Mr. Payne describes life in The Reservation before the U.S. Navy removed families from the land to build the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station:

"Most of my mother's people were living in that vicinity, and they were Hundley's, my mother was a Hundley...her brothers were watermen, too. They had, from what I can remember, they had motorboats. My uncle also worked the river. He was an oysterman. He used to take oysters to Richmond, as far as Richmond. Leave over the weekend, take his produce to Richmond, and sell them there. And most of the people were very close neighbors. They worked together...When the time came to harvest, they would go to each other's farm, and assist them in harvesting, and butchering, and things like that....most people were happy or nicely taken care of, but they owned their own property. So everybody fared pretty well, I think."