Book Nook - Orphaned Heritage: The East Coast’s Disappearing History

The spot where the most famous manhunt in United States history came to a bloody end languishes in the litter-strewn median of a four-lane highway. There are no physical traces left of the Garrett farmhouse, where John Wilkes Booth died, and few historic footprints to be found at all in this unlikely place, a common right-of-way. The Garrett place is one of scores of sites on the East Coast that society cast aside, places of historic value left to the natural world as orphans of the American landscape.

Orphaned Heritage: The East Coast's Disappearing History tells the story of the Atlantic seaboard's historic castaways and explores what we can learn from the ruins.

Ben Swenson is a writer and educator in Williamsburg, Virginia. A lifelong Virginian, Ben was steeped in the rich history of Tidewater from a young age – an upbringing that exposed him to the region’s rich remnants of the past. Ben has written professionally for newspapers and magazines for over two decades, covering a wide range of stories from politics to skydiving. Time and again, these assignments geared Ben toward disappearing history, and not too long into his writing career, Ben realized he had uncovered enough abandoned history to fill a book.