An icy James River, part of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail.
The book, of course, called for determining the cross sites.
My wife and I began motor-exploring and came up with general locations by 2007, enough to assemble a table in the book, and enough to supply a route for the reenactors to follow.
The book came out in 2008, Pat’s water trail became a national park, and in February 2009, I got a call from Charlie Stek. Charlie headed up a non-profit called Friends of the John Smith Water Trail.
“Where exactly are all those crosses?” he asked. “You’ve given a general description: ‘Blands Content, anywhere along the heights overlooking the Patapsco River,’ or ‘Aquia Creek, end of the 250-foot ridge between Garrisonville Road bridge and Cannon Creek.’ Fine, but, Ed, I want you to give us GPS coordinates. We want to put something on the ground.”
“Actually, Charlie, I think it’s Cannon Branch. But I don’t have any GPS coordinates. I’d have to …”
“Don’t worry. If you’ve got some time to spare, I want to send you back out there to get them.”
He furnished me with a car and two assistants, Tim Barrett and Jeff Allenby. We went on a weeklong odyssey. There were 27 crosses.