All donations will go to the Hatteras Food Pantry. Suggested donations include canned foods like chili, soup, stews and vegetables, boxed foods, pasta, protein bars and healthy drinks.

The museum at 53536 N.C. 12 on Hatteras Island is full of Native American items from all over the country and offers a special exhibit room dedicated to the tribes of the Outer Banks.

See nativeamericanmuseum.org for more information.

From Sept. 10-13, visitors to the living history farm can meet Russell — otherwise known as “the chair guy” — and see him demonstrate the art of creating strong chair seats from the shucks of corn cobs.

Corn shuck seat weaving stemmed from the necessity of having to use what was on hand to make an item of function.

Several corn shuck chairs are part of Island Farm’s collection, indicative of the period. On Roanoke Island in the mid-19th century, corn was produced in high volumes. Today, original corn-husk woven chair seats are as rare as the people that know the trade.

Admission to Island Farm at 1140 North U.S. Highway 64, north of Manteo on Roanoke Island, is $10, with children under 3 free. See obcinc.org/island-farm for more information.

Phelps and his friends and associates in the field of living history have played a major role in shining the limelight on the Great Bridge battle in December of 1775 as a significant element in America’s struggle for independence.

As a youngster, Phelps’ fascination with the battle began with a diorama on display in the local library. He examined the diorama closely. It inspired an abiding interest and pride in local history.

Then Phelps participated in a simple commemorative ceremony near the Chesapeake Central Library on Cedar Road. Over the years, local reenactors formed the 7th Virginia Regiment and the 14th Regiment of Foote that ultimately served as host units for the annual battle reenactment.

Phelps and his colleagues in the 7th Virginia invited other living history organizations including the Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown-Yorktown foundations to participate in what has become an immensely educational annual weekend event.

Chesapeake Parks, Recreation and Tourism offered support for the event, including programs, a public address system, public seating, and shelters. The Norfolk Historical Society and the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution set up exhibits.

Prominent city officials, impressed with the portrayal of local Revolutionary War drama on the simulated battlefield, also enthusiastically supported the annual event and advocated establishing a museum at Great Bridge to promote Chesapeake’s Revolutionary War legacy.

Sadly, Ronald William Phelps died Aug. 25. He has left an enduring legacy.

The annual Battle of Great Bridge reenactment continues to offer lessons in American history to the general public, especially local youth. The Battle of Great Bridge Battlefield and Waterways Foundation, via the battlefield park and museum at Great Bridge, offers visitors a comprehensive examination of Great Bridge’s Revolutionary War history.

For those who knew Phelps, it will be impossible to attend a battlefield reenactment, walk through battlefield park or pass through the museum galleries at Great Bridge without thinking of Phelps and remembering his devotion to local history.

If there is a heaven for reenactors, “Colonel” Phelps — in spirit — has probably already met with the souls of  departed British soldiers and patriot militiamen to begin planning for yet another reenactment within the pearly gates.

After all, the 249th anniversary of the Battle of Great Bridge, on Dec. 9, is only three months away.

He was already wearing his leather breeches and ruffly linen shirt. After preparing his horse, he went back to the car for his waistcoat, swords, wig and plumed hat, before hoisting himself into the saddle and heading toward a grassy field near the town’s restored Colonial-era courthouse.

Tucked in his jacket was a cellphone, for emergencies. He also carried a period-correct flask full of water, for discreet hydration.

“I wouldn’t want people to see the Marquis de Lafayette drinking from a flask and get the wrong idea,” he said.

For the past 25 years, Schneider has worked at Colonial Williamsburg portraying the French aristocrat who arrived in America at age 19 and became a hero of the American Revolution. But for “Marquis Mark,” as friends jokingly call him, this has been an especially historic summer.

He was just back from a battle reenactment in the Czech Republic, part of his side hustle as an in-demand Napoleon. Now, his sights were on lower Manhattan in New York City, where he landed Aug. 16 to kick off a 13-month, 200th-anniversary re-creation of Lafayette’s triumphant 1824 farewell tour of the United States.

He expected no crowds like the estimated 80,000 New Yorkers who lined the streets to see Lafayette, the last surviving major general from the Revolution, who had helped secure the decisive victory at Yorktown. And instead of traveling by horse, he’d move along Broadway to ceremonial events at City Hall and elsewhere in a motorized faux-carriage, in deference to city laws restricting horses during the summer heat. 

Still,for him it would be a bucket-list moment, especially for a guy born on Long Island.

“Even though I’m not really the marquis, I’m representing him and landing in this incredible city to much pomp and circumstance and fanfare,” Schneider said. “I’m thrilled.”

During the tour re-creation, four Lafayettes will share the role across hundreds of scheduled events in the 24 states visited by the marquis, who had planned to stay five months but stayed for more than a year, traveling 6,000 miles and leaving scores of streets, squares, schools and towns — Lafayette River in Norfolk to Lafayette High in Williamsburg — named in his honor. But even at 5 feet 6 — about 6 inches short of the marquis himself — Schneider stands above the field.

“His knowledge is second to none, and he’s the best orator I’ve ever seen,” said Chuck Schwam, the executive director of the group American Friends of Lafayette, which is organizing the tour. “Also, he just looks damned good in the uniform.”

In an old-fashioned biography, Schneider’s rise to the top of the Lafayette world might be cast as destiny. He grew up in Setauket, on the north shore of Long Island, the son of a French mother and American father. The town had been a center of the Revolution-era Culpeper spy ring (the inspiration behind the AMC television drama “Turn”). But Schneider, 54, was more of a French military history nerd, fond of running around the streets in baseball-pant “breeches,” waving a homemade tricolor flag.

“Kids my age loved Batman and Superman,” he said. “I loved Napoleon.”

Partway through college, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving as a cavalry scout in a unit that was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Today’s cavalry, as it happens, does not involve horses. He was introduced to riding later, through a girlfriend, while stationed in Germany. It turned out to be “life-changing.”

In 1997, two weeks after his discharge, Schneider (who speaks fluent French) joined the historic trades division at Colonial Williamsburg, working as a brickmaker, sawyer and carpenter while finishing his history degree. He also started riding in the site’s military programs and, two years later, became Lafayette.

“It’s easier to teach people to read lines than teaching them to ride a horse,” he said.

Schneider also joined a local Napoleonic cavalry reenactment group. After acquiring a hat and coat, he started using his theatrical skills to portray the emperor in educational films, as well as at events commemorating the 200th anniversary of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. But the first time someone with a French-ish accent called with an invitation to Europe, he hung up, thinking it was a friend playing a joke.

Since then, he has made more than 50 appearances as the emperor across Europe, where there is a long tradition of enormous battle reenactments but where the immersive “living history” portrayals pioneered at Williamsburg are new.

In 2006, for the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s entry into Berlin, he rode a white stallion through the Brandenburg Gate and delivered an address to an ecstatic crowd (who were apparently unconcerned that the occasion marked a humiliating defeat). Schneider has been presented with the imperial eagles at a pageant in Empress Josephine’s château outside Paris, and will happily share frame-by-frame images of an “epic wreck” while galloping up a slick hillside at a faux Austerlitz.

“I went end over end in front of 20,000 people,” he said.

His film and television credits include about 10 wordless seconds of screen time in Jean-François Richet’s 2018 historical drama “The Emperor of Paris,” which earned him a ranking of No. 27 on Le Figaro’s list of the top 100 onscreen Napoleons — one spot ahead of Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s much-maligned 2023 biopic.

But not everyone in France is impressed. In the 2018 documentary “Being Napoleon,” he fends off a trash-talking Parisian lawyer seeking to supplant him as Napoleon at the 200th anniversary reenactment of Waterloo. Schneider said he found the rivalry “ridiculous.”

“The point is to educate and teach people,” he said. “If you’re going to nitpick on my costume or my ‘Anglo-Saxon’ accent, that’s OK. I know I’m not these characters. I’m just Mark.”

