When I was a kid, living in Lawrenceville, Virginia, I heard tales about how the James River was haunted: perhaps by the spirits of Indigenous people who were forced off this land, or maybe by those who gave their lives to revolution, or maybe by enslaved men, women, and children who drowned while trying to escape their plantations. The ghost stories seemed to suit a river that’s connected to America’s soul. Supernatural or not, the James carries a certain significance, traveling through the capital of the Confederacy and then to the first colonial capitals, following the contours of the nation’s story. It’s a wellspring for historians and conjurers alike.

One of the greatest of those conjurers is now gone. D’Angelo, the musician born Michael Eugene Archer, died on Tuesday after a battle

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