BOO! Pardon Me, Have you seen my Head?

The Headless Horseman is a mythical figure in English and American folklore since the Middle Ages. This entity is very similar to the headless reapers or demonic fairy known as Dullahan in Irish myth.

The most commonly known examples of the Headless Horseman is from the American tale “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, and the English tale “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”

The 14th century poem Gawain and the Green Knight features a headless horseman who is the titular giant knight. After he is beheaded by Gawain, the Green Knight lifts his own head up with one hand and rides from the hall, challenging Gawain to meet him again one year later.

The most prominent Scots tale of the headless horseman concerns a man named Ewen decapitated in a clan battle at Glen Cainnir on the Isle of Mull. The battle denied him any chance to be a chieftain, and both he and his horse are headless in accounts of his haunting of the area.

There is also The Headless Horseman by Mayne Reid, first published in monthly serialized form during 1865 and 1866 and was based off of his adventures in the US, which was later published as a book in 1866. Also known as “A Strange Tale of Texas”, Reid wrote of the local Texan folktale of their own headless horseman based on the author’s adventures in the United States.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The legend of the Headless Horseman (also known as “the Headless Hessian of the Hollow”) begins in Sleepy Hollow, New York, during the American Revolutionary War. Traditional folklore holds that the Horseman was a Hessian trooper who was killed during the Battle of White Plains in 1776. He was decapitated by an American cannonball, and the shattered remains of his head were left on the battlefield while his comrades hastily carried his body away. Eventually they buried him in the cemetery of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, from which he rises as a malevolent ghost, furiously seeking his lost head. Modern versions of the story refer his rides to Halloween, around which time the battle took place.

 

Appearance ( who is that riding by)

The Headless Horseman is traditionally depicted as a man upon horseback who is missing his head. Depending on the legend, the Horseman is either carrying his head, or is missing his head altogether, and is searching for it.

Famously described as the haunting antagonist in author Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman has captured imaginations for generations.

 

Ichabod Crane (not a good look for ole Ichabod)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow embarks on the tale of Ichabod Crane, a skittish schoolteacher who tries to woo a wealthy landowner’s daughter, Katrina Van Tassel. Crane’s plans are spoiled by the raucous and brawny Brom Bones. In the story, Bones poses as the Headless Horse in a devious plot to scare away Ichabod Crane.

The Headless Horseman, sometimes known as the Galloping Hessian, is portrayed with a pumpkin (often a jack-o-lantern) while riding a black horse. The story goes that the Headless Horseman is the ghost of a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by canon fire during the Revolutionary War.

While this frightening figure continues to live on in the pages of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, local lore claims that the Headless Horseman is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. The legend says the ghost tethers his horse to graves in the churchyard, only to set out at night in search of his missing head.

Irving first published The Legend of Sleepy Hollow between 1819 and 1820 in his collection of essays, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Set in Dutch country of the Hudson Valley, this iconic 19th century story has been told and retold countless times for generations in books, songs, movies and on stage.

A number of the local landmarks described in Irving’s story are visible in the community of Sleepy Hollow. The story’s influence prompted the village of North Tarrytown to officially change its name to Sleepy Hollow in 1996.

While myths about headless horsemen can be traced to the Middle Ages, the infamous Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has become a fixture in American folklore.

 

Ireland and Beyond

Halloween is fast approaching and it’s time to delve back in the origins of Irish traditions and explore how Samhain became Halloween.

Irish ghost stories and funerary traditions travelled with the Irish diaspora and often became entangled with local customs to form entirely new traditions through the decades.

We’re going to look at an Irish ghoul who has made an appearance in ghost stories around the world – the Dullahan, or also known as the headless horseman. The legend of a decapitated horseman carrying his own head is one that crops up in numerous European storytelling traditions. From the middle English of Gawain and the Green Knight to the stories of the Brothers Grimm, headless horsemen abound, haunting the highways and byways of remote locations and even occasionally marauding our city streets.

The Dullahan (“dark man”) was a malevolent harbinger of death whose roots lie in Celtic mythology. He is said to be the embodiment of Crom Dubh, a fertility god who demanded blood sacrifice in the form of decapitation, his worship ended with the coming of Christianity to Ireland. Frustrated by the loss of his sacrifice, he still roams the roads, calling the names of those doomed to die, and carrying his head under his arm. The flesh of the face is decayed, with the specific (and slightly odd) reference to the consistency of the flesh being akin to mouldy cheese recurring in many telling of the tale.

The Dullahan is recorded in Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry edited by WB Yeats: “An omen that sometimes accompanies the banshee is the coach-a-bower (cóiste bodhar) – an immense black coach, mounted by a coffin, and drawn by headless horses driven by a Dullahan. It will go rumbling to your door, and if you open it, according to Croker, a basin of blood will be thrown in your face. These headless phantoms are found elsewhere than in Ireland. In Norway the heads of corpses were cut off to make their ghosts feeble. Thus came into existence the Dullahans …”

The gruesome process of beheading corpses to ensure their spirits don’t roam recalls the origins of another famous Irish horror creation, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker lived in Clontarf and it is thought that details in his novel may have been inspired by, among other things, the practice of burying corpses with a stake through the heart at the suicide burial plot at the crossroads of Ballybough and Clonliffe Road – another measure to prevent the deads’ unquiet spirits from wandering the earth. It’s not difficult to see parallels between these dark myths.

The most famous and lasting iteration of the Dullahan figure must be the headless horseman featured in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which is set in rural New York. The horseman takes the form of a Hessian soldier slain during the American Revolutionary War. Irving was an American citizen, whose parents hailed originally from Cornwall, and the story was written while travelling in England. It’s intriguing to see how the Celtic roots of this tale are filtered through the history of the America of the day. Sleepy Hollow is as much a satire of materialistic Dutch settler communities as it is a ghost story.