Thomas Jefferson, in a 1787 letter to John Adams, described Lafayette as having “a canine appetite for popularity and fame.” For all his exuberant bonhomie as the marquis, Schneider comes off as low-key and self-deprecating — the kind of guy who is less likely to cite Voltaire than “Anchorman” or “Tropic Thunder” (which he brought up to make a point about Method acting).

Like most fellow interpreters at Williamsburg, Schneider won’t break character to answer visitors’ questions about himself. “We want people to feel like they are going back in time and meeting the individual,” he said.

But everyday life is another story. He recalled the time a woman approached him at the gym while he was doing situps.

“She bent down and asked, ‘Are you the Marquis de Lafayette?’” he said. “It was 6:30 in the morning. I said, ‘Not at the moment.’”

Living history museums, which aim to immerse visitors in a re-created past, are sometimes accused of peddling nostalgic history longer on bonnets, bayonets and butter churning than on scholarship. But at Colonial Williamsburg, the portrayals are as meticulously tended as the buildings and clothing (which are made almost entirely on site using 18th-century techniques).

Schneider’s dressing room is crammed with costumes and memorabilia, including multiple Lafayette bobbleheads. But you’ll also find several hundred books, including shelves of biographies (his other roles include the generals Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau; and Banastre Tarleton), along with volumes on the French Revolution, the ancien régime, the fighting in Haiti and, of course, horses.

Schneider has saved two decades of handwritten notes about his characters, which he draws on to script his repertoire of about 10 programs. He also keeps lists of potential visitor questions, from the philosophical to the mundane.

“You cannot second-guess yourself,” he said. “If someone asks my wife’s name, I can’t be like, ‘Um … Adrienne?’”

In recent years, Colonial Williamsburg’s cast of “nation builders,” as its core historical characters are known, has expanded beyond traditional Founding Fathers to include African Americans, Native Americans and women.

But even before the musical “Hamilton” turned Lafayette into a motor-mouthed rapper, the marquis — an outspoken critic of slavery and an advocate for Native Americans, and who wrote the first draft of France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man — felt a bit, well, cooler than George Washington or Jefferson.

“He was just an incredible individual,” Schneider said. “He was very 21st-century in an 18th-century world.”

Lafayette’s 1824 tour began on the eve of a contentious presidential election, one of only two (so far) decided in the House of Representatives. And organizers of this year’s commemoration, mindful of America’s impending Semiquincentennial in 2026, are promoting it as an inspiring tale of a polarized nation uniting around the rekindled principles of the founding.

Contemporary politics has sometimes complicated the business of being Lafayette. Schneider recalled some tense visitor interactions during the Iraq War, when some Americans were dumping French wine and eating “freedom fries.” But these days, a more common challenge is politely parrying (dubious) claims that a visitor’s ancestor saved the injured Lafayette’s life at the battle of Brandywine.

“You don’t want to make people feel bad,” Schneider said. “You just say, ‘Oh wow – thank you!’”

Ultimately, the point of the job isn’t fame, fortune or frippery, but helping visitors connect with the past.

“It’s about making a difference, not about me getting all these pictures taken and being called the greatest Lafayette, or the greatest Napoleon,” he said. “The greatest ones are lying in their graves. I hope I’m doing them justice.”

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A Lafayette bicentennial tour

In 1824 the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States, four decades after he helped the Colonies win independence from Britain. Across 13 months he visited all 24 states; that tour is being replicated, down to the date, with hundreds of events this year and next.

Schedules are being worked out. For details, including histories and mini tours: lafayette200.org

Hampton Roads events — free unless noted — include:

Sept. 11, lecture, Norfolk. 7 p.m. Overview of Lafayette’s visit to Norfolk in 1824 and of Norfolk events in October, by Chris Melhuish. Sponsor: Norfolk Historical Society. MacArthur Memorial, 198 Bank St.

Oct. 9, lecture, Norfolk. 7 p.m. “Freedom’s Friendship: Monroe and Lafayette” by Mark Walsh, James Monroe Memorial Foundation. Norfolk Historical Society, at MacArthur Memorial, 198 Bank St.

