Virgina Beach kayakers paddle down the course of history

VIRGINIA BEACH

The Lynnhaven River was much deeper that summer day in 1706 - maybe 36 feet to the bottom, where today the depth is but 9 feet.

Dirt and silt from all the shoreline development of the 20th century have shallowed the largest river system in Virginia Beach, making it a milder, sicklier version of its former wild self.

Still, despite the muck, no one can erase the history.

Last weekend, it took two hours of kayaking to reach this spot. Lillie Gilbert, a tour guide and local historian, pointed it out as the group paddled south down the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven.

"See it there?" she asked the 15 or so paddlers, each squinting through sunglasses and sweat to glimpse the horizon. "Between those two gazebos? In between the two big houses? It's that dark-green patch."

There was a sandy beach nearby back then; it's gone today, replaced by green lawns and piers and rocky bulkheads. Colonists had lined the shores to watch the spectacle on July 10, 1706. Some are rumored to have started a presumptuous cheer - "Duck the witch! Duck the witch!"

And then, with her thumbs tied to her toes with thick rope, the suspected "Witch of Pungo," Grace Sherwood, probably in her mid-40s at the time, was tossed into the Lynnhaven.

She floated, of course. Or more precisely, she did not sink to the bottom and drown.

"Remember now," Gilbert told the group, "Grace was a country gal. She knew how to swim, how to float, how to hold her breath."

Sherwood was ducked again, Gilbert said, and perhaps a third time. Maybe even with a Bible strapped to her chest.

Each time, she surfaced. And for this, Sherwood was labeled a true witch and sentenced to jail, Virginia's only convicted witch.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine pardoned Sherwood in 2006, on the 300th anniversary of her ducking. But she was an outcast after being released from jail several years after her Lynnhaven plunge, growing tobacco and other crops on a modest farm plot in Pungo in southern Virginia Beach.

The stop along the river, and the retelling of the Witchduck saga, was the highlight of a kayak tour called "Paddle Into History."

It was scheduled for the weekend of the 303rd anniversary of the ducking, an event that also brought historical re-enactors affiliated with the Ferry Plantation House out on the water.

Dressed in the drab cotton garments of the day, the actors rowed out to Witchduck Point in a restored white shallop, a young Grace in custody. But the actors chose not to re-do the ducking this year, as some in the cast were concerned about bacteria levels in the river.

The kayak tour was led by Gilbert and her Wild River Outfitters company and was co-sponsored for the first time by the environmental group Lynnhaven River Now.

Organizers sought to accomplish several goals in one morning swoop:

- To provide residents with a historical background for a city that many might only know from street signs, the Oceanfront and modern landmarks;

- To give tourists an interesting day of fitness and education on the water;

- And to show people what the community is doing to restore the long-abused Lynnhaven.

Karen Forget, executive director of Lynnhaven River Now and a paddler in last Saturday 's group, said her organization hopes to support more events like this one, "to reach a wider audience and, frankly, a different audience."

The organization teamed with local history buffs in May to do a bicycling tour around the Lynnhaven. It, too, drew good crowds, Forget said.

"Stewardship begins with appreciation," she said. "Why would you care about protecting something if you don't know anything about it?"

While Gilbert was talking about the Pungo witch, Adam Thoroughgood and the origins of the name Pleasure House Cove - "We'll just say there used to be a tavern by that name, but it was more than that, if you know what I mean" - Forget discussed oysters, sea grasses and bacteria.

Gilbert said she has had a hard time selling the guided history tours through her Wild River Outfitters, but when environmental issues are included, "we get a lot of the folks who want the 'eco' in eco-tourism."

Last Saturday, kayakers assembled at the Lynnhaven Boat and Beach Facility, a busy public launch near the Lesner Bridge. Gilbert described how they would be paddling about 5 miles over the next three hours or so, at a mild pace so they could take in the sights.

Forget then explained how the Lynnhaven encompasses 64 square miles, is home to 230,000 people and also must cope with 60,000 dogs and their wastes.

In recent decades, the river has lost much of its oyster population because of overharvesting, ruined habitat and high levels of bacteria and pollution. Given how oysters naturally filter nutrients and sediments, she said, their disappearance has been devastating to water quality.

"If you unplug the filter in your fish tank, you know what happens to the water," Forget said. "That's analogous to what happened on the Lynnhaven."

The water was low but relatively clear as the kayakers got under way, pushing past salt grasses and tidal mud flats.

Gilbert said the first homesteads on the river were built on the Western Branch. The branch, she said, "was how people got around, how they moved, how they visited friends."

The paddlers, all adults and mostly from the area, soon reached the Adam Thoroughgood House - "the home of perhaps the most successful indentured servant in our history," Gilbert said.

He initially made his fortune, she said, "by bringing people to America, up to 50 acres per person."

Unlike homes today, the Thoroughgood estate was built back from the river's edge. A thick buffer of marsh and forest protects the home from flooding. The river also gains from the spongy flora, by soaking up any landward pollutants before they can reach the water.

In the main channel of the Western Branch, the paddling is easier as the water deepens. Still, compared to historic depths, the river here can be treacherously shallow. The city of Virginia Beach hopes to dredge much of the branch early next year, a project residents have sought for years.

Some of the history remains underwater. Gilbert described how tombstones are thought to exist in an ancient graveyard near Church Point. But the records, as well as the archaeological notes, have disappeared.

As the sun climbs higher, Witchduck Point comes into view - a jut of land not unlike others, where lawns sprawl to the water's edge and grand homes tower behind stone and wooden bulkheads.

This "hardening of the shore" is a major problem for water quality, replacing old marshes that filtered pollutants and giving no place for the river to go - "sort of like a bathtub," Forget said.

Gilbert, who has written about Sherwood in several historical books, recounted how the suspected witch was carried about 200 yards off shore, to the deepest water in the branch, and was asked one more time to confess.

"She said, 'I be not a witch!' " Gilbert said.

Sherwood was a tall, striking woman who sometimes wore pants and was knowledgeable about herbs and crops, Gilbert said. She quickly drew suspicion from other women in the area.

Among other misdeeds, Sherwood was accused of ruining the crops and livestock of those who gossiped about her, and of once sneaking into a neighbor's bedroom by turning herself into a black cat.

After a series of lawsuits by neighbors and after counter-lawsuits from Sherwood and her husband, John, members of the Princess Anne County Court asked if she would consent to a ducking.

Sherwood agreed. Word quickly spread. And on July 10, Grace Sherwood made history.

She survived the cold, deep waters of the Lynnhaven River, which, 303 years later, are warmer and shallower but, like Sherwood, still full of promise and intrigue.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com