As mentioned above, the cóiste bodhar (deaf or silent coach) often attends the Dullahan as he stalks the night. It’s referenced in Thomas Johnston Westropp’s A Folklore Survey of County Clare, where a number of stories relating to it are recorded:

“On the night of December 11th, 1876, a servant of the MacNamaras was going his rounds at Ennistymon […]In the dark he heard the rumbling of wheels on the back avenue, and, knowing from the hour and place that no ‘mortal vehicle’ could be coming, concluded that it was the death coach and ran on, opening the gates before it. He had just time to open the third gate and throw himself on his face beside it, at the bank, before he ‘heard a coach go clanking past. It did not stop at the house, but passed on…the following day Admiral Sir Burton MacNamara died in London.”

Like the Dullahan, the cóiste bodhar has made some surprising appearances in more recent pop culture, the first of which, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, has terrified generations with its depiction of that other staple of Irish ghostly legend, the banshee. In Darby O’Gill, the spectral figure of the cóiste bodhar comes floating through the air to carry away Darby’s daughter Katie to the land of the dead.

The death coach or carriage has become a standard of many horror tales – making an appearance at the end of Stephen King’s Needful Things, where Leland Gaunt departs the town of Castle Rock in a car that transforms into a death coach. Most recently, a reimaging of the trope appears in the final vignette in the Cohen Brother’s western The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, where a group of immoral people spend what may be their final journey bickering with each other as the death coach brings them closer to their destination.

The roots of Irish mythology have become interwoven with other cultures, creating new traditions and evolved mythologies that forge a strong link between the past and the present.

So beware my pretties, it may look like a pumpkin, but could next be seen on a headless figure!  BOO!

Why Do Witches Ride Brooms? The History behind the Legend

From pagan fertility rituals to hallucinogenic herbs, the story of witches and brooms is a wild ride.

The evil green-skinned witch flying on her magic broomstick may be a Halloween icon—and a well-worn stereotype. But the actual history behind how witches came to be associated with such an everyday household object is anything but dull.

As Halloween approaches, it offers a chance to delve into the occult, phantasmagoric, otherworldly, and haunted aspects of our world. In a series of posts, we’re exploring art history that offers a portal to a darker side of culture.

The visual of the witch on a broomstick is so ubiquitous as to be benign. Before the Wicked Witch of the West or Harry Potter took flight on the spindly cleaning tool, the image first appeared in the 15th century. Two women in marginal illustrations of the 1451 edition of French poet Martin Le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames (The Defender of Ladies), a manuscript now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), are soaring, one on a stick, the other on a broom.

It’s not clear exactly when the broom itself was first invented, but the act of sweeping goes back to ancient times, when people likely used bunches of thin sticks, reeds and other natural fibers to sweep aside dust or ash from a fire or hearth. As J. Bryan Lowder writes, this household task even shows up in the New Testament, which dates to the first and second centuries A.D.

The word broom comes from the actual plant, or shrub, that was used to make many early sweeping devices. It gradually replaced the Old English word besom, though both terms appear to have been used until at least the 18th century. From the beginning, brooms and besoms were associated primarily with women, and this ubiquitous household object became a powerful symbol of female domesticity.

Despite this, the first witch to confess to riding a broom or besom was a man: Guillaume Edelin. Edelin was a priest from Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris. He was arrested in 1453 and tried for witchcraft after publicly criticizing the church’s warnings about witches. His confession came under torture, and he eventually repented, but was still imprisoned for life.

By the time of Edelin’s “confession,” the idea of witches riding around on broomsticks was already well established. The earliest known image of witches on brooms dates to 1451, when two illustrations appeared in the French poet Martin Le Franc’s manuscript Le Champion des Dames (The Defender of Ladies). In the two drawings, one woman soars through the air on a broom; the other flies aboard a plain white stick. Both wear head scarves that identify them as Waldensians, members of a Christian sect founded in the 12th century who were branded as heretics by the Catholic Church, partly because they allowed women to become priests.

Flying Witches Linked to Pagan Ritual?

Anthropologist Robin Skelton suggests the association between witches and brooms may have roots in a pagan fertility ritual, in which rural farmers would leap and dance astride poles, pitchforks or brooms in the light of the full moon to encourage the growth of their crops. This “broomstick dance,” she writes, became confused with common accounts of witches flying through the night on their way to orgies and other illicit meetings.

Broomsticks were also thought to be the perfect vehicles for the special ointments and salves that witches brewed up to give themselves the ability to fly, among other depraved activities. In 1324, when the wealthy Irish widow Lady Alice Kyteler was tried for sorcery and heresy, investigators reported that in searching Kyteler’s house, they found “a pipe of ointment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thicke and thin.”

Pharmacologist David Kroll writes in Forbes that alleged witches in the Middle Ages were thought to concoct their brews from such plants as Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), Hyoscyamus niger (henbane), Mandragora officinarum (mandrake) and Datura stramonium (jimsonweed), all of which would have produced hallucinogenic chemicals known as tropane alkaloids.

According to some historical accounts, rather than ingest these mind-altering substances by eating or drinking, which would have caused intestinal distress, witches chose to absorb them through the skin—often in the most intimate areas of their bodies. In his book Murder, Magic, and Medicine, John Mann cites a 15th century text by the theologian Jordanes de Bergamo, who wrote that “the vulgar believe, and the witches confess, that on certain days or nights they anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places.”

According to Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary History, edited by University of Pennsylvania history professors Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters, Le Champion des Dames has “the first such illustration in the pictorial history of witchcraft.” Le Franc’s long poem about virtuous women is interrupted by a discussion of witchcraft, and the covered heads of the two women marks them as Waldensians. This Christian movement emerged in the 12th-century. With its tenet that any member could be a priest, even a woman, and perform sacraments and preach, the bloody ire of the Catholic Church soon followed. That these heretics would also meddle with the supernatural was not a leap, but why the broomstick?

Dylan Thuras at Atlas Obscura wrote that the “broom was a symbol of female domesticity, yet the broom was also phallic, so riding on one was a symbol of female sexuality, thus femininity and domesticity gone wild.” The two women in Le Champion des Dames importantly don’t appear deformed or grotesque, they are ordinary; their corruption cannot be visually perceived. And pagan rituals before the 15th century had involved phallic forms, so the shape of the broomstick between a woman’s legs had both a sexual and spiritually deviant meaning to the Church.

