake I'd fallen in love with a few days earlier. Craig suggested going somewhere "fancier", but I enjoyed it so much the first time that I was delighted to go there again. I was not disappointed! 'Wonderful food, and the chianti was very good too!

While Craig was at work on Monday, I drove up to Jamestown. I took Highway 64, which meant crossing over Chesapeake Bay via the bridge tunnel. On the way, I stopped in Williamsburg and visited the College of William and Mary.

Jamestown, on the banks of the James River, was established in 1607 and was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Initially, it seemed a miserable place to stay. On May 24, 1607, Captain Christopher Newport dropped off 104 men and boys at the site and went back to England. When he returned with about 100 more settlers in January, 1608, only 38 of the original 104 had survived. Another convoy of nine ships, bearing supplies and more colonists,  left England on June 2, 1609, but two of the ships were separated from the others in a storm (possibly a hurricane). One of the two, the Sea Venture, was stranded in Bermuda, while the other returned to England. Seven made it to Jamestown, where they dropped off another 200-300 settlers but few supplies. In the meantime, the colony leadership had begun to quarrel. John Ratcliffe threatened to have John Smith hanged, and eventually sent him back to England to "answer for his conduct." This was probably a blessing in disguise for Smith, given that he escaped the coming famine and avoided the same fate as Ratcliffe, who was captured in November, 1609, by Powhatan's forces and tortured to death. At the start of the winter of 1609, there were some 500 settlers living at Jamestown. Only 60 were left when help arrived in May 1610. That winter is known as the Starving Time. The Jamestown fort was besieged by Native Americans and lacked stores of food. Colonists were forced to eat horses, cats, and dogs, and even, according to archaeological evidence discovered in 2012, practiced survival cannibalism,

The colony stumbled on, recovered, and became profitable through its tobacco industry. Pocahontas, the favorite child of Powhatan, the paramount Native America chief of the region, was kidnapped and held for ransom by the settlers in 1613 as part of some Anglo-Indian conflict. While in captivity, she converted to Christianity, adopted the name Rebecca, and, in April 1614, at the age of 17, she married the tobacco planter, John Rolfe. They had one son, Thomas, who had one daughter, Jane, who had one son, John Bolling (Jane married a Robert Bolling and died shortly after the birth of their first child.) After that, the family became much more prolific, and many people, including two former first ladies (Edith Bolling Wilson and Nancy Reagan), claim to be direct descendents of Pocahontas. At the gift shop in Jamestown, I bought The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History, by Dr. Linwood "Little Bear" Custalow and Angela L. Daniel "Silver Star". More on that later ...