James River

Thursday, Sept. 16, 1619, was cold and blustery in London when the Margaret sailed for Virginia with 39 men from the area around Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. After a rough, 2 1/2 -month crossing, they sailed up the James River, the major highway west in those days, and disembarked on the land they'd been granted by the Virginia Company. They called it Berkeley. So began the story of one of the numerous early plantations that still line the James River in a 20-mile strip between Richmond and Williamsburg.

We started with a goal -- to see the wild horses of the Outer Banks. But as we drove south from Richmond, Va., to Corolla, N.C., we discovered that, sometimes, the journey itself is the destination. Sticking to back roads and secondary highways, we visited grand old antebellum plantations still in operation, explored the moody landscape of an ancient swamp and stumbled onto charming towns bright with freshly painted heritage. And we let go of any route we'd planned. Matching our pace and our course to the slow rivers that meander through this tidewater country, we banished "Are we there yet?"

You approach Virginia's oldest plantation along a manicured path that wends its way past a pair of brick storage barns and a matched set of trim, two-story buildings that together form what the guidebooks exalt as a rare Queen Anne-style courtyard, the only surviving example in the United States. Just ahead, rolling lawns and a canopy of pecan, willow oak and English walnut trees frame an imposing, multi-tiered manor house complete with porticoed dormer windows and a welcoming 3]-foot pineapple finial crowning its mansard roof.

Thursday, Sept. 16, 1619, was cold and blustery in London when the Margaret sailed for Virginia with 39 men from the area around Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. After a rough, 2 1/2 -month crossing, they sailed up the James River, the major highway west in those days, and disembarked on the land they'd been granted by the Virginia Company. They called it Berkeley. So began the story of one of the numerous early plantations that still line the James River in a 20-mile strip between Richmond and Williamsburg.

JAMESTOWN ISLAND, Va. -- Until recently, the first fort at the Jamestown settlement was believed to be lost forever, its secrets washed into the nearby James River. That's what the history books said.William Kelso, visiting Jamestown more than three decades ago as a 21-year-old history graduate student, didn't want to accept that. And so, many years later, he found soil stains where oak and walnut posts once formed the walls of the original 1607 triangular fort at the western tip of Jamestown.

Two peregrine falcons born in different years to the same set of parents in Baltimore are nesting together on the James River Bridge in Newport News, Va.It is the first time since the endangered birds began breeding in Baltimore in 1984 that any of the offspring born here are known to have paired with siblings.Scientists are monitoring the birds, but have no plans to break up the match to prevent inbreeding. Peregrine experts say there is nothing to worry about.Captive breeding experiments once paired brother-and-sister peregrines "and there's no problem with their offspring," said Bill Heinrich, release coordinator at the Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho.

Slaves living on a prosperous plantation on the James River in Virginia more than two centuries ago appear to have found ways to join in the flourishing consumer culture of the day, according to archaeologists from the College of William and Mary.Excavations at the site of a new highway bridge near Richmond have turned up fragments of imported English ceramics, stemmed wine glasses, fancy buttons and other pricey items amid the remains of a log slave cabin.Some may have come from the planter's house, said Tom Higgins, project archaeologist with the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research.

The first time I went whitewater rafting, my emotions were as turbulent as the water beneath me. Goaded into making my maiden voyage down Richmond's James River by my whitewater enthusiast boyfriend, I battled fear and exhilaration as we approached the first big rapid. But by the end of the trip, I was eagerly surfing the last rapid, exulting in the thrill of keeping my feet firmly planted inside a contorting, wet rubber raft while I paddled furiously into the roiling whitewater. I was hooked -- and exceedingly glad this grand adventure was so nearby.

In the autumn is best, when the cool nights provoke boils of fog from the James River where it runs shallow through the heart of Richmond.Then, just before dawn, he likes to get comfortable with a thermos of coffee, seated on a rock in the river's bed, says Ralph White, manager of the urban James River Park.The sun perfuses the mists with a cold, red glow, and wild ducks strike a cacophony that swells and swells, until the first rays of light appear -- then silence; and then the whirring of waterfowl rocketing into the bright morning air.At such times, he says, "I feel like Mickey Mouse in that classic scene from 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice,' where every direction he turns, his power causes great, grand things to happen."

Halt pollution from a smokestack and our air becomes cleaner within hours.Stop the flow of sewage into a river and it begins to rebound within weeks.Even toxic disasters, as when tons of the pesticide Kepone were dumped into Virginia's James River, fade after a few years, because fresh sediments bury the contamination on the river bottom.Then there is ground water, whose pollution looms as perhaps the longest-term obstacle to meeting restoration goals for Chesapeake Bay.The "dark, invisible sea," Rachel Carson called it in "Silent Spring."

The Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862, ended the Seven Days' Battles, as overwhelming Union artillery turned back an aggressive Confederate assault after a week of fighting. It was an impressive performance for the Northern army's artillery. Thousands of Union infantrymen and more than 100 artillery pieces occupied Malvern Hill. The narrow plateau, a mile north of the James River, provided Union forces with a strong defensive position. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan considered Malvern Hill an important location for protecting the trains of Union supplies and ammunition along the James.

The first Europeans to explore America found a land rich in rivers -- some 3.5 million miles' worth of free-flowing waters full of life. The rivers near Jamestown, Va., were "so stored with sturgeon and other sweet fish as no man's fortune has ever possessed the like," wrote one of Capt. John Smith's companions in 1607. The French Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle dazzled the court of Louis XIV with his descriptions of the mighty Mississippi in 1682. Today the James River is tainted with pesticides, sewage and farm runoff.

FORT EUSTIS, Va. -- Watch your step.You might not see rats -- the food's long gone -- but topside on some of the rusting ghost ships in the James River Reserve Fleet, you can see through holes to the deck below.Grass grows on the deck of the cargo ship Marine Fiddler, moss and weeds on others. Pigeons leave foot-high hills all over the World War II Liberty ship Arthur M. Huddle. Peeling paint hangs in strips from cabins in the oiler Saugatuck. Water covers floors in the tanker Truckee. Peregrine falcons are protected on another ship, but they didn't show up this year.

The first time I went whitewater rafting, my emotions were as turbulent as the water beneath me. Goaded into making my maiden voyage down Richmond's James River by my whitewater enthusiast boyfriend, I battled fear and exhilaration as we approached the first big rapid. But by the end of the trip, I was eagerly surfing the last rapid, exulting in the thrill of keeping my feet firmly planted inside a contorting, wet rubber raft while I paddled furiously into the roiling whitewater. I was hooked -- and exceedingly glad this grand adventure was so nearby.

President Clinton is accused of lying about sex and engaging in a cover-up. How do his alleged offenses compare with those of his predecessors?John Adams: Threw his political enemies in jail after they criticized the government.Thomas Jefferson: Concealed from Congress his plan to pay Napoleon a $2 million bribe for help in buying Florida and Spain. (The bribe was never paid; Napoleon refused to cut a deal.)James Madison: Ignored allegations that the top commander of the army was secretly on the Spanish payroll, which were subsequently confirmed.

Slaves living on a prosperous plantation on the James River in Virginia more than two centuries ago appear to have found ways to join in the flourishing consumer culture of the day, according to archaeologists from the College of William and Mary.Excavations at the site of a new highway bridge near Richmond have turned up fragments of imported English ceramics, stemmed wine glasses, fancy buttons and other pricey items amid the remains of a log slave cabin.Some may have come from the planter's house, said Tom Higgins, project archaeologist with the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research.

President Clinton is accused of lying about sex and engaging in a cover-up. How do his alleged offenses compare with those of his predecessors?John Adams: Threw his political enemies in jail after they criticized the government.Thomas Jefferson: Concealed from Congress his plan to pay Napoleon a $2 million bribe for help in buying Florida and Spain. (The bribe was never paid; Napoleon refused to cut a deal.)James Madison: Ignored allegations that the top commander of the army was secretly on the Spanish payroll, which were subsequently confirmed.

The first Europeans to explore America found a land rich in rivers -- some 3.5 million miles' worth of free-flowing waters full of life. The rivers near Jamestown, Va., were "so stored with sturgeon and other sweet fish as no man's fortune has ever possessed the like," wrote one of Capt. John Smith's companions in 1607. The French Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle dazzled the court of Louis XIV with his descriptions of the mighty Mississippi in 1682. Today the James River is tainted with pesticides, sewage and farm runoff.

You approach Virginia's oldest plantation along a manicured path that wends its way past a pair of brick storage barns and a matched set of trim, two-story buildings that together form what the guidebooks exalt as a rare Queen Anne-style courtyard, the only surviving example in the United States. Just ahead, rolling lawns and a canopy of pecan, willow oak and English walnut trees frame an imposing, multi-tiered manor house complete with porticoed dormer windows and a welcoming 3]-foot pineapple finial crowning its mansard roof.

JAMESTOWN ISLAND, Va. -- Until recently, the first fort at the Jamestown settlement was believed to be lost forever, its secrets washed into the nearby James River. That's what the history books said.William Kelso, visiting Jamestown more than three decades ago as a 21-year-old history graduate student, didn't want to accept that. And so, many years later, he found soil stains where oak and walnut posts once formed the walls of the original 1607 triangular fort at the western tip of Jamestown.