Yet it was racier than that. Richard Cavendish’s 1970 An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural cites a man, Guillaume Edelin, who confessed to flying on a broom in 1453 as the first known reference to the act. Just a few years later, in 1456, emerged the mention of “flying ointment.” Either given by the devil or crafted by a witch, the potion allowed a human to take flight, likely for a trip to the Witches’ Sabbath.

The vulgar believe, and the witches confess, that on certain days or nights they anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places.

Hallucinogens of the time, such as ergot fungus, couldn’t just be eaten. They could be applied to mucous membranes, such as on genitalia, or those “other hairy places,” as Bergamo coyly put it. Matt Soniak at Mental Floss quotes Antoine Rose, who in 1477, when accused of witchcraft in France, confessed that the Devil gave her flying potions. She would “smear the ointment on the stick, put it between her legs and say ‘Go, in the name of the Devil, go!’”

Since many witch “confessions” were obtained under torture, and the Catholic Church and others could be wildly reactionary to any deviance, all of this is hearsay. (And think of the splinters!) But the image of the witch on the broomstick combined anxieties on women’s sexuality, drug use, and religious freedom into one enduring myth.

Anxiety Over Witchcraft Leads to Legends

It’s impossible to know whether such stories, reported at the height of anxiety over witchcraft in Europe in the Middle Ages, reflected reality or not. Most of what we know about medieval witchcraft today comes from the records of religious inquisitors, legal officials and testimony from accused witches themselves (often while being tortured).

Beginning in the 17th century, accounts of witches using broomsticks to fly up and out of chimneys became more commonplace, even as women became more closely associated with the household and domestic sphere than ever before. According to one custom, women would prop a broom up outside a door, or place it up a chimney, to let others know they were away from the home. Perhaps because of this, popular legend embraced the idea that witches left their houses through their chimneys, even though very few accused witches ever confessed to doing so.

Popular anxiety about witchcraft had subsided by the 18th century. Although there are still plenty of self-identified “witches” in the United States today, thanks to the growth of neo-pagan religious traditions like Wicca, few of them claim to be taking to the skies aboard their trusty brooms. But the image of witches flying on broomsticks endures—especially on Halloween.

So my pretties, get out your broom stick from the closet and let’s go for a ride!

Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River’s Ghost Fleet

Let’s start with the Chesapeake Bay’s Ghost Fleet on the Virginia side of the Bay.  Origins WWII ships, known as the concrete fleet. 

A few hundred feet from the beach at Kiptopeke State Park, nine concrete ships rest end-to-end, decaying under decades of seabird guano. A slew of these birds perch atop the ships now, some clinging to rusty rebar, some sitting in trees growing out of deep cracks in the concrete. 

Originally commissioned during WWII, all nine of these ships were used as transport and training vessels in the South Pacific theater.  Although concrete seems a strange material to build ships with, it was cheap and abundant when steel was expensive and scare during wartime. When WWII ended, the ships returned to the U.S., and in 1948 were ordered to Virginia where they were partially sunk to act as a breakwater for the increasingly busy Cape Charles ferry terminal. 

When the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was completed in 1964, the ferry service ceased, but the ghost fleet stayed on as a breakwater for the beach, and as a haven for marine life. 

Today the ships provide a unique backdrop to the swimming beach, and as a popular fishing spot. Take a walk out on the pier at Kiptopeke close to sunrise and see a dozen or so fishermen in their small boats and kayaks floating in the shadows cast by the concrete hulls.

HOW TO SEE IT:

Kiptopeke State Park is located on Virginia’s eastern shore near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. There is (as of 2020) a $7 per day vehicle fee to visit the park, but I recommend booking a campsite at the park and spending the night so you have plenty of time to catch the early morning and evening light. 

You can see the fleet from the fishing pier, but if you want to get up close you’ll need a watercraft of some sort. If you have your own kayak or SUP, park in the main lot next to the pier and put in at the kayak launch just to the right of the boat launch or from the south beach (to the left of the pier).

The park rents kayaks and Stand-Up Paddleboards from the camp store during the summer season. See HERE for 2020 equipment rental rates. They don’t list their exact summer season dates so I would assume Memorial Day to Labor Day. If in doubt, call or email. 

Phone: 757-331-2267

Email: kiptopeke@dcr.virginia.gov

Kissing Cousin Maryland’s Potomac Ghost Fleet

Imagine kayaking the tranquil waters of a secluded cove on the lower Potomac, binoculars in hand, in search of bald eagles, great blue herons, and osprey. As you float along, you spot weathered wood and rusted iron jutting out from the water—they look almost like ribs.

You’re looking at some of the approximately 200 shipwrecks of the Ghost Fleet of the Potomac. Located in Mallows Bay near the Maryland town of Nanjemoy, the Ghost Fleet is the largest and most varied collection of historic shipwrecks in the Western Hemisphere, spanning over three centuries of American shipbuilding.

Mallows Bay is now the most prominent feature of the new Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary, the first national marine sanctuary within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Designated in 2019 by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary is the first designated sanctuary in 19 years.

Race to Greatness in World War I

Most of the ships in the Ghost Fleet date back to World War I, when the Wilson administration undertook a rapid shipbuilding program to prepare the United States for war. While World War I began in 1914, the United States did not enter the conflict until April 6, 1917. By that time, German U-Boats were destroying the world’s merchant vessels at the unprecedented rate of more than 200 per month.

Once the United States entered the war, the Wilson administration shifted swiftly into action. On April 16, 1917, the United States Shipping Board created the Emergency Fleet Corporation to ramp up ship production to meet this urgent need.

