Meet the Cross Team
Ed Haile
is an historian, poet, rural land surveyor, cartographer, and author of Jamestown Narratives and John Smith in the Chesapeake, and two historic Bay maps, England in America: the Chesapeake Bay from Jamestown to St. Mary's City 1607-1634 and a redrawing of the Captain John Smith map.
Ed is our source for the Trail route and John Smith’s dates and itinerary. Ed began the work that would become the Captain John Smith Cross Project in 2004 at the request of the National Geographic Society. Ed is also author of much of the information here regarding Smith, Smith’s quotes, and Smith’s routes through the Chesapeake. Ed likes to say he’s “a poet masquerading as a historian.” Our opinion is that his works say otherwise!
Suspension bridge from the Orange Grove area of Patapsco Valley State Park
Sunset at Havre de Grace, Maryland
Connie Lapallo
is an historian and author of the Jamestown Sky trilogy based on the true story of Jamestown’s women and children. Her novels, Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky, When the Moon Has No More Silver, and The Sun Is But a Morning Star, follow the Jamestown story from its inception in England until 1652. She’s told the Jamestown story 600 times across 12 states and the District of Columbia. Her first novel is now an award-winning feature-length screenplay.
Connie came on board the Capt. John Smith Cross Project in October 2015. She has been part of all phases, including research and designing and setting markers. She’s also our primary photographer and web designer. www.connielapallo.com
Associate Team Members
TOM FOREHAND, Site Director of Smith’s Fort Plantation, came onboard the Cross Team to help with cross markers south of the James River. Tom is also an officer in the Surry County Historical Society.
Here, Tom stands in front of his home in the Scotland settlement, which faces Historic Jamestowne across the river. Native and lifelong resident, Tom in younger years made a living as a waterman right here in the river off Jamestown where the early colonists often complained they could catch no fish. Well how about that, Captain Smith? How long as Tom been part of the project? Hard to say but we guess beginning around 2009 when he pointed out one of the markers would be right where he shot his first deer. We won’t say which.
BRYON BODT, a lifelong resident of Harford County, Md. is by profession for many years a carver of decoys and has been honored for his work. He is a Washington College graduate in biology and has an academic distinction of Master Watershed Steward. He is a director of the Harford County Isaac Walton League, in close association with the Leight Center and the Otter Point Creek Component as teacher and volunteer in conservation efforts. For ten years Bryon has managed the League’s 350-acre Melvin G. Bosely Wildlife Conservation Center and is very proud of his work with the woodduck initiative there. He has received several awards. The Cross Project was honored to welcome Bryon aboard in 2018 as a steward for its locations in the upper Chesapeake.
Associate Team Members