Posts from Erica Deale

Staff Voices Uncategorized

Make Like a Tree and Leaf!

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Chlorophyll absorption
Tree leaves absorb all wavelengths except green. Green is reflected, which is why leaves appear green to the human eye! Courtesy of The Encyclopedia for the Environment.

Today is the first day of autumn! We’ve finally made it to the best season! The weather is cooler…or it will be, and the leaves will soon start to show off on the trees! Here in the Park, we have some gorgeous fall colors that you can’t miss. But, when is the best time to come? Well, it just so happens that a lot of people get FOMO (fear of missing out) over fall leaves! There are a ton of fall foliage maps online that you can check out. Below is a great example!

As a comparison of what those seasonal changes in the landscape might look like throughout the weeks, below are a few photographs from the Park in those different stages.   Read more

Staff Voices

What Makes a Champion Tree?

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Infographic on how to measure a tree's height
An infographic on how to measure the height of a tree. Courtesy of The Virginia Big Tree Program.

Did you know Mariners’ Park is home to a national big tree? This tree is the biggest of its kind in the NATION! Right here in Newport News! You may be thinking about all the largest trees you’ve seen in the Park, wondering which one it might be. But, I bet, if you walked by it you wouldn’t even notice it! Our champion tree, which proudly sits on The National Register of Big Trees as designated by American Forests, is an evergreen bayberry that stands tall at a whopping 14 feet tall. You might be wondering, how did our tree get discovered? How did The National Register of Big Trees find out about it? Or that’s not that big!

As with any story, we have to start at the beginning! Our tree was originally added to The Virginia Big Tree Program website in 2015. But the Program itself began in 1970! You can check out all of the trees in the database here. The Program, run by Virginia Tech, “maintains a register of the 3 largest specimens of over 300 native, non-native, and naturalized tree species…The Virginia Big Tree Program is affiliated with the National Register of Champion Trees, which is administered by American Forests.” according to their website.   Read more

90th Birthday

Elk…in the Park?

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In other blogs, we’ve talked about the goals of the Park as they pertained to planting. However, one of the main goals for Anna Hyatt Huntington (renowned sculptor and wife of Archer Huntington) was to have a wildlife sanctuary. She sculpted live animals, when she could, to give life and realism to her work. For several years, we had a permitted wildlife sanctuary in the Park! Of the projects from the early years of the Park, our wildlife endeavor was the longest, lasting until almost 1950.

Work on securing wildlife for the Park didn’t begin until a year after the start of a majority of the construction. The Lake was a big component of the wildlife sanctuary and accordingly, its completion was necessary before animals could come in. The first permit we applied for was with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a waterfowl enclosure in August of 1931. In that first application, we asked for 35 Canada geese to put in a goose range in the Lake. Dr. Albert K. Fisher, ornithologist and President of the American Ornithologists’ Union, served as our wildlife consultant. In August of 1932, he wrote that the goose range, “will be one of the finest, if not the finest, in the United States.”   Read more

90th Birthday

Great Plants Create a Great Park

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What is a great park without some beautiful landscaping? In the last blog, I laid out early plans for the Park. Today, we’ll focus on the plants. The early work moved at a remarkable pace. Within one month of our incorporation, we were already planning landscapes around the Park. As we’ve mentioned before, it was Archer Huntington’s early goal to see a representative of every tree and shrub in Virginia in the Park. Accordingly, that goal was a huge focus in the early stages.

In early documents from William Gatewood, Museum Project Manager, to Homer Ferguson, President of the Shipyard, he described the point of the flora in the Park. The plantings were to,   Read more

90th Birthday

From Waters to Mariners’, The Making of a Lake

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Did you know Virginia has only two natural lakes? The rest are man-made, including our very own Mariners’ Lake! It holds the title as the first, and the oldest, project started on the grounds of The Mariners’ Museum Park. Before the purchase of the land surrounding it, The Mariners’ Lake was a salt marsh creek called Waters Creek, sometimes incorrectly referred to as Watts Creek. You can learn more about that, here! Apart from the vision of creating a maritime museum, Archer Huntington (our founder and owner of the Newport News Shipyard) and his wife Anna Hyatt (renowned sculptor), wanted to create a wildlife sanctuary. They also wanted a place to display several of Anna’s sculptures. The rural setting and proximity to the Shipyard helped to make this spot the ideal location. You can read more about why this area was chosen, here.

Although our official birthday is June 2nd, planning for the Lake and Park began months prior. In December of 1929, internal memos show that land acquisition was already being discussed and negotiations had started. In a memo from Homer Ferguson, President of the Newport News Shipyard, to Archer Huntington:   Read more