The Emergency Fleet Corporation created an ambitious plan to hastily construct steel, concrete, and wooden ships to support the war effort. These ships were built in 40 shipyards across 17 states. Wooden steamships were specifically designed to serve as a merchant fleet that could be constructed quickly using the United States’ large timber reserves. But delays and shortages kept the best timber from arriving at shipyards, and many of the shipyards that received contracts were understaffed, underbuilt, and underpaid.

By the end of the war, only 98 of the 734 ships that had been ordered were delivered. Of the 98, only 76 could carry cargo, all were troubled by mechanical failures and construction problems, and none had sailed into a European port. After the war, the Shipping Board appointed a special committee to sell the inactive and incomplete ships. What had cost the U.S. government $300 million to build was sold for scrap for only $750,000.

Western Marine & Salvage Company in Alexandria, Virginia, purchased the majority of the ships for salvage and brought them to the Potomac. The company had determined that they could gain approximately $10,000 worth of scrap from each ship—but deciding what to do with the ships’ wooden hulls posed a problem. Eventually, the hulls were moved to Mallows Bay to be burned and beached. On November 7, 1925, 31 of the ships were burned. It was the greatest destruction of ships at one time in US history.

By 1931, the Western Marine & Salvage Company had transported 169 hulls into Mallows Bay, but the Great Depression and a resulting decline in scrap values lead the company to abandon the project. The remaining hulls were left to local scavengers to attempt to salvage whatever materials could be found.

When World War II began, attention returned to the Ghost Fleet. In 1942, the Salvage Section of the Metals Reserve Company, a company organized by the federal government, issued a contract to the Bethlehem Steel Corporation to recover any remaining metal from the fleet. Bethlehem Steel worked at the site until 1945 and transported salvaged material to a facility near Baltimore to support the war effort.

After 1945, the Ghost Fleet was largely forgotten until a company named Idamont, Inc., purchased the land and lobbied to remove the remaining hulls in the 1960s. Scandal erupted when it was revealed that Idamont was a straw company for the Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco) and that they planned to build a power generating station nearby at Sandy Point.

The House Committee on Government Operations, considering for the first time the ecosystem that had developed, declared that the removal of the ships was unnecessary, and the Ghost Fleet has been providing a habitat for plants and animals in Mallows Bay ever since.

Mistake-Turned-Ecological Treasure

The Ghost Fleet of the Potomac is a unique natural habitat, primed for exploration by scientists, tourists, fishermen, and outdoor enthusiasts. The fleet is located just 40 miles south of Washington, D.C., and a boat ramp gives visitors easy access to the fleet and other destinations along the Potomac River.

Charles County, Maryland, manages a day-use area at Mallows Bay Park, and the bay is a site along the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail. It’s also a premier location for bass fishing and a bird watcher’s paradise. Unique habitats have evolved above and below the waters of the Ghost Fleet, and the fleet’s hulls have become a home for birds, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and mammals. The Ghost Fleet is the perfect spot for heritage tourism, and it has potential for new archeological discoveries and opportunities for scientific research.

To protect this culturally and historically significant area, the state of Maryland, with the support of Charles County, Maryland, submitted a nomination in 2014 to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to consider Mallows Bay a National Marine Sanctuary. Aside from helping to protect these fragile historic resources, the designation will also create a management plan that includes educational and interpretive strategies designed to encourage sustainable tourism at the sanctuary.

A New Marine Sanctuary

In July 2019, local community partners, national conservation and preservation groups, and recreation and education advocates celebrated the designation of a new national marine sanctuary at Mallows Bay in the Potomac River. It was the first such designation in 19 years.

While the National Trust named the Ghost Fleet a National Treasure in 2017 to reflect its cultural and historical value, local community partners, national conservation and preservation groups, and recreation and education advocates all worked together to achieve this game-changing designation. Now as a marine sanctuary, it will enjoy further recognition and attention that connects the local community and new visitors to this unique place.

Port Royal, Virginia: You may find Food, Ghost, Antiques 

Believe it or not, this sleepy tiny town of Port Royal is one of my favorite places to go.  We go there at least once a month and love it.  My favorite is Horne’s restaurant and gift shop.  This 50’s themed diner has wonderful homemade food and serves breakfast (all day), lunch and dinner.  The menu is pretty large for the size of the diner.  One may order Quail, catfish, salt ham, bean soup and other fabulously delicious food. 

Then you have the birthplace of James Madison (fabulous Belle Grove) and wonderful antique stores to visit. If you love history, you’ll love Port Royal. 

Port Royal is famous because it was once a nexus for international shipping, playing host to a bustling port that unloaded goods that were shipped from other countries.  Ships would sail up the Chesapeake Bay, up the Rappahannock River, and stop at Port Royal.  Goods would be unloaded here and then were taken by ground to other parts of the country.  The ships brought wealth to Port Royal, and with wealth came the construction of the homes.

When you visit Port Royal, Virginia, a treasure on the Rappahannock River, be sure to stop by one or all of our museums and to see the history of the area, buildings, and museum artifacts.

General Information

Port Royal is an incorporated town in Caroline County, Virginia, United States. The population was 126 at the 2010 census.

Port Royal was established in the mid-17th century in the Colony of Virginia primarily as a port at the head of the navigable reach of the Rappahannock River for export of tobacco, Virginia’s cash crop. The town developed along an early stage road, which brought passengers and freight for embarkation on ships at the river. It is near the crossroads of the busy modern highways of U.S. Route 17 and U.S. Route 301.

17th century origins

Port Royal is one of the area’s oldest colonial settlements. It was first established in 1652 by English colonists as a port at the head of sea-going navigation on the Rappahannock River. Waterways were the fastest and easiest method of transportation of people and property in the British colony of Virginia. It was an important point for export of tobacco, Virginia’s cash crop.

Local tradition holds that Port Royal was named after the Roy family. Dorothy Roy and her husband John owned a warehouse chartered by the crown, a ferry service across the Rappahannock River to King George County, and a tavern. In the 21st century, the chimneys of the Roy house are preserved landmarks in the town.

Port Royal was incorporated as a town in 1744. The “town green”, where the Town Hall and the firehouse stand today, was forever reserved “for public and civic use”.

