We Have A Problem, Houston

[L Verge]

Well, another set-back to history buffs. I just received a lengthy phone call from a gentleman who is irate after tracing the Booth route in preparation for friends coming to visit. It seems that either the State of Virginia or Ft. A.P. Hill has barricaded and chained off the pull-over strip that allows cars and buses to stop and visitors to walk to the site of where the Garrett farmhouse once stood.

Since the site is in the median strip of the north- and south-bound lanes of U.S. Route 301, this pull-off has been the only way to reach the spot in the 37 years we have been doing the tours. The warning signs supposedly have been put up by the Environmental and Natural Resources people. Since the median is about fifty feet wide at this point and covered with relatively new undergrowth after a devastating ice storm about ten years ago, I can only surmise that they are protecting the site from further metal detecting. There have been signs up warning against that for years.

That whole area has been drastically disturbed over the years with the highway going through it in the 1940s or so and then a dual-lane added later that it is doubtful that anything of significance remains. If the State of Virginia or the Feds think that something might be there, why don't they do a little detecting?

More will be revealed because it will be a shame to close the site off to future historians.