Oct. 17, film, Norfolk. 7 p.m. “Lafayette: The Lost Hero,” a PBS documentary. MacArthur Memorial, 198 Bank St.

Oct. 18-19, Yorktown. Re-enactor Mark Schneider portrays Lafayette.

Oct. 20-21, Williamsburg

Oct. 22, river cruise, Norfolk. The date Lafayette arrived in Norfolk. Sunset, American Rover, viewing fireworks, bonfires and more. Ticketed.

Oct. 24, Fort Monroe

Oct. 25, Portsmouth. Events at historyalive.info or 757-705-8130

Oct. 26, bicentennial ball, Norfolk. Norfolk Yacht and Country Club. Ticketed.

Late October, early November: Richmond area

The exhibit, on view through June 1, 2025, at Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, uses photos, historical text, posters, T-shirts and personal anecdotes from surfers, board-shapers and surf-shop owners to illustrate the sport’s history and popularity in this little corner of the world.

And, of course, surfboards line the walls of the upstairs space and there’s a display of boards in the middle of the room.

There’s a crash course on the evolution of surfboards, which started as heavy wooden planks but now are mostly made of lighter materials like fiberglass.

“It’s about many things,” said Wanda Lassiter, the museum’s curator, referring to the first misconception. “It attracts a diverse group of people, and it’s very much about community.”

Many charities on the Outer Banks stage surfing events to raise funds for various causes (autism research is a primary one).

Many times when a surfer dies in northeastern North Carolina, a “paddle-out” in the mighty Atlantic Ocean by fellow board riders is the ultimate show of respect and camaraderie.

Both events are depicted in photographs and posters.

The latter misconception is easy to understand. When surfing first entered America’s consciousness in the early 1960s, it was the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and others waxing poetic about the joys of “catching a wave and sitting on top of the world” in the Pacific Ocean in sunny California.

You know, it was “fun, fun, fun” and “we’re waxing our surfboards. We can’t wait for June.”

Not to mention the “Beach Blanket” movies, and on TV, Batman and the Joker competed in a surfing contest at Gotham Point on the campy series.

Even farther west, Hawaii was a hot spot with its legendary Banzai “pipeline.”

But as the exhibit illuminates, northeastern North Carolina, especially Hatteras Island and Nags Head, was quietly becoming a destination at the same time for folks looking for some serious waves.

Longtime Outer Banks surfer and board-shaper Rascoe Hunt, who’s in a photograph in his shop in the exhibit, offers some thoughts about the allure of the barrier islands.

“EastCoasters came to Hatteras like a surf trip to an exotic locale that you can drive to,” he said. “The way we stick out to the east with the cape and the influence of the Gulf Stream and the way weather fronts track across the nation here in Mid-Atlantic, we get a lot of surf potential.”

In the early to mid-1970s, the word was out and major surfing championships (featured in photographs) were held on Hatteras Island and in Nags Head.

Surf shops like Natural Art in Buxton and Whalebone in Nags Head, both in vintage photographs, began popping up.

The exhibit also spotlights contemporary local surfers Noah Snyder and Jesse Hines, with their custom boards and stories, who competed professionally.

Probably the photograph that best captures the spirit, almost religion, of surfing is of Kitty Hawk-based Brittany Duffy with her husband and five kids on the beach carrying surfboards.

A poster attached to the photo includes some words from Duffy: “I guess, as humans, we all crave connections. And surfing is one of those sports that really binds people together.”

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If you go

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday, through June 1, 2025

Where: Museum of the Albemarle, 501 S. Water St., Elizabeth City, NC

Cost: Free

Details: MuseumOfTheAlbemarle.com, 252-335-1453

Not to mention the skeletal jaw remains of a green monkey and a baboon native to West Africa, possibly “ship pets” during the British colonization period or exotic pets kept by wealthy residents.

Those are just a handful of the imported items in The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s collection of more than 60 million artifacts. Together, they paint 18th-century Williamsburg as a surprisingly international city.

“People might think of Williamsburg as a really sleepy Colonial town, a place on the periphery of what was going on in the world,” said Sean Devlin, Colonial Williamsburg’s senior curator of archaeological collections. “That’s not at all the case. It really was a central hub.”

On Sept. 7, Colonial Williamsburg will open an exhibition of 225 artifacts, “Worlds Collide: Archaeology and Global Trade in Williamsburg.” The collection will remain on display through Jan. 2, 2027, in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum.

The exhibit will showcase tangible items that reflect daily life in Williamsburg for a diverse population of men, women and children; African, European and Indigenous Americans; rich, middling and poor families; and free residents and the enslaved.

Some artifacts are evidence of cultural blending, such as locally produced ceramics called colonoware unearthed at nearly every 18th-century Williamsburg site. The clay bowls, pans and other vessels are European in form but were fired at low temperatures in open pits — a Native American technique — rather than in a pottery kiln, and were pressed into shape, not thrown on a wheel.

“These aren’t abstract ideas, but materials that we can all look at together and that can spark discussions about our shared past,” said Jack Gary, CW’s executive director of archaeology. “Guests will likely see themselves and the modern world in many of these items.”

Take a thin copper dog tag, likely once sewn onto a collar, with the letters “JASPE” clearly visible. Archaeologists believe they spell out part of the dog owner’s name, following a community directive for animals to have identification if they roamed outdoors.

“People had pet dogs in their households for personal enjoyment, in addition to guard dogs and hunting dogs,” Devlin said. “That’s so relatable for us.”

So is Pyrmont bottled water, a predecessor to the likes of Poland Spring and Dasani. In 1725, King George I of England visited the spring of Pyrmont in modern-day Germany and gave a “celebrity” endorsement of sorts to its water. Branded bottles then became popular among British consumers, setting off a health craze that crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

Many objects in “World Collide” traveled great distances, such as a fragment of a Chinese porcelain platter owned by John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, and porcelain tea vessels from China. Many colonists developed a taste for tea, largely imported from China, along with European wines, particularly from Spain and Portugal.

Some items also reflect influences from multiple countries and time periods. A fashionable white-on-blue Persian urn, made in England, imitated tin-glazed wares produced in 17th-century France that were inspired by Persian styles of earlier centuries.

“Worldwide commerce is nothing new and touched most parts of the North Atlantic world in the 18th century, even in a place as small as Williamsburg, Virginia,” said Ron Hurst, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s chief mission officer.

As for the export side, tobacco became such a lucrative crop in Virginia and the Colonies that Britain began producing and shipping tens of thousands of broad hoes such as the one discovered at Carter’s Grove Plantation, a style originally designed by Colonists.

The majority of Williamsburg’s early Black population was enslaved. One type of artifact that reflects the traumatic journeys and resilience of slaves is cowrie shells, external casings for sea snails native to the Indian and Pacific oceans that were used as money throughout the Indo-Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa for centuries.

While slave traders frequently used the shells as currency, archaeological evidence indicates that enslaved residents also saved them as keepsakes and turned them into jewelry, hair ornaments and decorations for clothing.

For young CW visitors, “Worlds Collide” includes a gold ring for a child engraved with the name Mary Brodnax, likely crafted by her father, local goldsmith John Brodnax. There’s also a small wooden spinning top, a common toy for boys in particular, found in a well during a 1960s dig.

“It’s amazing to think the last person to touch it before that probably was a child in the 1700s,” Devlin said. “An object can be a powerful bridge between past and present, and if the past feels more relevant, we hope people will want to learn more — find more connections.”

Alison Johnson, ajohnsondp@yahoo.com

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If you go

Where: DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, 201 S. Nassau St., Williamsburg

When: Sept. 7 through Jan. 2, 2027

Prices: Single-day admission to the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg is $14.99 for adults (13 and older) and $8.99 for youths (ages 6 to 12)

Details: 855-296-6627; colonialwilliamsburg.org

Volunteer researchers found the ring and some shards of pottery last summer in archaeological pits at the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island near modern-day Manteo, North Carolina. The First Colony Foundation — a nonprofit dedicated to conducting archaeological and historical research on Roanoke Island — has been searching for the Algonquian village encountered during Sir Walter Raleigh’s first expedition to the New World 440 years ago.