19th-20th centuries

Shipping of property from the port began to decline after completion of competing railroads in Virginia, beginning in the 1830s. But the last scheduled passenger ship service ended in 1932, supplanted by highways. However, Port Royal was served by the new highways which became U.S. Route 17 and U.S. Route 301, with their crossroads at Port Royal.

Probably Port Royal’s most notable claim to fame is that John Wilkes Booth was killed about two miles outside town by Sgt. Boston Corbett, part of a contingent of federal troops, at the now obsolete Garrett farmstead on April 26, 1865. Booth had assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14, 1865 at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.

Booth initially escaped through southern Maryland, fleeing to Virginia across the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. He was cornered in a tobacco barn on the Garrett farm at sunrise. Shot through the neck and instantly paralyzed, Booth died on the porch of the Garrett house, where he was carried from the barn. David Herold, one of his accomplices, was with him and captured at the Garrett farm. He was tried, convicted, and hanged on July 7, 1865 in Washington, DC, along with other conspirators.

Poet Judith Lomax lived in Port Royal for some years.

Geography

Port Royal is located in northern Caroline County at 38°10′11″N 77°11′27″W (38.169799, −77.190763), on the south bank of the Rappahannock River.

U.S. Routes 17 and 301 intersect just southwest of the town limits. US 17 leads northwest 21 miles (34 km) to Fredericksburg and southeast 27 miles (43 km) to Tappahannock, while US 301 leads northeast 17 miles (27 km) to the Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River and southwest 12 miles (19 km) to Bowling Green, the Caroline County seat.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the tiny town’s total area in 2010 was 0.10 square miles (0.27 km2), all land. In July 2014, the county approved new boundaries, and the town quintupled in size to 481 acres (.75 square miles).

Visitor Information

WALKING TOUR ALL AROUND TOWN

OPEN: SUNRISE TO SUNSET, ALL YEAR

Pamphlets available at The Port Royal Museum of American History

Tour the historic town streets lined with historic homes, churches, and waterfront.

   

PORT ROYAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY

506 MAIN STREET, PORT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22535 SATURDAYS 10:00AM to 3:00PM

March to December

Admission is FREE but DONATIONS are greatly appreciated

FOR SPECIAL GROUP TOURS call Carolyn Davis (804)370-5285

PORT ROYAL MUSEUM OF MEDICINE

419 KING STREET, PORT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22535

FOR SPECIAL GROUP TOURS call Carolyn Davis (804)370-5285

PORTRAIT GALLERY

419 KING STREET, PORT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22535

FOR SPECIAL GROUP TOURS call Carolyn Davis (804)370-5285

OLD PORT ROYAL SCHOOL

506 MAIN STREET, PORT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22535

FOR SPECIAL GROUP TOURS call Carolyn Davis (804)370-5285

THE SACRED LOT, 1817 – 1883

MIDDLE STREET, PORT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22535

The first known church in Port Royal was built here with a stone foundation and brick external walls. It was originally inter-denominational, but by 1844 it was known as the Methodist Church. Many years later the church was abandoned and consequently fell into disrepair. It was demolished in 1977 with only the burial plots remaining.

PORT ROYAL VETERAN’S MEMORIAL

419 KING STREET, PORT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22535

Belle Grove Plantation

Belle Grove Plantation, the birthplace of President James Madison, located in King George County Virginia, is now the home of Belle Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast. This Historic Landmark was established in 1670 on the banks of the Rappahannock River. Belle Grove’s stately, historic mansion has four Master Suites with private baths and views of the river and plantation. Each room is named after families that owned Belle Grove Plantation through its history, and each is decorated in period antiques to reflect the period that family lived at Belle Grove. Gourmet Breakfasts and Delightful Four-Course Dinners await you in the formal dining room or on the riverside balcony.

Built in 1791, this Mansion offers the charm of days gone by. Here you will find the elegant wedding of your dreams or a peaceful retreat for corporate and social gatherings. With historic and local attractions within easy drives and award winning vineyards just around the corner, Belle Grove Plantation makes a great place to come home to after a day of adventure.

Just 90 minutes from Washington DC or Baltimore, 50 minutes from Richmond and less than a half hour from Fredericksburg, Belle Grove Plantation is a hidden jewel of the Northern Neck.

You are invited to come, sit back, relax and allow us to show you what true Southern Hospitality is really like.

Check their website for events, teas and booking a room.  I had tea there and it was a true English high tea and it was Superb!  The planation does host personal events such as weddings, etc. 

Last Item, Haunted?

Many guests and the Owners themselves claim that the house is haunted. The rumors of hauntings caught the attention of SyFy’s Ghost Hunters and they featured it in the “Dead Presidents” episode.

A total of 23 full body apparitions have been reported since March 2013. Most of these are Union soldiers who are seen standing guard at entry posts or walking in the fields. There are also two ghost cats. Visitors and staff have heard their disembodied meowing and felt them walk across beds during the night or even curl up on the pillow beside them! One guest claimed to actually see the cat and couldn’t believe it when the owners said that they had no cats. Ghostly faces and orbs with faces have been captured in pictures.

According to the onwers the more well-known ghosts are a girl dressed in white who stands on the balcony, an African–American girl in a yellow dress that wears a turban and is carrying an object and an apparition of a soldier that has been so clear that the owner could see the color of his hair.  “Back in September, 2012, our caretaker and his family were living in our quarters in the mansion as their home was without power due to an electrical fire. They told us during their stay, they woke up around 4am in the morning to what sounded like a rubber ball bouncing on the floor. It really scared them. To this day, the caretaker’s wife doesn’t like to come in at night alone. Just after this event, I started having ‘things’ happen during our visits to the mansion. (This was before I moved up in April 2013.) I had heard if you set down the ‘rules’ with the ghosts, for the most part they would follow them. So that is just what I did. My rules are as follows:

1. You can’t call or whisper my name

2. I don’t need to hear footsteps or door slams to let me know that you are here, because I know you are here.

3. I don’t want to see you because it can scare me.

4. If we have guests that are afraid of ghosts, we ask that you don’t make your presents known. We don’t want people scare of the mansion because we have to make money to keep the doors open.

