People gathered on the banks of the James River in Charles City County to commemorate America’s first Thanksgiving, in honor of the safe landing of English settlers 390 years ago.

When Ray Rucker and his wife, Meriam, bought a home in a middle-class Mechanicsville neighborhood in 1990, they were told the brick rancher was haunted. A ceiling light activated by a pull chain would mysteriously come on in one room, the previous owners said. Rucker was skeptical.

Battlefields: $579,000 for maintenance projects in the Richmond National Battlefield Park and $563,000 for the Petersburg National Battlefield.
  Historic sites: $94,000 to replace the heating and cooling system at Maggie L. Walker’s historic house, which also will have deteriorating exterior woodwork repaired or replaced.
  Wildlife: $1.95 million for the Chincoteague, Rappahannock and Back Bay wildlife refuges, the Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery, removal of two dams in western Virginia, and support for two other fish and wildlife programs in the state.

Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery was created during the Depression with a water-supply system dating to the late 18th century. And that’s what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still using today at the Charles City County hatchery, which is helping stock Virginia’s rivers with American shad, nursing a fledgling sturgeon fishery and restoring endangered mussels to state tributaries.

For Craig Ramsay, his first visit to Berkeley Plantation was a learning experience yesterday. “There’s always something new to learn. Wherever you are, you can discover all kinds of things,“ said Ramsay, who recently moved to Hanover County from Idaho. Yesterday, Ramsay and hundreds of others witnessed a re-enactment of what many consider to be the first Thanksgiving service in America, at the historic property about halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg.