According to the Fairfield Foundation, "The past is all around us, especially on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula." This is true and was proved when the foundation sponsored "Civil War Stories and Barbecue." What better place to bring the past alive than at historic Glen Roy Plantation in Gloucester.

The barbecue was held last month on the spectacular grounds of this beautiful antebellum home in Ware Neck. The scene of a violent skirmish in 1863, you can still see the one remaining barn spared by Union soldiers, one out of the 10 other barns they burned that day. The ticket holders could listen to The Voice of Freedom’s Chauncey Herring relate Civil War narratives, enjoy the 19th-century melodies rendered by the Abingdon Singers and the Antioch Christian Fellowship Church, and please their palates with barbecue and all its trimmings provided by Boone’s Barbecue of Williamsburg.

Joe Boone is not new to Gloucester. "I taught special education and coached wrestling in Gloucester for a short period of time," he said. Coaching and teaching made up Joe’s career but for over 25 years making barbecue was a hobby which, when he retired, became a real business.

"It all began in Houston, Texas. I watched the cowboys cook there and in Oklahoma, also. I was working but when I had a chance I was learning from them. They knew how to do it."

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