Feature Articles

Dickie Hudgins of Mathews Courthouse is one of just a few watermen still around who hangs gillnets for recreational and commercial gillnetters. It is a coastal craft that he learned right out of high school. Soon after graduating from Mathews High School in 1958, Hudgins, 82, went to work on...

Story and photos by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi - Yorktown Pub is more than the name implies. Situated on Water Street, overlooking the state’s most historic beach and the York River, Yorktown Pub is perfect for a girls’ day lunch, a bite while you’re visiting Yorktown or the beach or a date-night...

Interesting history surrounds Mathews County landmark The world once moved by wind on water. As a new nation was forming in America, ships needed help with navigation of Chesapeake Bay. Congress authorized building lighthouses in 1801 and on Jan. 17, 1805, the New Point Comfort Lighthouse beamed from the southern tip of...

compiled by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi - (For more pictures and info on this article, check out our online edition on the Rivah Visitor's Guide.) A simple glance at a map of the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula reveals dozens of place names with a nod to our area’s Native American heritage. Many...

by Jackie Nunnery - Some call it Grit Lit or Southern Noir, others call it just a plain good read. But whatever you call it, Gloucester writer Sean Cosby is currently at the top of this crime fiction genre. As the saying goes, crime doesn’t pay, but writing about it...

story and photos by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi - Lottsburg is one of those quaint villages that if you blink passing through you might miss it. What you don’t want to miss is Cygnets restaurant smack in the middle of the village. The building, originally Watkins General Store, circa 1921, has served...

Visions of summer in coastal and rural Virginia include glasses of cold sweet tea, honeysuckles lining dirt roads, driving with the top-down, summertime carnivals, baseball, softball, and the beach. Whether you’re a sun worshiper determined to soak in as many rays as possible, an adventure seeker looking for your...

by Larry Chowning -  The Cross Rip in the name Cross Rip Campground in Deltaville came from the name of a lightship that anchored just off the coast of Nantucket, Mass., in the Atlantic Ocean. The late Anna Scott (Scotty) Hoye bought the 20-acre site overlooking the Chesapeake Bay in 1950...

Although Chris Sampson is a relative newbie to the art of carving, his decorative waterfowl look like the work of a seasoned veteran. Sampson has carving in his blood and took on the hobby after years of watching his great grandfather, Lewis Shelton, create decorative decoys. He shares creative space...

It’s a busy Saturday afternoon at the To Do Café in Tappahannock and co-owner Diane Lentz is circulating around the rush of lunch customers with a demeanor that is anything but rushed. “Did you get enough to eat?” she asks a group of diners, her hand resting warmly on the...