#ginter'spope

Or 1,320 feet - simply 550 steps. I paced this off one brisk November afternoon as I was doing research for a novel. The richest man in Reconstruction Era Virginia was head over heels in love with a younger man. When the older one outlived his protege, his life spiralled downhill until his own demise, eighteen months later.

The people, of course, are Lewis Ginter of Allen & Ginter Tobacco fame. And the younger man was John Pope. John died at forty and was buried in a plot reserved for the two of them. When Lewis died, the city demanded that he have a grand mausoleum on ground far from where he wanted to be laid.

There are 550 steps, or a quarter mile, between them now.