Clint Schemmer / Free Lance Star

The diminutive Caroline County town of Port Royal is chock-full of history, centuries deep.

No one knows that better than Herbert Ridgeway Collins, the local historian who delights in sharing its lore with residents and visitors.

So it seems only natural that the Town Council chose to honor the Caroline native recently with his very own occasion, proclaiming Saturday, May 2, as Herb Collins Day.

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, formerly Virginia’s 69th governor, came to celebrate with townsfolk and Collins’ friends from faraway communities.

Warner noted the historian’s acquaintance with many of the nation’s chief executives.

“As I read about your background, Mr. Collins, it seems that you’ve touched every president from Truman all the way up through George W. Bush,” the senator said. “And Eleanor Roosevelt, too.”

(President Truman’s wife, Bess, traced her roots to a Port Royal family, Collins told Warner.)

Warner noted Collins’ service in the U.S. Army as a young man and his long career with the Smithsonian Institution, including as curator of the National Museum of American History’s Division of Political History and as founding director of the National Postal Museum.

Then, he couldn’t resist sharing one anecdote from the Caroline native’s many adventures.

It happened when President Dwight Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969, at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, at age 78.

Eisenhower, who was the Allied Expeditionary Force’s supreme commander for World War II’s Battle of Normandy, had let it be known that he wanted to be buried in his Army uniform.

But as Gawler Funeral Home prepared Ike’s body, a glitch prompted the desperate undertakers to call the Smithsonian’s military history department for help.

“Somehow—typical Pentagon procurement—they didn’t have the right socks or the right shirt,” Warner told the crowd. “So Mr. