Reflections 2016
Series 19
December 12
East Coast X: Hampton Roads – Maryland's Eastern Shore

 

We left off having sailed overnight ("like thieves in the night") from the Pamlico-Albemarle Sounds via the Albemarle-Chesapeake Canal into the southern branch of the Elizabeth River to find ourselves docked at a pleasant park in downtown Norfolk. Ahead of us, the Elizabeth River flows into the body of water called Hampton Roads, which then leads into Chesapeake Bay. You'll want to review that on the following excellent map we used in the last posting—let's refer to it now as the Coinjock-Norfolk map, since those were the two stops the American Star made in this area:

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/collections/nc/AIWW_map.jpg

 
 

Click, of course, and you'll find that entire route, except that Hampton Roads is not actually named on this map. While we'll come back to it for its detail, it doesn't give the big picture as to the unusual urban agglomeration here at the southern end of Chesapeake Bay, which for many people, takes the name of the waterway, Hampton Roads, as well, a fact that may confuse the issue in the minds of some. So let's add this map:

http://reinventhr.org/images/HamptonRoadsMap.gif

 
 

All the municipalities shown here are generally referred to as Hampton Roads, based on that waterway (not named here) between Hampton/Newport News to the NW, opposite Norfolk/Portsmouth to the SE. This is not unprecedented. The municipalities in Florida now referred to as "Tampa Bay" include Tampa, St Petersburg, Clearwater, and others. What's often referred to simply as the "Bay Area", or, more completely, the "San Francisco Bay Area" includes San Francisco, Oakland, and numerous other municipalities in the region. Calling the present entire region "Hampton Roads" corresponds to those models completely.

 
 

Note on the upper right that Cape Charles, the bottom of the Delmarva Peninsula, is not included, so it's not accurate to say that this urbanization is a phenomenon at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. Instead, note Fort Story on Cape Henry, at the southern end, which is the location of the First Landing of European settlers here, and then follow the route they took up the James River to Jamestown, the first settlement, and its later alter ego, Williamsburg. Over the centuries, it's this early routing that's become urbanized in this east-to-west direction. It would seem that this urbanization is a "South Chesapeake" phenomenon-cum-"James River" phenomenon. Most accurate would be to combine those thoughts to calling it a South Chesapeake-James River urbanization. But it's simpler to call it Hampton Roads.

 
 

The land portion logically divides itself into two regions. The municipalities to the south are often called South Hampton Roads. The municipalities to the northwest are on the Virginia Peninsula between the James and the York, one of several peninsulas on the west side of the Chesapeake we discussed in 2016/10. Perhaps contrary to local custom, I might refer to the Virginia Peninsula municipalities instead, quite logically, as "Northwest Hampton Roads", so we can more easily remember what is located where.

http://www.cabinetsbydesignva.com/map.jpg

 
 

Now add this map to our reference source, since the color-coding into subdivisions helps. In addition to the core area we just saw, we see that, by some definitions, other areas in Virginia can be included. Most notable is the Williamsburg area, which I like to see included, since the historic area in and around Williamsburg is a destination that adds an elevated presence to all of Hampton Roads.

 
 
 It's worthwhile bringing up here the culinary subject of ham and to point out the town of Smithfield, which appears on both of the last two maps. The term "country ham" first appeared in print in 1944 to describe a variety of cured ham, typically very salty, referring to a method of curing and smoking ham as done in a number of states in the South. Particularly well known among those is Virginia ham, a country ham produced in Virginia. On the other hand, if a Virginia ham is produced within the town of Smithfield, it has the legal distinction of being called a Smithfield ham. The first record of the commercial sale of cured Smithfield ham dates from 1779, and the state of VA has regulated the use of the term since 1926, defining processing, and requiring the name be used only for hams produced within the corporate limits of Smithfield VA. Most frequently, the term "Virginia ham" refers to a "Virginia-style" of curing, no matter where produced. In addition, all Smithfield hams are Virginia hams but the converse is not true. Smithfield hams rank among other legally protected names of hams, such as Germany's Westfälischer Schinken (Westphalian ham), Spain's jamón serrano (Serrano, sierra, or mountain ham), and Italy's prosciutto di Parma. I find it of interest that this culinary distinction occurs in a place along the James River, just downstream and across from the first settlement.
 
 

While still discussing Hampton Roads as a whole, this is a good time to bring up the subject of the bridge-tunnels. To get the big picture, find where they are shown by the three white lines on the last map, but even more detailed information is to be found back on the Coinjock-Norfolk map.

 
 

The logic behind these unusual structures is not complex. Bridges are meant for vehicular (or rail) traffic, but have to accommodate maritime traffic below; and you can make bridges only so high to let ships pass. Otherwise you need lift bridges, swing bridges, and others. The alternative is a tunnel under the maritime channel. But tunnels are expensive, especially when the distance is long. So the solution is to build a tunnel under the maritime channel—or maybe two tunnels under two channels--and then to connect the ends of the tunnels by bridges. Obviously, the big problem is the connection. How do you connect a tunnel to a bridge in the middle of the bay or river? You build an artificial island.

 
 

The largest of the three bridge-tunnels at Hampton Roads, and probably the most famous, is the lengthy Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT), which opened in 1964 and crosses the mouth of the Chesapeake N-S between the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula at Cape Charles (remember, that area is the "va" in Delmarva) to Virginia Beach, and is 37 km (23 mi) long. Using the word "bridge" is customary, but misleading. There are four high-level bridges (at the north end), but most of the above-water route is actually a string of causeways—they call them trestles—connecting those bridges and two tunnels (at the south end), for which four islands are needed.

 
 

This rest-area informational sign (Photo by Sarregouset) shows the route. The four artificial islands are numbered, and the tunnels and bridges are clearly indicated. We can illustrate them all. This is the causeway ("trestle") (Photo by Kevin Coles) at the southern end in Virginia Beach. As you see, you can hardly call this a bridge. On the other hand, this is a causeway rising to approach a bridge (Photo by Ken Lund), which would have to be at the northern end. This interesting aerial view is of one of the islands (Photo by Kevin Coles), where the causeway coming from the left disappears at the island into the tunnel leading to the right. And this is what it looks like entering the Chesapeake Channel Tunnel (Photo by Ken Lund). I found it an odd feeling to be suddenly driving down UNDER the Chesapeake when located in the MIDDLE of the Chesapeake.

 
 

There are two other bridge-tunnels here (see map), not crossing the Chesapeake, but Hampton Roads instead. The oldest of the three is the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT), opened in 1957, running 5.6 km (3.5 mi) between Hampton and Norfolk and the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT), opened in 1992, 7.4 km (4.6 mi) between Newport News and Suffolk/Portsmouth. You will also note on the map that there's also a James River Bridge, which is a lift bridge, showing that some crossings are just more normal than others!

 
 

We've discussed bridge-tunnels twice: the connections under construction between Hong-Kong and Macau in 2013/19, and, in 2006/7, the two that I crossed in Scandinavia, the Great Belt Fixed Link within Denmark, and the Øresund/Öresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden, both of which carry both roads and rails. Not counting the still incomplete Hong Kong constructions, there are only ten bridge-tunnels in total in the world, with the only ones in the United States being the three in Hampton Roads. Of the seven other completed ones, in addition to the two in Scandinavia, that leaves five, none of which I'd ever been aware of: in China, one in Shanghai; in Japan, one in Tokyo; in South Korea, one in Busan; in the UK, one in London on the lower Thames; in Canada, one on the St Lawrence, downstream from Montréal. So as it turns out, I now find there is another one in North America besides the three in Hampton Roads.

 
 

My personal experience with the unusual, rather exhilarating, experience of crossing a bridge-tunnel. were the two in Scandinavia, both by train, and two in Hampton Roads. In 1969, on the second of two all-summer Grand Tours of the US & Canada in our VW Camper, coming down from Gettysburg, we stopped in Williamsburg, then drove over the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, via Norfolk and down to Kitty Hawk. In 1981 we encircled Delmarva and Chesapeake Bay. We drove down the east coast of the Delmarva, then drove over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, stopped for my first visit to Cape Henry, then crossed the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel again to continue up the Western Shore and down into the Eastern Shore.