5. If a guest comes and is wanting to see or talk to you and you are up for it, then you have our blessing. Go for it.

6. When I am in my room (which is in the mansion) and my door is closed, you aren’t to come in. I don’t want to see you standing in the room or wake to see you watching me. This is my space and I need to feel safe.

Since I made the “rules” things have really calmed down. For the most part, they seem to understand and comply with them.”

The Darnells had a medium come into the home in December of 2012. Her name was Laine Crosby and she claimed that there were two boys (twins) that were standing at a door. She told them to come in, but they claimed that they could not because ”Mama says we can’t play in there any more.” Laine also explained that the boys said that they were the ones who bounced the ball. She didn’t know what they were talking about, but Michelle did. The ball continues to bounce every so often in the second floor hall. There are reports of a boy named Jacob bouncing a ball in the house and I wonder if he is one of these twins. He is described as being mischievous in his nature and loves to move and even steal kitchen utensils from time to time. Paranormal teams have recorded EVP’s of Jacob in the Turner Suite which is one of the most active spots in the entire building.

Michelle also said, “In July, 2013, one of our guest, who had stayed the night told me that she had heard a woman’s voice on the second floor, where she was sleeping. The woman called out, “Twins” in a song like manner. We figured the boys and their mom were now hanging out upstairs. This morning, around 4am, I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep. I sat up for an hour and watch a little television to relax myself and tried to get back to sleep around 5:30am. Just as I got comfortable, I heard at the end of the bed, a rubber ball bouncing. I knew at once it was the twin boys playing. These boys have been a little more active over the last month. They have gone as far as to hide my kitchen utensils from me only to return them later. So I knew they were being mischievous this morning. So I called them out saying. “Okay, you know you aren’t suppose to be in here. Please leave so I can sleep.” Just after I said that, I heard a woman’s voice say, “Come”. So I guess the boys were called down by their mother and she got them out of the room.”

Michelle has seen soldiers countless times and said, “I saw four late one evening as I was leaving the house to go to dinner. It was just twilight, but I could still see pretty well. As I turn the corner of the walkway, there standing between me and my car were these four soldiers. Dressed as you would expect Civil War period, you could even make out their height and difference in looks. At this point I had seen so many, it had become common place. So I jokingly said, “Well you could have at least turned the light on.” The light is a motion detected light we have on the garage. We have two of them, one on each side. At the point I said this, I wasn’t close enough for it to turn on. But not a second later, the lights came on. Now they think it’s their job to turn them on. The last time was during a really bad storm that produced a tornado in the area. I was racing home to beat the storm. When I arrived at our white entry posts, the lights came on. I was over an acre away! I laughed and said, “Guys, I’m not there yet.” My husband said that he thought an animal could be triggering it. So on the way back to the house one night, just as we got halfway down the drive to the garage, the lights turned on. I looked at my husband and said, “See!”. There were no animals around.

The soldiers have also been seen by our overnight guests. One couple were leaving for dinner when they saw what looked like riding boots quickly crossing the driveway. They caught this when their headlights flashed around as they turned out of there parking space. Other soldiers we have seen – One standing guard at the white entry posts. He had a gun resting beside his leg as if he were standing at attention. Another was seen as we came home from dinner. As we drove down the highway that runs beside our property, I saw a soldier cross the highway and walk into our plantation field. Our plantation was held as a Union (Federal) headquarters from 1861 to the end of the war. General Burnside, General Robert E. Lee and General Stonewall Jackson have all been here.

One last sighting of a soldier happened when I first arrived. The next morning, I was up sweeping the formal dining room. We didn’t have any furniture at the time and I was just doing something to keep busy. As I glanced out of the formal dining room window, I saw a Union (Federal) soldier walking from the side of our porch along the outside wall area going towards the south side of the house. He had a blue shirt, untucked, black belt on the outside of his shirt, blue pants, a Union (Federal) cap with a symbol on top, no pack or gun and had brown hair that was shoulder length. He didn’t have glasses and he was walking with his head down so I couldn’t see his face!” Michelle says that she is not afraid to be in the house alone and feels almost comforted by the ghosts. Much of the activity has settled since the remodeling is done. And the Darnells feel that the ghosts are happy with them because they are remembering and honoring their past.

Southeast Virginia Paranormal Investigation hosted a ghost hunt in 2013 and reported, “On Saturday, in the Summer Kitchen, using the spirit box, Todd asked questions and was getting responses! He found that he was talking to someone named ‘Robert.’ ‘Robert’ stated that he was a visitor to the plantation during the Conway period. He also stated that he had died from being hung. He stated that he was hung by someone named ‘Edward.’ From what I know of the plantation and its history, I do not have any confirmation that anyone was hung here. But of course, things happened that were never reported or recorded.” They also had experiences in the Turner Suite using a ghost box. A man and woman came through. The Belle Grove website says, “The woman didn’t speak much, but the man did. When Todd ask if the man could see him, the answer was “Yes”. Todd asked if the man could see him all the time and the answer was “No”. Todd asked him what he (Todd) had on his head and the man answered “hat”. Todd started waving his hand. He asked the man what he (Todd) was doing. The man answered “waving”. Todd grabbed his vest that he was wearing and pulled on it. Todd asked the man what he was pulling. The man answered “vest”. When Todd asked the man his name or time period, the man would not answer.”

The Ghost Hunters caught evidence on their investigation in 2014 as well that seems to back-up many of the claims made by the Darnells and their guests. Jason and Steve heard growling, Tango and Sam heard a whistling noise and the team agreed that the basement definitely was haunted. Regular ghost hunts are hosted at the house and a Facebook page details their findings. It would seem that the plantation is not only famous for its rich history, but also for its plethora of spirits. Is Belle Grove Plantation haunted? That is for you to decide!

The Potato Bowl: Sweet Potato Vs Yams!

