The Bay At War - 16 minute DVD $25.00

From 1861 to 1865, as America was wracked by Civil War, the Chesapeake became the focus of attention for gunboats, smugglers, privateers, and the water-borne movement of mighty armies, shoreline artillery fire and tidewater guerrillas, of blockade-running oyster men and the unsung sailors of the Union Potomac Flotilla. The Civil War was one of the most dangerous and stressful periods in the long and colorful history of the Chesapeake. The Bay was rarely livelier. And its role in the outcome of the War was a crucial one. This 16 minute DVD narrated by Roger Mudd provides the viewer with an overview of the conflict that took place on and around the Bay. It uses archival stills, reenactment, second person oral history accounts and animation to tell the story.

Reliving The Past - 45 minute DVD $30.00

This program contains eyewitness accounts of life on the Chesapeake Bay during the Steamboat Era. The stories focus on and about steamboats, what they were like to ride on, work on and depend on. The videotaped interviews have been enhanced with the addition of archival photographs and footage.The program is divided into the following segments: The Steamboat Is Coming, Activity On The Wharf, Dockside Adventures, Steamboat Travelers, Dining Aboard, Accommodations & services, The Captain & The Crew, The Floating Theater, End Of An Era. Wonderful story tellers providing fascinating information about the Steamboat Era.

Operation Of The Walking Beam Steam Engine & A Walk Back In Time - 13 minute DVD - $25.00

Both of these programs were filmed on location at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont where one of the only remaining steamboats manufactured prior to 1910, The Ticonderoga, is located. The first program, Operation Of The Walking Beam Steam Engine uses a working scale model of the walking bean steam engine to explain exactly how a paddle wheel steam engine is operated. The second program, A Walk Back In Time takes you on a tour of the Ticonderoga that is on display at the Shelburne.

Steamboat Wharf Stories - 28 minute DVD - $25.00

Steamboat Wharf Stories provides the viewer with a collection of nine amusing recounts, 2-to-5-minutes in length, about events that took place on or near the steamboat wharf when steamboats plied the Chesapeake Bay almost daily. Told by 16 eyewitnesses who lived during the Steamboat Era, these stories reveal a forgotten time when small towns flourished and life progressed at a very different pace.

A Different Time - 50 minute DVD - $30.00

Life was very different in the early 1900s on the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula -- no paved roads or interstate highways, no TV, no super markets or shopping malls, no movie houses in the small towns. People worked, shopped, and sought entertainment and companionship near where they lived. Throughout the region the canneries provided jobs, the country store provided products, the James Adams Floating Theater provided entertainment, and tent "meeting grounds" like Wharton Grove provided an opportunity to gather for religious services and socializing. Learn first hand from those who lived during this time what it was like to work in a cannery, clerk in a store, attend the Floating Theater performances and gather at meeting grounds.