 
 

Day 16 (early): Hampton Roads/Norfolk    Although we have more to say about the Virginia Peninsula ("Northwest Hampton Roads"), we'll pause here, freshly docked in Norfolk this morning, to resume the narrative and finish discussing South Hampton Roads, starting right here with Norfolk.

 
 

We've traced our route on the map up the South Branch of the tidal estuary of the Elizabeth River, and we find that, although the well-known naval base known as the Norfolk Naval Station is in the north of town, we passed the Norfolk Naval Shipyard overnight, and find that, despite its name, that entity is located, not in Norfolk, but in the city of Portsmouth across the Elizabeth. The Elizabeth does, however, form the core of the Hampton Roads Harbor. It was named by the Jamestown colonists in the early 17C for Princess Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James I (James River), the sister of both Henry Frederick (Cape Henry), and Charles (Cape Charles) who was the later King Charles I. Apparently, the whole family got into the act.

 
 

This is a nice aerial view of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman, which, following maintenance at the shipyard, is here transiting the southern branch of the Elizabeth River, just as we did overnight. Click to review the scene, including downtown Norfolk at the top right, especially Town Point Park where we are presently docked. Norfolk has been a shipping and naval center since it was founded in 1608, and the Naval Station, established in 1917, is the largest naval base in the world. Norfolk is considered to be the historic, urban, financial, and cultural center of the region and is now attracting more visitors due to the rebirth of downtown and the construction of the cruise ship pier where we are docked.

 
 

The ship offered two tours here. In the morning, a tour went to the Naval Station (picture ID required). I'm sure that's an attraction for many, including the many retired military men onboard, but not for me. I was sure we'd continue to pass by a lot of huge gray ships before we left town, and I was right, so I stayed near the ship all morning and relaxed.

http://www.virginiadot.org/images/ct-cmaps-norfd.jpg

https://images.trvl-media.com/media/content/shared/images/travelguides/destination/602904/Town-Point-Park-33017.jpg

 
 

The above map of downtown Norfolk (click) shows just where we were docked at Town Point Park, pointing downstream. I got to see a little bit of downtown around the park and it was quite pleasant. The picture shows the brick walkway next to where we were docked (in May, the trees were greener than this).

http://www.siguccs.org/Conference/Fall2010/images/aerial_waterside.jpg

https://res-5.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/c_fill,f_auto,q_75,/v1/clients/norfolk/waterfrontfestivals2_bac487f2-a216-46ea-b03c-8606edb08128.jpg

 
 

The first picture looks downstream from the park to Hampton Roads itself, where we'll be heading at the end of the day. The second picture is just the reverse, looking not only upstream, but even up the southern branch of the river in the background. There are boats docked along the brick walkway in the park. The building in the foreground, the Nauticus, is a maritime-themed science center and museum. And just as we saw the USS North Carolina docked as a museum in Wilmington, here the USS Wisconsin is docked next to Nauticus as a museum. Given my lack of interest in things military, I'd still give Norfolk one star for its pleasant downtown..

 
 

Day 16 (later): Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach    The afternoon tour offered by the ship was to Virginia Beach, fortunately including Cape Henry. This tour had been a question mark for me from the beginning. Virginia Beach (most of it) would be a huge draw for a beach-oriented vacationer, but not for a traveler. I remembered how the group so wisely applauded when we heard we were skipping Myrtle Beach SC—also great for beachgoing vacationers, I'm sure--and this would not be any different. I even had toyed with the idea of renting a car in Norfolk for a few hours—I already had the downtown address of Enterprise--and driving to Cape Henry myself as I'd done out of Dubuque for Galena, but I relented and signed up for the tour, resigned to suffer through triviality in order to reach deeper essence at Cape Henry.

 
 

Virginia Beach is a newcomer, having been incorporated as a city only in 1952, so (other than Cape Henry) where's the history? The unusual geography? I knew it was largely suburban and resort-oriented, although I was really quite surprised that, at 437,000, it's the most populous city in all of Virginia—even neighboring Norfolk has only about 56% of that. But as things turned out, this afternoon trip had life breathed into it by a dynamo, a bulldog, a Force of Nature, named Pat Joyce. But for the big picture, we have to back up one step, back into North Carolina.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census_issues/ctpp/data_products/journey_to_work/profile62.jpg

 
 

I had to go searching for information such as the above after the fact, and I'm surprised that I'm surprised by what I found. I'm well aware that metropolitan areas extend beyond state lines. After all, I look out my window from NY to NJ, and CT is also included. Chicago's metropolitan area also extends from IL north to WI and east to IN. But I didn't expect what I found on this map, that the governmental Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) for Hampton Roads actually extends into coastal NC. In fact, this map is slightly inaccurate. It only includes Currituck County NC. But curiosity got the better of me. Knowing that Kill Devil Hills is the most populous city on the Outer Banks, it seemed that it would be included, and it is. Picture this MSA as extending down the cost beyond where it is shown, to both Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills.

 
 

Why should that be of significance here? When I got off the ship to take the Virginia Beach tour, I was surprised to find, relaxing on a bench along the brick pathway as though she owned the place, the same tour guide I'd liked so much that took us out of Coinjock to see the Wright Brothers site. Aside from having enjoyed her personality, I appreciated the fact that she added at the beginning of the drive circling around Kill Devil Hill in order to see the First Flight statues, and definitely since she found time at the end to cut over to the to the former lifesaving station, then drive up along the beachfront. She was already my kind o' gal.

 
 

But the area being in two different states—with an overnight in between—I hadn't realized that she had come down to NC from VA to do that tour. She probably also had done the morning tour to the naval base, and she was back again for Virginia Beach, which actually "made" the trip. Below is information I culled over both days. Some was given over the PA on the bus, some was via private conversations, before or during the second tour, sitting with her on that park bench or walking along at Cape Henry.

 
 

Leaving Coinjock yesterday, she started out by saying this, verbatim, over the PA: "My name is Pat Joyce. You can call me Pat. You can call me Joyce. I answer to both." What a dynamic start. As we had entered the bus, she had stood outside next to the door greeting us, like a petite tank, oxymoronically speaking. She was an older woman, short, a bit stout, with white hair in a beehive hairdo up to THERE. Now my late mother, for the last four decades of her life, also had had her white hair in a beehive, but the height of Pat Joyce's hairdo was at best, maybe 2/3 the height that my mother's had been. But Pat Joyce was equally feisty, and full of spunk.

 
 

I'd heard the number 80 mentioned, so walking along at Cape Henry I asked her her age, which she offered freely. Pat Joyce was 84. She had said she'd spent her career in the hotel and catering business in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area. When I asked about who owned the bus, she explained that she was a private contractor. I assume that means that she leased the bus(es), hired the drivers—there were different ones each day--and contracted these bus tours with companies like ACL, with her being the guide. I asked her if she was from Norfolk. She said she'd lived most of her life in Norfolk, but now lives in Virginia Beach—then she dropped another bombshell—in a retirement home! Some retirement!

 
 

Check again on the Coinjock-Norfolk map to estimate our route out to Virginia Beach, including Cape Henry and the site of the First Landing on its north side. When the tour got there, we simply drove up the main drag, Atlantic Avenue. The downtown map below will confirm our route.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/north-america/usa/virginia-beach/map_of_virginia-beach.jpg

 
 

All we did was to look at a string of beachy resort hotels (Photo by Jason Pratt), between which we could peek at bits of beach. (This view is to the south, so we were coming north on Atlantic Avenue to the right (click). It's apparently a fine resort for vacationers, but, really . . . However, Pat Joyce made an interesting difference. She'd lived in the area so long that she'd make personal references to several of the places we passed. The only one I remember was when she said of a place "we'd always like to go dancing there". It was a very nice, homey touch.

 
 

We then got to Cape Henry, where the bus had a gate check, since, as the map shows, everything there is on the grounds of the military installation at Fort Story. But I'd rather discuss what we saw and did there separately below. I'll mention now that, while walking along I continued my chat, Pat Joyce pointed out the full breakfast she eats regularly, which, to my surprise, included quinoa. Now can there be anything wrong with someone who eats quinoa, as we discussed back in Ecuador, especially for breakfast?

 
 

While discussing Cape Henry, she also wanted to make a reference—I never did understand just what that reference was—to Helgoland, which she was fumbling pronouncing. I spoke up and said I'd been there, that the original German name, which most languages use, and which I prefer to use, is indeed Helgoland, but that there is a variation including an "I", Heligoland, used in English (also French and Spanish). Understanding the variation in the name, she then was able to deal with its pronunciation, and made her point, whatever it was. However, for the rest of the time, she referred to me as "my German guy", which made me smile.

 
 
 I can't help but take a little riff here on the subject of Helgoland, a German island in the North Sea, the only one not near the mainland. The population is Frisian, and the island has been under the jurisdiction in the past of both Denmark and Britain.

http://w0.fast-meteo.com/locationmaps/Helgoland.8.gif

As avid Germanists, on one of our many trips to Germany over the years, Beverly and I took a day trip to Helgoland. Against all odds—you can't do a web-search through 18 handwritten travel diaries that include multiple trips to Germany—I found the Helgoland entry, 23 July 1981. I remember the trip well, but some details were getting hazy, yet it all comes back clearly to me now. We were in Hamburg, where we started our day trip by taking the train down the Elbe to Cuxhaven (see map) for the 2-3 hour ferry ride. This is Helgoland from the air (Photo by Pegasus2). The view is southeast, toward the mainland, and you can see indications in the water (click) of ships arriving in the harbor. The lower town is near the harbor in the low part of the island, the Unterland, and we took an elevator that brought us up to the plateau, the Oberland, which also included the upper part of town. Its now coming back to me that we walked an entire circuit of the plateau on the brick path called the Klippenrandweg ("cliff-edge-way") with views of seagulls, the North Sea, and the red cliffs, up to the whitish stone column on the bottom left of the picture. This is the Klippenrandweg (Photo by Kai-Uwe Fischer) on the west side of the island, looking north.

That column, here at the northern tip of the island, is its most famous sight. It's a freestanding column 47 m (154 ft) high called Lange Anna, or Tall Anna (Photo by Andreas Trepte). Be sure to click to inspect the sandstone on both the cliffs and on Lange Anna. But sandstone is soft, and weathers away—you see the protection already in place for Lange Anna. But nevertheless, she's doomed. Look at the growing horizontal fracture not too far from the base to see what the future holds. And the writing is on the wall. I've just learned from the caption to the next picture that, at the northern tip of the island, the viewing platform (Photo by Coastal Roamer) collapsed into the sea a couple of years ago, and the path had to be shifted. Sic transit.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/images/heligoland-1990s.jpg

I also have this map of Hel(i)goland and its neighboring dependency, largely in English. We'll come back to it shortly, with more to say about it. /¶ After Cape Henry and our little Helgoland interlude, we headed back to the ship, but Pat Joyce had one or two more subtle bombshells (another oxymoron) for us. As we drove past the road approaches to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, she discussed it. Mentioning opening day 52 years earlier in 1964, she said she'd attended the ceremony (!!), and my jaw dropped. We had a historical personage here! Then the other shoe fell when she explained why she was at the ceremony. She catered it!! Because of Pat Joyce, plus my interest in Cape Henry, I have to give my Virginia Beach experience one star as well after all.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ugl3ZZaVUlk/TIb-a-W0KoI/AAAAAAAABNA/3rwaX6ux8Lg/s1600/capes.gif
 
 

Cape Henry    We can now get back to the real activity at hand, the actual visit to Cape Henry, starting with the rather special geography. The above map shows both of the Virginia Capes that form the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. It's easy to see how long and slender Cape Charles on the Delmarva Peninsula is, and how it is the only part of the Delmarva in Virginia. It's also a good illustration of just what the bridge-tunnel (not shown) connects.

 
 

Geographically, in comparison, Cape Henry on the map just looks like a bump on a log at the edge of the mainland, completing the exclamation-point image of the two capes taken together. This is an aerial view of Cape Henry (Photo by Gabor Eszes), facing, by my estimation, east-southeast. Click to inspect the ships entering the Chesapeake behind us, the view out the wide Atlantic to—who knows?—Helgoland, and the beach at Virginia Beach at the far right. Then try to concentrate on the Cape itself to see if you can make out one of the two lighthouses there. The water's edge at that point is the site of the First Landing, so historically, Cape Henry has a lot to offer.

 
 

On 10 April 1606, James I chartered two joint stock companies whose purpose was to establish settlements on the east coast of North America. While they collectively were called the Virginia Company, the names of two English cities were used to distinguish them. One was called the Virginia Company of London (or the London Company) and the other was the Virginia Company of Plymouth (or the Plymouth Company). While their charters were the same, they were assigned two different territories in North America (Map © 2004 Matthew Trump). Oddly, the territories overlapped considerably, but the companies were instructed not to establish colonies within 100 mi (161 km) of each other.

 
 

The Plymouth Company's territory ran along the coast from the upper Chesapeake to what is today the Canadian border. They attempted to settle a location in what today is Maine, but it failed, was abandoned, and the company became inactive, never fulfilling its charter. It was a successor company that eventually established a permanent settlement in 1620 in Plymouth MA with the religious, so-called Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower.

 
 

The London Company's territory was from about Long Island Sound down to Cape Fear, and it's their settlement we're talking about here. In 1606 a voyage was initiated that, after 144 days, made landfall at Cape Henry on 26 April 1607, thirteen years before the Plymouth settlement of 1620. It included three ships headed by Captain Christopher Newport carrying a group of all-male colonists, 105 men and boys. One of them was John Smith of Pocahontas fame. Newport's ship, the Susan Constant, was the largest, and the others were the Godspeed and the Discovery, the smallest.

 
 

But Cape Henry was in an open area, subject to attack, and the colonists were under instructions to move inland. A few days later they discovered what is now called Hampton Roads, but continued upriver along the largest river, and most likely, the one leading farthest west, which they named the James, after the king who gave them their charter. While their route since Cape Henry had kept them along the south shore, they decided to settle at a spot on the north shore, that they named Jamestown, 56 km (35 mi) inland, which they reached on 14 May 1507, less than three weeks after their first landfall. What they created here was the first permanent English settlement. It was a few years later that settlement came to the Elizabeth River. The site they chose for Jamestown was flawed in many ways, and was eventually abandoned for a move inland to what became Williamsburg, but that's another story (below).

 
 

As corporations, the Virginia Companies were empowered to govern themselves, and also grant governing power to their colonies, which they did. In 1624, the Virginia Company of London failed, but its grant of self-government to the colony was not revoked, and the Crown allowed it to continue. Thus, the principle was established that a royal colony should be self-governing, which was the beginning of democracy in North America.

 
 

But back to Cape Henry. The colonists had named Cape Charles after King James's younger son Charles, but more prestigiously, named where they actually physically landed after Henry Frederick, who, as the elder son, was Prince of Wales. He was well-liked and considered a bright and promising heir to the throne. His popularity was so great that it might have been considered to surpass that of his father. But at the age of 18, he died of typhoid fever, and predeceased his father. His death was considered a major tragedy to the nation, and he was widely and deeply mourned. Thus, his younger brother became heir apparent, and eventually became King Charles I.

 
 

Our bus arrived at Cape Henry and, walking toward the beach, we first came across the Cape Henry Memorial, a 1935 granite cross that commemorates the First Landing in 1607. When the colonists arrived and named the Cape, they explored the area, and had set up a wooden cross.

 
 

It would seem that this is a monument to the first permanent settlement in the United States. That is true, but short-sighted and parochial. The colonists that made landfall here established what would become British North America (BNA), which developed into two modern countries. While the US chose, to put it mildly, not to remain in BNA, the area to its north did, and maintained the designation BNA for much of the 19C until confederation in 1867, when the name was changed to Canada. By that very logical reckoning, this monument to an English arrival in North America in 1607 is just as fundamental to the establishment of Anglo Canada, even though it lies within the United States, as was Champlain's establishment of French Canada in 1608 when he founded Québec City and New France (2013/5).

 
 

From the monument, a boardwalk to the beach rises up and over a dune (All four photos by Virginia State Parks Staff). On the other side of the dune is the beach, but the boardwalk also continues along the beach to the right to allow for an overview of the scene. This is the beach view from the end, but click to find the boardwalk in the distance, which is where we got our view from. Finally, for something we did NOT see, these are reenactors portraying the First Landing. On the other hand, in the spirit of HIC LOCUS EST, I'm sure we all enjoyed that THIS IS THE SPOT where the First Landing took place, and could reconstruct it all in our minds.

 
 

The bus then took us to the other side of the parking lot to see the pair of other sights here, the Cape Henry Lighthouses, with the unusual sight of finding two lighthouses in one place (click). Note the view out to sea here. The brown light is the original, older one, dating from 1792. It was the first lighthouse authorized by the US government, and also the first federal construction project under the Constitution. Once concern arose about the stability of the older structure, the second one was built in 1881. Both are now a National Historic Landmark. Notice the daymarks in black and white on the newer one, and compare them to the spirals on the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and the horizontal bands on the Bodie Island Lighthouse, both in the previous posting.

 
 

Virginia Peninsula ("NW Hampton Roads")    We need to break into the narrative again here before we leave this area to talk about the rest of it. Though visited in the past, it's not actually part of this trip, and we will NOT describe it in detail as though it were, but just enough so we all understand how it's a part of the whole. Refer back to the two regional maps, the 2nd and 3rd in this posting to re-orient yourself. We'll start furthest west, in Williamsburg, since it's the place that lends its own private Colonial grace to the entire region.

 
 

Williamsburg is located just a bit further up the Virginia Peninsula from Newport News, so it's on the western edge of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It also has two other historic areas of interest adjacent to it, Jamestown and Yorktown, so that a road called the Colonial Parkway (Map by Hal Jespersen) has been built to connect the three, in an area referred to as Virginia's Historic Triangle.

 
 
 Beverly and I were in Williamsburg twice. The first time we already mentioned, during the second Grand Tour of the US & Canada in 1969. We'd driven down from Gettysburg, stayed in Williamsburg, also seeing Jamestown and Yorktown, then took the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel to Kitty Hawk.

The second visit was just to Williamsburg in 1989, and was in a way probably one of the most unique trips we'd ever taken, since it was our one and only "mothers' trip". Beverly's mother had flown in from Minneapolis to visit us at our house in Purchase NY. We drove down to my mother's on Long Island, left the car there, and the four of us took the LIRR to Penn Station, and then Amtrak all the way down to Williamsburg, round trip. The train then had a special designation, The Colonial, although now I see that route just falls under the Northeast Regional service. It was a very nice, convenient way to visit Williamsburg.
 
 

At the eastern terminus of the Colonial Parkway is Yorktown, site of the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, also referred to as the Surrender at Yorktown. I remember driving around the redoubts of the Yorktown battlefield in 1969, though I remember little detail. In a nutshell, this map (click) shows what happened—red shows the British, blue shows the allied Americans and French; solid lines by land, dotted lines by water. You see how forces converged within the Virginia Capes, then at Yorktown, the result being the British surrender under General Cornwallis on 19 October 1781 to Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau, including the capture of Cornwallis and over 7,000 British troops. Although the Revolutionary War would last for another year, the British defeat at Yorktown proved to be the last major land battle of the war, and effectively ended it, since it prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict, resulting in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

 
 

The 1817 painting by John Trumbull of the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis hangs in the Rotunda of the US Capitol and depicts Cornwallis surrendering to the French (left) and Americans (right). The only problem is, there's a bit of fantasy in this portrayal, since Lord Cornwallis didn't personally attend the surrender ceremony, claiming to be ill. You can imagine his pique—and butterflies--having effectively lost for Britain the huge piece of British North America that became the United States.

 
 

The other terminus of the Parkway (which goes in a tunnel under the Colonial Williamsburg restoration) is in Jamestown, which was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, founded on 14 May 1607. It's been said that Jamestown is where the British Empire began, as it was the first colony in the Empire. As the Colonial Parkway map also indicates, it was founded on Jamestown Island, among many salt marshes which proved to be a mosquito breeding ground, one of the reasons why it was a bad site, where many died. Jamestown was the capital of the colony for 83 years, from 1616 to 1699.

 
 
 The map doesn't show modern roads or bridges. Our visit there was, again, back in 1969, and I remember quite a simple site, lots of trees with some building foundations evident. I have reason to believe that a lot of further archeological excavation has been done since, so I cannot give any further current details. One reason I suspect great change is this map, which shows where the fort was traditionally thought to have been located, off a shoreline eroded away by the river, but also where the actual location was discovered, in 1994, long after our visit.
 
 

Jamestown burned in 1676, but was rebuilt. During that time, the Virginia legislature met at a community 13 km (8 mi) further inland and on higher ground called Middle Plantation, which had been founded in 1632. After another fire in 1698, the legislature again moved to Middle Plantation. But that was apparently the last straw, because the next year, 1699, the capital was permanently moved out of Jamestown to Middle Plantation, which was soon renamed Williamsburg in honor of the then current king, William III. Jamestown was abandoned about a half-century later, its site not being rediscovered for three centuries, in the mid-20C.

 
 

As Williamsburg was Virginia's capital for most of the 18C, including during the time of the American Revolution, perhaps one should visualize it on a par with the other major cities of the Revolutionary period--Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston. And again, the war ended on Williamsburg's doorstep, in Yorktown.

 
 

But Williamsburg's time was not to last, either. Eight decades later, in 1780, the capital was again relocated from Williamsburg to Richmond, which was felt to be more secure and more central, given that the center of population had moved west. Richmond is located only 70 km (45 mi) upstream from the first capital, Jamestown. Over time, Williamsburg declined, but as we quoted my phrase earlier in Harpers Ferry, Poverty Preserves, so much of its colonial core was waiting to be rediscovered—and salvaged--in the early 20C.

 
 

As we come to a brief discussion of Williamsburg we find half the story already told, since it links so closely with Jamestown. In a sense, Williamsburg functioned as what I like to call a "New Jamestown", and carried on the heritage of the first permanent English settlement in North America. I'm not sure most people see that connection. But here's a point I just learned. We said Jamestown's location on the water's salt marshes was one of its problems leading to the move to higher ground at Williamsburg, also to a more central location. But—talk about odd quirks of history—that was just one of the things that caused Williamsburg's later decline! Losing the capital in 1780 reduced Williamsburg in status, although not nearly as much as Jamestown declined on its own loss of the capital. Transportation and travel in the 18C and 19C was so largely by water that Williamsburg's high ground location was a factor against it. Nor was it on the water, not on the James, and not on the York, and it failed to grow as commerce went elsewhere.

 
 

When railroads began to spread out in the 1830s, they, too had no reason to come to Williamsburg, given its location well out on a peninsula. But that finally changed in 1881, when the C&O decided to build its double-tracked Peninsula Extension down the central ridge of the Virginia Peninsula. Its purpose was not to reach Williamsburg. It wanted to deliver West Virginia coal to Hampton Roads for shipment (see rail map), and Williamsburg's central location finally worked to its advantage. This move changed the rural farm village of Newport News into a city, and the Hampton Extension of the line to the east benefited Hampton, as well, with two stops there, including Phoebus, now part of Hampton. Williamsburg was so pleased to have the railroad that it allowed the B&O to locate it on a so-called "street run" right down the main street of town, the Duke of Gloucester Street, and even through the ruins of the historic capitol building. Time marches on, right?

 
 

Williamsburg's reawakening to its past began in the early 20C. When the Reverend Dr W A R Goodwin of Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Church realized that his church, as well as many other colonial-era buildings in Williamsburg were deteriorating rapidly, and action was needed. He used contacts he had to attract the interest, and major financial support, of John D Rockefeller, Jr and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. They worked together to create the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which worked to restore, and to rebuild when necessary, dozens of buildings in downtown Williamsburg's Historic Area and to create one of the largest historic restorations in the US.

 
 

They created a living-history museum where employees practice traditional crafts in the shops and costumed reenactors walk the streets adding to an 18C atmosphere, although the buildings represent the 17C, 18C, and 19C. One may see someone leading a team of oxen pulling a cart down the street, or a column of soldiers marching.

 
 

The interaction of visitors with reenactors is consummate street theater, which, as a visitor, I've participated in at numerous restorations, but which is here at its best. I discussed Williamsburg shortly once before, in 2008/6, and have two stories that I told then that I consider worthwhile; one was a conversation with a "New York traveler" and another with an "apple-peeling enslaved woman". They're both short, and are worth going back to take a look at in that posting.

http://www.mappery.com/maps/Williamsburg-Virginia-Map.gif

 
 

Click on this map to get an idea of Williamsburg's surroundings. Start historically at Jamestown on the bottom, where the modern roads are shown. Follow the Colonial Parkway to see how it goes through central Williamsburg in a tunnel before continuing to Yorktown—the inset map shows the battlefield.

 
 

The second-oldest institution of higher education in the US after Harvard (1636) is the College of William & Mary, established in 1693, whose location you can't miss on the map. It abuts the historic area, adding additional historic authenticity to it. Its many students and staff make modern Williamsburg a college town as well as a historic destination.

 
 

Note how on the main map modern highways have been diverted from the center, the newer I-64 of course, but even the older US 60—and without a doubt, the rail line as well. None of these any longer run down Duke of Gloucester Street--compare that with the inset map, which also illustrates three landmarks, the rebuilt Capitol (through the ruins of which the train tracks had run), the rebuilt Governor's Palace, and the (original) Wren Building at William & Mary.

http://shelleybeatty.com/wp-content/uploads/historic_area_map.jpg

 
 

But this map (click) shows it better. The dotted line shows the historic area, centered on the three main east-west streets and their connecting side streets, the core being the Duke of Gloucester Street (to the Capitol) and the Palace Green (to the Governor's Palace) perpendicular to it to the north. You can see the proximity of William & Mary's College Yard and the Wren Building, and the tunnel for the Colonial Parkway. Check out the bypass roads to the north, and the rail tracks. You see the Amtrak station where we arrived with the mothers and the nearby Visitor Center where we stayed at one of the residential facilities.

 
 

Go back to the center. Original are the Bruton Parish Church (independent and still functioning), the Wythe House behind it, and nearby Randolph House, as well as the Courthouse and Magazine opposite it. But let's move to the right to a beautiful reconstruction, the Raleigh Tavern (Photo by Humberto Moreno). It's right on Duke of Gloucester Street, so we not only see that, but also the Capitol (click) just down the street. Now picture it when US 60 used to come right down this street, and of course, the B&O railroad line as well.

 
 

Finally, let's take a look at a group of interpreters right on Duke of Gloucester Street intermingling with visitors (Photo by Harvey Barrison). One of these would have to be just like the "New York traveler" we'd spoken to years ago about his travails in getting to New York from Williamsburg in colonial days.

 
 

Newport News & Hampton    As we said, the arrival of the B&O brought great vigor to Newport News & Hampton at the end of the Virginia Peninsula. Our only comments here will be as to names. Hampton, an old English name, gave its name to Hampton Roads, the waterway between Hampton and Norfolk and, by extension, to the region. But one of the oddest place names one has surely ever heard of is Newport News. I remember first hearing about it in the 5-6 grade wondering at first if maybe it was the name of a newspaper, but then deciding not, since a newspaper would have to be THE Newport News.

 
 

The quirkiness of the name of course makes it that much more interesting. There are two different issues, so let's start with the first word. The two best well-known cities named "Newport" are probably Newport, Rhode Island and Newport, Wales. Both are presumably named because at one time each was, as the name clearly says, a new port--I find no other indication of their being named otherwise. But in the case of Newport News—at least for those in the know—the reference is instead apparently to Christopher Newport of First Landing and Jamestown fame. (Or not—see below.)

 
 

Yet others would have no idea that it's a person's name involved. I'd even guess that for many less-informed locals, they, too, might have no idea it's a person's name. We can align this situation with two other names we recently mentioned where the person's name is also a regular word, obscuring the dedication in the name: the engineers Holland of the Holland Tunnel and Snow of Snow's Cut.

 
 

Christopher Newport University (CNU), where Harold taught, was founded in 1960 as an extension of William & Mary, and is now independent. I have to out on a limb here with some speculation. When the city of Newport News and the Commonwealth of Virginia joined forces to establish it, the included "Christopher" in the name, and it's even to be found in the acronym. My guess is that they wanted to make absolutely clear that it was named after an individual, and not necessarily directly after the city, which may—or may not—be also named after that individual. Including the given name is uncommon when the dedicatee is a person: it's NOT called John Harvard University nor Elihu Yale University.

 
 

The second element in the name—the quirkiest--is much more problematic, and there is no definitive explanation. A commonly bandied-about story is has fairy-tale connotations: an early group of colonists in Jamestown, despairing, left to return to England on one of Captain Christopher Newport's ships, but promptly encountered a fleet of ships arriving with reinforcements of men and supplies, so they returned to Jamestown. This rather contrived, feel-good story would have you believe that the community on the way back to Jamestown was named after Newport's good news. But why this community? And even so, why not name it Newport Good News? If this tale suits your taste, I have some other old wives I'd like to have you meet. They'll also tell you how Nags Head NC is named after a horse on the dunes.

http://www.weather-forecast.com/place_maps/ne/Newcestown.8.gif

 
 

Now consider this explanation. Sir William Newce was an English soldier who originally settled in Ireland, where he established Newcestown (see above map) southwest of Cork. (Newcestown's name in Irish is Baile Níos.) In 1621, he sailed to Virginia, where he received a land grant, but died two days later. His brother, Captain Thomas Newce, also got a land grant, but it was a partner, Daniel Gookin, also from Newcestown, and who also arrived in 1621, who completed founding the settlement and who is the first documented owner of land in Newport News. Gookin's tract ran from Newport News Point, at the end of the Virginia Peninsula, up along the James River and well to the north.

 
 

The Newce explanation I found cites a source that gives the original name of the settlement as New Port Newce, named for the Newce family and referring to the town as a new (sea)port. This would simultaneously throw out any reference whatsoever to Captain Christopher Newport, but would reconcile the name with other places named Newport as simply describing a new port.

 
 

We recently defined folk etymology again, but I have another amusing example, that of people talking about "old timers' disease" in reference to Alzheimer's Disease, an understandable example of folk etymology. It would then not be a great leap to discovering the first two words of New Port Newce being considered a unit, and Newce (NUSS), an unusual name, undergoing a folk etymology change to News (NUZ), even though no news is involved.

 
 

But there's still another possibility, related to the word "nose". "Nose" itself has been used since the 1530s to describe a geographic promontory projecting out into water—I think of Anthony's Nose, a mountain projecting into the Hudson River. This other word, now obsolete, except, notably, in place names, is "ness", also meaning a promontory, or point. In Old English it was næs; there are other related words in other languages, but I'll just mention Old Norse nes. I do this, because I recognize it immediately as the final element in the name of the village of Kirkenes, the northern terminus of Norway's Hurtigruten, the coastal express boat (see Voyage #11 in 2013/7). Since kirke is Norwegian for "church (or kirk)", Kirkenes could be translated as Church Point.

http://w0.fast-meteo.com/locationmaps/Lowestoft.8.gif

http://med04.expertagent.co.uk/in4glestates/%7B32b73735-87c0-4324-8ba0-f73c221bcbb3%7D/%7Bdebf10f2-935c-4ba6-885a-1bb15e39274a%7D/HIPS/central%20lowestoft.jpg

 
 

That's the Norwegian version, but a bit of online digging brings us to the English town of Lowestoft (first map) and, within it, Lowestoft Ness (second map), which is the easternmost point in England, the UK, and the British Isles, and the site of the Euroscope, a marker showing directions and distances. Lowestoft Ness can also be called Ness Point, but if you realize that "ness" already indicates a point, historically speaking, "Ness Point" is redundant.

 
 

So where does that get us? The southern end of Gookin's land tract started at Newport News Point at the bottom of the Virginia Peninsula, and I understand that some old maps refer to that point as Newport Ness. If that's indeed the case, then it's again easy to see how folk etymology altered an unfamiliar word, ness, to a familiar one, news, foolish as it might seem. And once again, as soon as you realize that a ness is a point, historically speaking, the modern name "Newport News Point" is also redundant. But it's also noteworthy that this "ness" explanation does bring Captain Christopher Newport back into the picture as dedicatee.

 
 

While no one knows the answer, you can believe a popular explanation of actual news that reeks of being an old wives' tale, or one of the two others that have considerable historic and linguistic gravitas, the "Newce" explanation, or the "ness" explanation. Good luck.

 
 

Hampton Roads    We now come to the elephant in the room that we've been avoiding discussing since the start, the name of the actual waterway called Hampton Roads, specifically that second word. What on earth? Roads in the water? This is what I've been able to put together by way of a simple definition, then an explanation of the words, then illustrations.

 
 

The term "roads" also appears as "roadstead". For either of these synonyms, I've cobbled together this definition that I like, because it sums it all up best:

an anchorage less sheltered than a harbor, often lying right outside one

Such an anchorage is sheltered from the open ocean, from ocean swells, from rip currents, and from unusually high tides. Ships may wait there to enter the harbor, but not necessarily. They just might want to wait for a change in the weather. The terminology might be more maritime in nature and—my speculation again—the concept itself might possibly be used less frequently today than in earlier centuries, confusion about just what "Hampton Roads" means being indicative of that.

 
 

Both "road" and "stead" are Germanic in origin. Let's work on "road" first, keeping that R-D root in mind. It's related to "ride" (such as a horse, down a road) and to "ready" (originally meaning prepared for the road). In the latter case, the modern term "road-ready" is, historically speaking, once again, redundant. Curiously, it's also related to "raid" (picture horsemen ready to ride down a road on a raid, and you have four related words in one sentence).

 
 

Let's look into other languages for this anchorage concept, Germanic first:
GE: Reede (say RÉ.da); DU: rede; SW: redd; DN & NOR: red;
the Germanic R-D root has also entered the Latinate languages: FR: rade; SP & IT: rada,
and also Slavic RU: рейд (reyd).

 
 

Here's a curiosity. The Online Etymology Dictionary says that "road" in the sense of an open land route between two places is first recorded in the 1590s, but "road" referring to a narrow stretch of sheltered water is much older, dating from the early 14C! That means the "route through water" meaning is older than the "route over land" meaning, although the latter is the one that has become prevalent. It would also mean that calling the terrestrial route a "road" seems to have been a metaphor for the nautical "road", and not vice versa, as would otherwise seem apparent.

 
 

But the nautical "road" no longer exists in the singular, only in the plural as "roads". I find no explanation of that, but can speculate that it might signify a meeting of routes. However, I have not been able to determine whether the nautical "roads", though historically plural, is to be treated today as a singular or plural, although my suspicion is singular, such as in "a roads is a nautical waterway", but I've not been able to determine that. I suspect the reason is that most users of the word try to rephrase it, such as by using "roadstead" rather than battle the grammatical problem. I've also seen "roads" described as being "short for 'roadstead'." Nonsense. "Road", singular, is certainly a part of the longer word, and can be used by itself, usually in a form appearing plural, to have the same meaning, but that's no way to describe the two words.

 
 

Now let's discuss "stead". In English (only) "road" can be combined with "stead", meaning "place". Used by itself, "stead" is becoming obsolescent. It sounds quaint to hear someone say "you can go in my stead". Instead (pun intended) it's used in compounds, such as in "instead", which was written as two words until the middle of the 16C. Other compounds are "bedstead, farmstead, homestead". "Stead" is also related to "stand", so to "stand fast" caused "steadfast" to form. The second element in that word can also be replaced with –Y to form "steady". Related to "stead" in some other Germanic languages is the word for "city, town": GE Stadt, DU, SW, DAN stad. I am also advised that the late 16C English reference to the Hanseatic League was "The Stads".

 
 

In any case, Hampton Roads is a roadstead—or roads—that is one of the world's largest natural ones. Referring back to our Coinjock-Norfolk map will show that it incorporates the mouths of the James River, Elizabeth River, and, between them, the Nansemond River, named after a tribe of Native Americans, plus several smaller ones, emptying into Chesapeake Bay.

 
 

Technically, there are many roadsteads around the world, to some extent, most harbors have a nearby anchorage for waiting ships. We shall illustrate three. This is a map of Hawaii. Click to find Lahaina, the capital of Maui. Lahaina Roads is the anchorage between, and protected by, the islands of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai, and, to some extent, Kahoolawi. Villefranche-sur-Mer [-on-Sea] is a port in the South of France just east of Nice, with a bay located between two headlands. This picture looking south into the Mediterranean shows the town and bay, and includes la Rade de Villefranche (Photo by Vmenkov), or Villefranche Roads, here occupied by two cruise ships. Click to confirm that the closer one is the Norwegian Jewel. It's obvious how the headlands offer protection to ships here, which probably are too large to enter the actual harbor, anyway. You can also make out the wake of what seems to be a tender taking passengers into town. This makes me wonder about Beaufort NC and our trip by tender into town while the ship lay at anchor nearby. I'm not sure it was in an actual roadstead, but that deeper anchorage in Beaufort certainly served as one.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/images/heligoland-1990s.jpg

 
 

I said we'd come back to our map of Helgoland, and so we'll repeat that link here. We talked before about the land designations, but now look at the multiple harbors between the islands, mostly artificial. But now we can talk about the North Roads (Nordreede) and South Roads (Südreede) on either side of the central channel. I'm advised that here is where the ferries anchor auf Reede while passengers are tendered into and out from the island. I frankly didn't recall that that's how our ferry arrived there back in 1981, but suppose it was.

 
 

The Battle of Hampton Roads    We're almost done here, but not quite. We need to discuss the Battle of Hampton Roads during the Civil War. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you might recognize it by a more familiar name, the The Battle of the Monitor & Merrimack. Perhaps you thought, as I had, that that naval battle logically took place somewhere out on the ocean, but no, it happened here, in the calmer waters of the roadstead.

 
 

But there's a very specific reason for its taking place here. The North had ordered the blockade of southern ports, and blockading Hampton Roads was meant to primarily keep Virginia's two largest cities, Norfolk with its shipyard and the capital Richmond, up the James River, from international contact. But as the blockade was being implemented, the Union commander of the shipyard delayed in evacuating the ships under his command to ports in the North until it was too late. Although one, the USS Cumberland, was towed away successfully, he ended up burning nine ships under his command and attempting to destroy the facilities in the yard.

 
 

But one of those nine ships, the USS Merrimack, burned only to the waterline, and her engines were more or less operative. When the Confederates took over the yard, they were easily able to restore the facilities, and gained the use of this huge navy yard, as well as of the ship that was to become so famous. The Confederates thus controlled the south side of Hampton Roads and fortified the mouth of the Elizabeth River.

 
 

This explains why a Confederate ship had a quintessentially New England name. The ship had been built near, and named after, the Merrimack River in New Hampshire and Massachusetts (Map by Karl Musser). Actually, the Confederates did rename the ship as they worked in the shipyard converting it into an ironclad, and to what other name would you imagine but the CSS Virginia. Therefore, technically, it's the Battle of the Monitor & Virginia, and some sticklers will continue to call it that, but since the Union considered secession illegal, the renaming was also considered illegal. In addition, the world seemed to love the M&M alliteration. In any case, this wash drawing shows how the Merrimack (Virginia) looked. It's easily recognized for its resemblance to a sloping roof with rounded ends.

 
 
 Although I didn't make a point of it at the time, you may have noticed on the Coinjock-Norfolk map that it's the Monitor-Merrimack Bridge-Tunnel that exits the Virginia Peninsula to the south, close to the battle site, so even when the Commonwealth of Virginia wanted to name the facility to commemorate the battle it stuck with M&M and even Virginia avoided the name of the state.
 
 

With the Confederates in charge of the southern part of Hampton Roads, the Union controlled-- and never lost control of--the northern side, because they retained possession of Fort Monroe (see map), and built a fort named Fort Wool on a tiny island opposite it, so they had the entrance to Hampton Roads blocked, and occupied the entire end of the Virginia Peninsula up to Newport News. These forts cut Norfolk and Richmond off from the sea completely. (In 1981 we visited Fort Monroe coming off the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel on our circling of the Chesapeake.)

 
 

While the Confederates were converting the Merrimack into an ironclad in the shipyard, the Union got word of it, and arranged for Swedish engineer and inventor John Ericsson to build the USS Monitor in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with some parts built in Manhattan and brought across the East River to be assembled in Greenpoint. Ericsson's revolutionary turret in the center of the ship was a unique concept in gun mounting. His design for the ship employed over forty patented inventions of his and was completely different from any other naval warship at the time, helping it to be able to keep the Merrimack in check.