Being raised by parents and grandparents from the Southern United States, we had Sweet Potato Pie especially starting in the fall and for holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). No one ever said we are having a Yam Pie.  Our table included sweet potato biscuits (make with left over baked sweet potatoes), baked sweet potatoes, but here is the kicker we had candied yams!  Now you see the confusion?

Sometimes life puts you at a crossroads: Do you buy yams or sweet potatoes? They often look identical, but I’ve found that “yams” can be as low as 79 cents per pound, while “sweet potatoes” cost $2.49 per pound. So, what’s the difference between a sweet potato and a yam? At most grocery stores, absolutely nothing. It’s all a facade! “Most of the so-called yams you see in American grocery stores are actually orange-fleshed sweet potatoes,” explains Mary-Frances Heck, author of new cookbook Sweet Potatoes. The reason for the name mix-up, she explains, is because Louisiana sweet potato growers marketed their orange-fleshed as “yams” to distinguish from other states’ produce in the 1930s—and it stuck.

Real yams are entirely different root vegetables that are more like yucca in texture and flavor. They have bumpy, tough brown skin (that looks almost tree trunk-like) with starchy, not sweet flesh. Yams are more easily compared to the texture and flavor of white russet potatoes (with more fiber and complex carbs) and are best boiled and served alongside hearty braised meats. The neutrally-flavored yams are often used in Caribbean or West African cooking, and are difficult to find in the U.S.; sometimes you can pick them up at specialty grocery stores.

To make life even more complicated, there are a handful of varieties of sweet potatoes: orange, white, and purple. So let’s break down the differences.

Orange Sweet Potatoes

These are the sweet potatoes that you roast for meal prep, use for Thanksgiving sweet potato pie or marshmallow-topped mashed potatoes, and snack on as fries and chips. They’re versatile, easy to find, and the varietals within the orange-fleshed potatoes are all “pretty much interchangeable,” says Heck. She notes there will be “subtle differences in flavor, sweetness, and moisture” between Beauregard (brown skin, more deeply sweet, grown in Louisiana), Garnet (red skin, more like pumpkin flavor), and Jewel (coppery-orange skin, mildly sweet and earthy, California-grown).

Sweet potatoes should be your new vegetarian meat replacement because they “can carry spices in a way that other vegetables can’t.” Standard white potatoes’ flavor would be obliterated by a heavy seasoning from Spanish paprika, black pepper, and garlic, but it works perfectly as a bacon-ish flavor in her Cobb salad recipe (pictured above) or with cumin and coriander for tacos.

White Sweet Potatoes

White sweet potatoes may look like russets, but they’re loaded with some of the same fiber and vitamins that orange sweet potatoes have—though not as much beta-carotene. Since they’re a little drier in texture, Heck suggests using them for gnocchi so you can control the amount of moisture in the dough. For non-pasta applications, they go really well with bright, acidic sauces like chimichurri. The texture is more toothsome than mushy when roasted, but if you braise them low and slow, they end up being silky yet still hold their shape.

Purple Sweet Potatoes

Purple sweet potatoes have super amped-up anthocyanins like blueberries, which are great for both color and antioxidants. The North Carolina-grown Stokes varietal are the most popular (with a sweet chestnut flavor), but you can sometimes find Hawaiian Okinawan potatoes with purple-speckled flesh that are best boiled whole. To prevent the color from bleeding out when cooking, Heck suggests roasting, sautéeing, or frying purple sweet potatoes. A favorite way to eat them is topped with sambal butter. You can either make your own sambal paste with chiles, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, lime zest, and salt, or just mix 1 Tsbp. sambal oelek with a stick of butter. As it melts into your potato, all your problems may melt away too.

Summary:

True yams are an edible tuber originating in Africa and Asia. There are over

600 varieties, which vary widely in size. They are starchier and drier than sweet potatoes and rarely found in local grocery stores.

Sweet potatoes are a starchy root vegetable originating in Central or South America.

There are two main varieties. They have a long shelf life and are usually sweeter and moister than regular potatoes.

While both are underground tuber vegetables, they are actually very different.

They belong to different plant families and are only distantly related.

A sweet potato has tapered ends and thin, smooth skin and flesh that can range from light beige to burnished orange to purplish, even.

A yam is cylindrical, typically white-fleshed—there is a purple variety, too—and has rough, dark, almost hairy skin.

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Level: Easy

Total: 1 hr 35 min

Prep: 10 min

Inactive: 10 min

Cook: 1 hr 15 min

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

6 sweet potatoes, even in size and scrubbed

4 tablespoons brown sugar

4 tablespoons butter, room temperature

4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place sweet potatoes on sheet tray and bake for 1 hour or until soft. Remove from oven and let stand until cool enough to handle.

Split potatoes and remove the flesh to a medium sized bowl, reserving skins. In another bowl, add brown sugar, butter and cream cheese and the all of the spices and mash with a fork or rubber spatula.

Add the butter and cream cheese mixture to the sweet potato flesh and fold in completely. Add the filling back to the potato skins and place on a half sheet tray. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Spicy African Yam Soup

An unusual combination of simple ingredients that render a spicy, tasty soup that’s ready in less than 45 minutes!

Prep:

10 mins

Cook:

30 mins

Total:

40 mins

Servings:

4

Yield:

4 servings

Ingredients

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 clove garlic, minced

4 cups chicken broth

1 teaspoon dried thyme

½ teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup chunky salsa

1 (15.5 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained

1 cup diced zucchini

½ cup cooked rice

2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

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Recipe Summary

Prep:

10 mins

Cook:

30 mins

Total:

40 mins

Servings:

4

Yield:

4 servings

Nutrition Info

Ingredients

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4

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Original recipe yields 4 servings

Ingredient Checklist

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 clove garlic, minced

4 cups chicken broth

1 teaspoon dried thyme

½ teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup chunky salsa

1 (15.5 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained

1 cup diced zucchini

½ cup cooked rice

2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

Directions

Step 1

Heat the oil in a stockpot over medium heat. Saute onion, sweet potato, and garlic until onion is soft. Turn down heat if necessary to prevent burning.