“This is an amazing find with an intriguing story to tell,” said Eric Klingelhofer, the foundation’s vice president for research, who led the Elizabethan Gardens dig. “After lying hidden in the ground for more than four centuries, this piece of copper now confirms that we have indeed located the site of Roanoac, the Algonquian village that welcomed the first English explorers in 1584.”

An analysis conducted by Madison Accelerator Laboratory at James Madison University in Harrisonburg found that copper used to make the ring was of European origin, rather than from a North American source, the foundation said in a news release.

The Spanish and French, Klingelhofer said, were never close enough to Roanoke Island during 16th century expeditions to have left the ring at the village.

During the tribe’s first contact with English explorers Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe in 1584, the wife of the village chief treated the men to a woodland feast.

“We were entertained with all love and kindness,” Barlowe wrote in his journal, “and with as much bounty, after their manner, as they could possibly devise.”

Klingelhofer said there’s no way to be sure, but it’s possible the explorers repaid the village’s hospitality with a gift of the copper earring.

The explorer’s first successful encounter with the Roanoac paved the way for another voyage from England in 1587, when 117 settlers arrived on Roanoke Island and established a colony. But when British ships returned with supplies three years later, the settlement had vanished — and the Lost Colony became one of history’s most enduring mysteries.

Roanoac village was abandoned in 1586, so the earring must have been presented as a gift or exchanged in trade before then, the foundation release said.

“Either during the 1584 visit by Amadas and Barlowe or the 1585 military outpost under Ralph Lane, rather than during Sir Walter Raleigh’s final effort, the 1587 civilian settlement led by artist John White,” the foundation wrote.

For the native tribe, copper was rare and to be cherished.

“They treasured it. It was actually spiritual,” Klingelhofer said in an interview after the ring’s discovery last year.

A cherry-infused drink, such as the Cherry Bounce still served in Williamsburg, was one of George Washington’s favorites. He drank it at his estate, on his many journeys and likely at the taverns he frequented when he visited Williamsburg, Virginia’s capital.

John Dabney was a formerly enslaved Richmond bartender and caterer who used his tips to help pay for his and his wife’s freedom. Before it could be paid in full, Lincoln freed the slaves. Dabney still settled his debt. Patrons raved about his “hail-storm” mint juleps, canvasback duck and terrapin stew.

Punch was also popular among social and fraternal clubs and at taverns.

Here are some recipes to add to your collection.

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Rum Punch

Virginia Club, Norfolk
Contributed by Commander Hugo Osterhaus

INGREDIENTS

• 1 gallon Jamaica rum
• 1 gallon boiling water
• 1 quart of French brandy
• 3 pounds of sugar
• 1 quart of lemon juice
• Rind of 1 dozen lemons in a quart of boiling water added last.

The book doesn’t include directions or how much the recipe yields. A good rule is to prepare the punch in order of ingredients.

 — Jacqueline Harrison Smith, “Famous Old Receipts Used a Hundred Years and More in the Kitchens of the North and the South” (1908).

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Cherry Bounce

This recipe is a modern adaptation of the 18th-century original. It was created by culinary historian Nancy Carter Crump for the book “Dining with the Washingtons: Historic Recipes, Entertaining, and Hospitality from Mount Vernon.”

Makes about 3 quarts.

INGREDIENTS

• 10 to 11 pounds of fresh sour cherries, preferably Morello, or 3 1-pound, 9-ounce jars of preserved Morello cherries
• 4 cups brandy
• 3 cups sugar, plus more as needed
• 2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
• 2 to 3 whole cloves
• 1 (1/4-inch) piece of fresh whole nutmeg

DIRECTIONS

Pit the cherries, cut them in half, and put them in a large bowl. Using a potato masher, carefully mash them to extract as much juice as possible. Strain the juice through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing the fruit with a sturdy spoon. This should yield about 8 cups. Reserve the mashed cherries in the freezer or refrigerator for later use. If using jarred cherries, drain the fruit and set the juice aside before halving and mashing the cherries. Add any pressed juice to the reserved juice.