 
 

This is a halftone reproduction of a drawing of the USS Monitor at sea. It's not a submarine, although its flat deck resembles one. Ericsson's famous armored turret is what stands out the most. This is a statue of John Ericsson (Photo by Bronks) in Battery Park in lower New York, just a few minutes from where I live. You cannot fail to recognize the model of the Monitor he's holding. It was Ericsson who came up with the name "Monitor", since a monitor is "one who oversees and polices wrongdoers". Ericsson could have made a fortune off all his patents, but gave them instead to the Union government as his contribution to the war effort.

http://thomaslegion.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/battle-of-hampton-roads.jpg

 
 

The battle then, was part of the effort by the Confederacy to break the Union blockade of Hampton Roads. It lasted two days, 8-9 March 1862, but it started without the Monitor, which had left New York for Fort Monroe on 6 March, being towed by an ocean-going tug and accompanied by gunboats. That means the Merrimack was on its own against the conventional wooden Union ships, and, just as the watching world feared, it tore right through them. The above map (click) shows in red the Confederate forces on the south side of Hampton Roads and in blue, the Union forces on the north side. It shows (in solid lines) the action on the 8th, where the Merrimack left the Elizabeth River and confronted the wooden ships, ramming and sinking the USS Cumberland right off Newport News Point.

 
 

There is deep irony that this was the ship that was the first to be sunk by an ironclad. If you'll recall, it was the Cumberland that had escaped destruction on 20 April 1861 by being the only ship to be safely towed away at the shipyard, leaving the nine others—including the Merrimack—to be burned. She sailed back to Boston for repairs, then returned to Hampton roads as a blockader until this date, 8 March 1862, when she was sunk. Thus her respite lasted just six weeks less than a year.

 
 

While only one of the ironclads was present the first day of the battle, the day still bore deep significance around the world. It was the turning point in the history of world naval affairs, since in showed the advantage of a steam-powered, armored ship over a sail-powered, wooden-hulled ship, and things were never the same. As you'll recall, in this period, illustrations such as those of Currier & Ives were the "photographs" of the era, and this Currier & Ives print shows the Sinking of the Cumberland. The distinctive roof-shape of the Merrimack is obvious.

 
 

The Monitor finally arrived during the night, so it saw no action until the second day, the 9th, which is when the two famous ironclads finally fought each other, as shown by the dotted lines. This is the day that perhaps remains most vivid in the minds of many, although it was the first day's destruction that changed world history. Most of the action was right off Sewell's Point, where the Norfolk Naval Base is today. (This battle map also shows Fort Wool as well as Fort Monroe.) It was when the Merrimack finally approached a Union ship that the Monitor intercepted her. The two ironclads fought for about three hours, but they were equally matched, neither inflicted significant damage on the other, and it all ended indecisively. They pounded each other at such a close range that they also managed to collide with one another five times. Afterward, the Merrimack returned to the shipyard on the Elizabeth and the Monitor to the Union positions, with no more action taking place. While neither side won, the blockade remained in place, so the Merrimack did not fulfill its mission to break it, while the Monitor did fulfill its mission to preserve it. The next month was spent with each vessel posturing, but not fighting. Neither ship ever fought each other again—or anyone else, for that matter--after the Battle of the Ironclads on 9 March 1862.

 
 

We can look at two different visuals of the battle. This is the Currier & Ives view. In case you don't recognize the Monitor by its turret, the US flag will help, just as the Confederate Bars & Stars indicates, along with the sloped "roof", the Merrimack. We also have a chromolithograph by Louis Prang & Co, that you can click to enlarge for some good details.

 
 

Famous as the two ships were, neither had a glorious end, and neither survived very long. The end came first for the Merrimack. The Confederates abandoned Norfolk, and she was to sail up the James to Richmond. But the river, even in the best of circumstances, only had a depth of 5.5 m (18 ft), which was not enough to accommodate her so she could pass upstream. She was trapped in the Elizabeth River, which meant she could only be captured or sunk by the Union Navy. To avoid that, the Confederates scuttled their own ship. The battle map shows where she was set afire on 9 May, burning through the rest of that day and overnight. By dawn, the flames reached her magazine, and she blew up.

 
 

But the Monitor didn't survive that year, either. She was ordered to sail to Beaufort NC on Christmas day to take part in the blockade there. While she was being towed down the coast, the wind increased, as did the waves. She did not have high sides, so she took on water, which put out the fires in her engines. The order was given to abandon ship; while most men were rescued by an accompanying ship, 16 went down with her in the early hours of New Year's Eve, 1862, just south of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. You will recall that the ocean off the Outer Banks is called the Graveyard of the Atlantic, and the Monitor was a famous addition to that. The precise location is now known because the wreck of the Monitor was located in 1973, and in 2002, marine salvagers raised the ship's famous gun turret, as well as other artifacts.

 
 

So what is the significance and impact of this battle? The first day showed what an ironclad could so to wood-hulled ships, and the second was a preview of fighting between two ironclads. The battle received worldwide attention, and had an immediate effect on navies around the world. Great Britain and France were then the major naval powers, and both immediately halted any further construction of wooden-hulled ships, with others following suit. Ericsson's Monitor became the prototype for a new type of warship, and his revolutionary turret was soon adapted on ships around the world.

 
 

That happened in the US as well. I refer back to our discussion of Vicksburg in 2015/7. Go back and look at the Currier & Ives print of Union ironclads running the gauntlet of the Vicksburg gun batteries that were attempting to block passage on the Mississippi. Later in the article, review the pictures of the salvaged remains of the USS Cairo, the armored gunboat we visited that had been discovered buried in the Mississippi mud.

 
 

Culturally, as well, it was the beginning of the end of the Era of Wood. Think back to the wooden rails that were originally used to get to Ellicott City, picture the oldest wooden rail cars, and realize how today almost no vehicles of any kind are wooden, not trains, not cars, not boats, not planes. Those that aren't made of steel are made of plexiglas. The Wright brothers still worked with wooden gliders and built the Wright Flyer of wood, but they were at the tail end of a disappearing era.

 
 

The Hampton Roads Sailaway    Our bus returned from Cape Henry late in the afternoon, and the ship set sail promptly. That's where I could see the difference in how people travel. We were about to have an amazing sailaway through historic waters, another example of the sailing route being as important as, if not sometimes more important than, the ports visited. But I suppose some people don't see that. After we all freshened up, the boozers and chowhounds went for their drinks, then dinner. But some of us held off for a while and went up on deck to enjoy the fabulous sailaway.

 
 

Follow our sailaway, starting on the battle map, then moving to the Coinjock-Norfolk map to appreciate the full glory of the moment. Shortly after leaving Town Point Park, we passed the point on the left—port side, as you'll recall—where the Merrimack (Virginia) was willfully burned, and then blew up. We then pulled out onto the storied Hampton Roads itself, which Christopher Newport and the settlers crossed, coming from the First Landing on Cape Henry to sail up the James to found Jamestown.

 
 

As we then veered slightly right, we could see to the left Newport News Point, where, on the first day, the ironclad Merrimack rammed and sank the wooden Cumberland, making worldwide news. But then we cut further to the right, and passed Sewell's Point, cruising right through the very waters where the Monitor and Merrimack fought each other. How cool is that, boozers?

 
 

Check out how we're headed to break through the Union blockade and enter the Chesapeake, but then move to the modern map to follow the red dotted line of the ICW past Sewell's Point (here unnamed), today the site of the Norfolk Naval Base, bristling with huge, gray aircraft carriers and battleships at all those piers. For a moment, we can check the sky for a satellite view of those piers and of all of Hampton Roads. But then let's get a closer view of that long, gray line of ships.

https://chivethebrigade.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/norfolk-navy-base-920-12.jpg

 
 

To appreciate our location, we need to adjust our perspective. This view is to the south, with downtown Norfolk, which we've just left, in the left background. So picture us instead coming towards the camera, but more important, picture us way down closer to the water, with the rear ends of these huge ships looming overhead.

http://www.jgflinn.net/Trip2010/Trip2010%20Images/Chesapeake%20Map.jpg

 
 

We then leave Hampton Roads and enter the Chesapeake, seeing it now from the southern end (click), just as we'd visited it in Havre de Grace (not named) to see its northern end, where the Susquehanna enters. That was just thirteen days ago. After visiting it from many sides in the past, we're finally sailing on it. Our last two stops will be, first on Maryland's Eastern Shore [of the Chesapeake] in the Cambridge/Easton area, and then in Baltimore. Later this evening we'll get more views of the nighttime Chesapeake from our cabin balcony, but now that we've properly and fully appreciated this fine sailaway, it's time to join the other boozers and chowhounds for a drink and dinner.

 
 

Maryland's Eastern Shore    While Virginia also has an Eastern Shore, which is what Cape Charles serves as, not only is Maryland's Eastern Shore much larger, it's also probably better known for its history and cuisine—as an instance, you'll recall we dined on, and illustrated, Maryland crab cakes in Chesapeake City (2016/11). In Washington and Baltimore, a reference to the Eastern Shore, unmodified, almost certainly refers to Maryland's. And this area was the focus of those two trips Beverly and I took.

 
 

I can't count the number of times I've talked about James Michener in these postings. I learned from him early on how, when traveling, one goes to places where it's the history and geography that count first. Two of my favorites of his Hawaii and The Souce, illustrate this. He starts Hawaii in prehistory, with the formation of the islands, and how many times haven't we the same here? After all, how can you understand Tibet being on a plateau in the Himalayas unless you realize how India shot across the ocean to undermine and raise it? Then Michener writes how group after group immigrated to the islands, forming his historic layering. He does the same about the Middle East in The Souce, but in reverse order. And I understand history in similar layers. For instance, you have to understand Fort Moultrie before you understand Fort Sumter.

http://www.kellyworld.com/Photos/Delmarva/DelmarvaBig.JPG

 
 

But none of his novels was followed by Beverly and me with such quick action to physically visit the place than when Chesapeake appeared in 1978 (here, the cover of the first edition). It was still on the best seller lists when, in 1981, we left right after Easter Sunday to spend Easter week driving completely around Delmarva and Chesapeake Bay, visiting as many sites as possible. That was when we first were in Wilmington and New Castle (click on above Upper Delmarva map), used the two bridge-tunnels for Hampton Roads and Cape Henry, visited sites on the Western Shore including Annapolis and the Naval Academy and Baltimore, then crossed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore to see our "Michener sites" in the Cambridge/Easton area (more below), and made our first visit to Chesapeake City on the way home.

 
 
 You see how on the above map the Chesapeake Bay Bridge crosses from urban Annapolis to Kent Island, then to the rural Eastern Shore. It's usually just called the Bay Bridge and is really two bridges, dating from 1952 and 1972. Its construction has transformed Kent Island and the adjacent area into a bedroom community for Washington, Annapolis, and Baltimore, and the area is now considered part of the greater Washington/Baltimore area. It has also made access much easier to Ocean City on the Atlantic, causing it to grow, at least in the summer season, into the second largest city in Maryland. This is an aerial view of the Bay Bridge (Photo by Andrew Bossi) looking southeast toward Kent Island.
 
 

But that wasn't all. Just two years later, also in April, we revisited Michener country on the Eastern Shore once again on our way to our Language Conference in Baltimore. And now, sailing on the American Star, I was pleased to meet a couple who not only had read the book, they'd read it more than once—and even had a copy with them as we sailed on the Bay.

 
 

I'll admit that after all these years I had to check Wikipedia to get the precise details of the novel again. Michener's time line for the novel runs from 1583 to 1978, the year it was published, and follows, as is typically the case, several families, principally on the Eastern Shore, generation after generation, layer upon layer. The first chapter involves Native American tribes warring in 1583, then the plot follows English settlers throughout the 17C, involves slavery, tobacco growing, pirate attacks, the American Revolution, the Civil War, Emancipation, and ends with Watergate in the 1970s.

http://www.thebayguide.com/old_site/images/midbay.gif

 
 

Use this more detailed Eastern Shore map, including "Michener country", to supplement the previous one. All places we visited here were also mentioned in the book. In 1981, we cut down from the Bay Bridge right to Cambridge. It was settled by English colonists in 1684, making it one of the oldest colonial cities in Maryland. It was the inspiration for Michener's fictitious town of Patamoke, around which much action takes place, and which was supposedly located opposite Cambridge across the Choptank River. The Choptank, (Map by Kmusser) which also features prominently in the novel, is the largest river in Delmarva, and, as we see again and again in and around the Chesapeake, its mouth has long since been drowned, forming a huge estuary.

 
 

But good things come in small packages, so a short drive to the northwest brings one to tiny Oxford MD, population 601 in the last census, first mentioned in 1683. It was once a major shipping port, and was surrounded by wealthy tobacco plantations. An early inhabitant was Robert Morris Jr, known as the "financier of the Revolution". But it was the Revolution that started Oxford's decline, since the British ships with their imported goods were gone, and tobacco was replaced by wheat as a cash crop.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Oxford-Bellevue_Ferry_route_%28USGS_topology_map%29.png

http://chesapeakeghostwalks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/robert-morris-inn-oxford-2.jpg

 
 

We passed through Oxford in 1981 (see map) and liked it so much, we came back in 1983 and spent a night in the Robert Morris Inn (picture), located at the ferry landing on the southwest corner of Strand Road and Morris Street (unnamed). It had been his home and dates from 1710. General and later President George Washington was a close friend and visited Robert Morris often. In more recent times, Michener stayed here while outlining the novel.

 
 

It claims to be the oldest inn in America. It's a lovely, historic place to visit, and I recommend it, but I don't quite buy that story. In 2011/22 we visited Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, where we wrote: The Inn’s archive has documents pertaining to the land and building from 1686 onward, including the official inn license granted to the first innkeeper, David How, in 1716. On this basis, the Inn is now considered the oldest operating inn in the US. In five years, 2016, the Inn will celebrate its tricentennial. First, let's take note of that and wish the Wayside Inn a happy tricentennial as we speak. Robert Morris Inn uses the date 1710, but that is apparently the date of construction of the house, not when it was converted into an inn. Lesson: be wary of commercial historic claims. The claim of the Robert Morris Inn should be more like "the inn located in the oldest building".

 
 

The picture shows that the Robert Morris Inn is on the water (at the ferry) and the map shows the route of a genuine great claim to fame for Oxford, the Oxford-Bellevue ferry, which we rode on both visits. Here a superlative does definitely apply, since, having begun operations in 1683, it's thought to be the oldest privately owned ferry service in the US still in continuous use. It's been continuously operated since 1836, seven days a week (in November, weekends only; closed December to March). A crossing takes about 10 minutes. It had been propelled by sails and oars until 1886, mostly to carry workers to orchards and farms, when it became steam-powered, and is today diesel-powered. This is the view from the ferry of the Tred Avon River (Both photos by Acroterion).

 
 

The Eastern Shore map will confirm that the Tred Avon also has a drowned mouth, and thus a wide estuary, and is a tributary of the Choptank, and was heavily used when Oxford was a great port. All these years I've been impressed with the romance of the name of this river, with images of Shakespeare, perhaps? Only now do I learn what happened. Based on the speech of early Chesapeake sailors from western England, Tred Avon River is in reality a twisting of "Third Haven River"! I do not understand the basis for that name; maybe a river can be a haven, but why third?

 
 

On both trips we continued from the ferry to St Michaels, with its Maritime Museum, on the next estuary north (the detail map is inaccurate; the museum is right in town). That means this is my third visit, but I again only have general memories of the earlier ones, so we'll all visit that together when we resume the narrative in the next posting. But we can add this information now. St Michaels is named for the church established there in 1677, attended by workers engaged in tobacco growing and shipbuilding, and it's just this very shipbuilding that led to the Maritime Museum, which includes even today a working shipyard. And, once again, Michener lived here as well while writing the book, doing research and experiencing life on the Eastern Shore.

 
 

I learn only now that Saint Michael was the patron saint of Colonial Maryland, and that the wide tidal river the town is on (see map) is called the Miles River, and was earlier the St Miles River. I've checked online, and while I find there once was a Saint Milles, there was no Saint Miles. Apparently the river had earlier still, been named after the town, and was the St Michaels River, but became altered over time.

 
 
 
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