Step 2

Stir in the chicken broth, thyme and cumin. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir in salsa, garbanzo beans and zucchini. Simmer until tender, about 15 minutes.

Step 3

Stir in the cooked rice and peanut butter until the peanut butter has dissolved. Serve hot with pita chips and a green salad.

Even Scarecrows Have a Family Tree! 

Well, Well, Well, if it isn’t fall and it comes to my mind Fall decorations. The centerpiece is cornstalks, pumpkins, hay bales and the Fabulous Scarecrow (whether it is male or female). In my family we always had a garden, a tradition I carried on. In the garden was placed a Scarecrow. When the garden season and harvest time was done our Scarecrow ended up still in use for the fall decorations. Let’s look at ancestry of the Scarecrow.

What would autumn be without an abundance of scarecrows, pumpkins and bundled corn stalks? The scarecrow is one of the most familiar figures of our rural landscape, not only in the United States but throughout Europe and many other countries of the world. Scarecrows have been in existence for more than 3,000 years! Who knew?

A scarecrow or hay-man is a decoy or mannequin in the shape of a human, Wikipedia explains. It is usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds such as crows or sparrows from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.

History of the scarecrow

A dearth of children in the wake of the Great Plague, some historians surmise, led farmers to use adults to guard their crops, some keeping watch in straw huts as Native Americans did, evident in an 1585 watercolor by artist John White of Secotan, an Algonquin village in present-day North Carolina, says Mary Beth Norton, historian of Early American Farming at Cornell University. Others stood on wooden lookouts.

It was not always this way; the Egyptians used the first scarecrows in recorded history to protect their vast wheat fields along the Nile River from flocks of quail. Their version of the scarecrow was a wooden frame covered with nets. The farmers would hide in the fields and when the quail approached they would scare them into the nets. That would not only save their crop from devastation but caught quail for dinner that night.

About 2,500 B.C., Greek farmers carved wooden scarecrows in the image of Priapus, the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, creating a “scarecrow” that was supposedly ugly enough to scare the birds away from their vineyards, ensuring a good harvest.

Later the Romans copied the Greek scarecrow custom and introduced it to Europe when their armies marched through.

About the same time, Japanese farmers started making their version of the scarecrow to protect rice fields. Their scarecrows were shaped like people, dressed in raincoats and straw hats.

In Germany, scarecrows were originally wooden, made to resemble witches, and in medieval Britain, young boys and girls were used as live scarecrows or “bird scarers” where they would patrol the fields of crops and scare away the birds by waving their arms or throwing stones. This eventually led to farmers stuffing sacks with straw and using painted gourds to make heads and faces to create “straw men” which they would then lean up against a pole to scare away the birds.

Meantime in the United States, immigrant German farmers began making human-like scarecrows called “bootsamon” or “bogeyman” that they would dress up in old clothes stuffed with straw with the proverbial red bandana tied around their neck.

Its symbolism is universal, but the original scarecrows were nothing like the now familiar straw-stuffed icon of Halloween. Scarecrows, sometimes bearing an animal skull or rotting produce, were placed in fields in the spring and were burned after the Autumn harvest in celebration, their ashes returning nutrients of potassium and nitrogen to the soil. In Great Britain they are known as hodmedods, murmets and Hay-man, Tattie bogle or bodach-rocais (old man of the rooks). To the Bengali’s it’s a kaktadua. A straska to the Czech’s. The Russians, a pugalo, just to name a few.

Scarecrow decor

While scarecrows of one kind or another are still abundantly used today as “decoys” to protect gardens from the smallest vegetable patch to open fields of produce, as a population, we mostly enjoy scarecrows dotting our landscapes as decoration during the autumnal season.

Don’t scarecrows just make you smile? Whether they are scary-looking, childlike or funny, you can’t help but think about the fun someone had creating this delightful effigy to share with others. So stop and see the scarecrows when you are out and about this fall – take a photo or two to share with others. Or how about making one of your own?

If you make your own, let your imagination wander; it’s your scarecrow.

Making a scarecrow

Materials can be simple, but they should be sturdy. Remember that your scarecrow will need to stand up to the elements of sun, wind and rain. The frame can be a cross-shaped structure about 4 to 5 feet wide (for the arm spread) by 6 to 8 feet tall or whatever height you want your scarecrow to be. (Don’t forget to allow for the several inches that the wood piece or pole will be inserted into the ground). Use your imagination and recycle some PVC pipe or a discarded garden trellis to create your frame.

Fill an old flannel shirt and pants with straw, hay, grass clippings or plastic bags – whatever is available to make the body, arms and legs of your scarecrow. Be sure to cinch off the ankles and wrists of the clothing with garden twin to hold in the stuffing.

For a “lady scarecrow,” use a colorful old dress, stapling the hem once the skirt is filled with your choice of stuffing material. Or simply add an apron, with straw stuffed in the pockets, of course.

Use a pumpkin, real or plastic, for the scarecrow’s head or perhaps an overturned gallon milk jug. For fun, add a colorful hat for a topper! Wigs are fun, too, like a mop head. Don’t forget to give your scarecrow some personality by giving them a face. Paint it on or hot glue pinecones, acorns or leaves to form the eyes, nose and mouth. Your scarecrow’s facial expression can be sweet, funny, scary or just plain hideous – your call.

Attach the scarecrow to the frame by stapling it, tying it or nailing it – whatever works. You can also use just a sturdy pole to slide up the scarecrow’s back, through the stuffing, attaching it to the pole so it won’t slide down.

Scarecrows can also be made to sit in chairs, not requiring a frame of any kind. Just be sure to tie the body and limbs to its perch so that it doesn’t end up in your neighbor’s yard with the first good wind.

Enjoy your scarecrow throughout the fall season and if it is still in good shape come winter, store it in your garage or basement to “rest” over the winter before resuming its field or lawn duty next spring.