In a lidded 1-gallon glass jar, combine the juice with the brandy and sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Cover with the lid and set aside in the refrigerator for 24 hours, occasionally stirring or carefully shaking the jar.

Bring 2 cups of the juice to a simmer over medium heat. Taste the sweetened juice and add more sugar, if desired. Stir in the cinnamon sticks, cloves and nutmeg, then cover and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, and set aside to cool at room temperature. Strain and discard the spices.

Stir the spiced juice back into the 1-gallon glass jar with the reserved sweetened juice. Cover loosely with the lid and set aside for at least two weeks before serving, occasionally shaking the jar.

Serve at room temperature in small cordial or wine glasses. Store the rest in the refrigerator.

Reprinted with permission from the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

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John Dabney’s Hail-Storm Mint Julep

Recipe adapted from Wendell Dabney by culinary historian Robert Moss.

Makes 1 drink.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon pulverized or superfine white sugar (see note below)
• 2 ½ tablespoons water
• 4 sprigs of fresh mint for the julep base and 4 more for garnish
• 3 ounces of real peach brandy (or apple brandy, dark rum, cognac or any combination of the three if you can’t find real peach brandy)
• Shaved or pounded ice (see note below)
• Assorted berries (e.g. strawberries, raspberries, blackberries) and small pieces of fruits (e.g. oranges, pineapple) for garnish
• Assorted flower blossoms for garnish (optional)

DIRECTIONS

The julep base: In a large glass tumbler or silver cup, stir sugar and water until blended. Add 4 sprigs of mint and press well with a muddler or the end of a bar spoon to squeeze out the oils and extract the mint flavor, but do not bruise or pulverize the leaves. Remove the mint and discard. Add the brandy (or other alcohol) and stir.

Fill the tumbler with shaved ice, mounding it above the glass.

Finally, the decorations. (This is where the julep maker’s skill and creativity really come into play.) Take several more sprigs of mint and insert them into the ice, arranging the leaves into a bouquet. Arrange the berries, cut fruit and flowers on the mint and ice, adding a few flowers. If you are ambitious, take more shaved ice and mold it into shapes and figures and press them against the side of the goblet. (Don’t worry if you can’t. Dabney’s son, Wendell, who tried to imitate his father while working alongside him at resorts in summers, admitted, “I could never make the ice stick on the outside of a big mint julep.”)

Once the decoration is complete, insert a long straw (preferably silver or stainless steel) all the way to the bottom of the goblet and serve. Your guests should be suitably impressed.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Pulverized or superfine sugar is not the same as powdered sugar, which generally contains starch. To make pulverized sugar, put plain white sugar into a food processor and pulse for 1 minute until it is reduced almost to a powder.

Shaved or pounded ice is essential for making a proper julep. John Dabney used to shave his ice with a carpenter’s plane mounted blade side up with wooden sides below to catch the falling bits of ice. At home, the easiest way is to put ice cubes in a large canvas bag or wrap them in a clean towel and pound them with a rolling pin or a mallet.

Reprinted with permission from Field Studio, which produced a film about John Dabney.

Rekaya Gibson, 757-295-8809, rekaya.gibson@virginiamedia.com; on X, @gibsonrekaya

This little gem of a park was added to the National Park Service’s Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network in 2004 because of its historical and ecological importance. Situated between two historic waterways, the park offers a scenic view of the Elizabeth River as well as up-close views of the elegant yachts that pass through the Corps of Engineers operated locks on the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal as they transit the busy intracoastal waterway.

Historically speaking, Lock Park is situated in the most historic spots in Chesapeake’s Great Bridge. Across Battlefield Boulevard, the British began their assault on Patriot forces in Great Bridge in 1775. On the Lock Park side of Battlefield Boulevard across the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, Patriot forces repelled the British attack at the Battle of Great Bridge.

“The Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Museum shares the importance of our canal history and how the canals shaped the region,” executive director Elizabeth Goodwin said. “We encourage visitors to explore Lock Park and learn more about this vital waterway.”

The Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal opened for operation in 1859. During the Civil War, the strategic value of the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal was recognized by both the Union and the Confederacy. After Union forces seized control of the canal, defense works were erected to guard the Great Bridge lock. From 1861 until 1865, a total of 8,824 steamers, schooners, lighters, rafts, barges and other vessels in wartime service transited the canal.

A Civil War anchor and chain believed to have belonged to the U.S.S. Hartford is on exhibit in Lock Park. The Union warship achieved fame during the Battle of Mobile Bay when Admiral David Farragut gave his famous order: “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

“I grew up here. I’ve done some boating out here, but this is the first time I’ve used my kayak here,” Great Bridge resident Chris Garris said as he carried his kayak and carried it to the nearby launch ramp. “This place is beautiful. There’s so much natural beauty here, all the birds and wildlife. It’s wonderful.”

Thousands of commercial vessels, everything from tugboats to barges and workboats to pleasure craft still pass through the unique lock system on the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal at Great Bridge annually.

On July 17, 1944, munitions being loaded onto a cargo ship detonated, causing secondary blasts that ignited 5,000 tons (4,535 metric tonnes) of explosives at Port Chicago naval weapons station near San Francisco.

The explosion killed 320 sailors and civilians, nearly 75% of whom were Black, and injured another 400 personnel. Surviving Black sailors had to pick up the human remains and clear the blast site while white officers were granted leave to recuperate.

The pier was a critical ammunition supply site for forces in the Pacific during World War II, and the job of loading those ships was left primarily to Black enlisted sailors overseen by white officers.

Before the explosion, the Black sailors working the dock had expressed concerns about the loading operations. Shortly after the blast, they were ordered to return to loading ships even though no changes had been made to improve their safety.

The sailors refused, saying they needed training on how to more safely handle the bombs before they returned.

What followed affected the rest of their lives, including punishments that kept them from receiving honorable discharges even as the vast majority returned to work at the pier under immense pressure and served throughout the war. Fifty sailors who held fast to their demands for safety and training were tried as a group on charges of conspiracy to commit mutiny and were convicted and sent to prison.

The whole episode was unjust, and none of the sailors received the legal due process they were owed, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in an interview with The Associated Press.

It was “a horrific situation for those Black sailors that remained,” Del Toro said. The Navy’s office of general counsel reviewed the military judicial proceedings used to punish the sailors and found “there were so many inconsistencies and so many legal violations that came to the forefront,” he said.

Thurgood Marshall, who was then a defense attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, defended the 50 sailors who were convicted of mutiny. Marshall went on to become the first Black justice on the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the 80th anniversary of the Port Chicago disaster, Del Toro signed paperwork officially clearing the sailors, who are now deceased. Del Toro handed the first pen to Thurgood Marshall Jr., the late justice’s son.

The exonerations “are deeply moving,” Marshall Jr. said. “They, of course, are all gone, and that’s a painful aspect of it. But so many fought for so long for that kind of fairness and recognition.”

The events have stung surviving family members for decades, but an earlier effort in the 1990s to pardon the sailors fell short. Two additional sailors were previously cleared — one was found mentally incompetent to stand trial, and one was cleared on insufficient evidence. Wednesday’s action goes beyond a pardon and vacates the military judicial proceedings carried out in 1944 against all of the men.

“This decision clears their names and restores their honor and acknowledges the courage that they displayed in the face of immense danger,” Del Toro said.

The racism that the Black sailors faced reflected the military’s views at the time — ranks were segregated, and the Navy had only reluctantly opened some positions it considered less desirable to Black service members.

The official court of inquiry looking into why the explosion occurred cleared all the white officers and praised them for the “great effort” they had to exert to run the dock. It left open the suggestion that the Black sailors were to blame for the accident.

Del Toro’s action converts the discharges to honorable unless there were other circumstances surrounding them. After the Navy upgrades the discharges, surviving family members can work with the Department of Veterans Affairs on past benefits that may be owed, the Navy said.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Navy at https://apnews.com/hub/us-navy.