By james art 
The town of Phoebe and Fort Monroe may have been separated by water, but they are connected in the history of the Hamptons.
A new Phoebus-Fort Monroe coalition wants to preserve and display that history, aided by a $150,000 Chesapeake Gateways grant from the National Park Service.
“These two communities are linked by historical events over the past 400 years,” said Joe Griffith, manager of Virginia Main Street for Phoebus Partnership.
“We’re doing our jobs independently … trying to celebrate history and be good stewards of the Chesapeake Bay and natural resources, but we haven’t fully worked together.”
The area now known as Phoebe and Fort Monroe was home to the native Kikotan – early spelling of Kekoutan – people before European colonists arrived on the bay. After the construction of the fortress structure in Old Point Comfort in 1800 it remained in Union hands during the Civil War.
Fort Monroe served as a place of refuge for formerly enslaved black people fleeing slavery during the war after 1861. Smuggling solution. Many of these people and their descendants established communities and homes in Phoebus.
With how “deeply connected” the two areas are historically, John Reynolds, a member of the Fort Monroe Authority Board of Trustees, called the new partnership “a gift to the future for the people of our nation, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the region.”
Griffith tells WHRO that he is excited about the prospect of better telling these and lesser-known stories in collaboration with coalition partners.
“It doesn’t replace Phoebe City, it doesn’t replace Fort Monroe, it doesn’t replace the Casemate Museum,” he said. “It just allows us to focus on specific topics that are related to our shared heritage and related to our shared geographic location.”
Work on putting the coalition together began in earnest in the spring, including representation from the Phoebus Partnership, the Fort Monroe Authority and the Town of Hampton. With the grant secured, the coalition is now looking for design firms that can help craft the group’s strategic plan.
“We’ve been waiting over a year, a year and a half to look at this mission,” Griffith said.
“This design firm will be expected to put a lot of boots on the ground, talk to people in the community, understand what kind of shared heritage we need to protect and … how we would execute a plan that celebrates it in the right way.” “
The Chesapeake Gateways grant is awarded annually and supports a variety of initiatives to “promote sustainable communities and landscapes through tourism, sustainability, conservation and local economies throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.”
“Sustainability just doesn’t mean we’re going to focus on creating living shorelines so that our shorelines are preserved,” Griffith said. “We recognize that we face these challenges from the sea, but we also need to make sure that those stories that are place-based are also told and not lost to history.”
The grant is administered by the Chesapeake Conservancy, a Maryland-based nonprofit organization working to protect and restore the natural and cultural resources of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The conservative is also a member of the coalition.
“The Chesapeake Conservancy is eager to help explore, preserve and present the vast historical, cultural and natural resources of Phoebus and Fort Monroe,” said the conservancy’s Michael Augustine.
“We are grateful for the participation of the Phoebus Partnership, the Fort Monroe Authority and the City of Hampton to help build coalition momentum and pave the way for community collaboration and storytelling.”
Griffith was also pleased that the city joined the coalition. He called Hampton “essential” to the partnership, noting that the city’s community development department will be central to upcoming community engagement efforts for the coalition’s strategic plan.
“By bringing together organizations, communities and institutions, we are creating new opportunities to preserve and celebrate our shared history and natural environment,” said Jonathan McBride, Manager of Housing and Neighborhood Services for the City of Hampton.
“This initiative will set the stage for future collaborations to showcase the full breadth of the American experience, offering residents and visitors additional opportunities to engage through recreation, historic sites and interpretive events at Fort Monroe and Phoebe.”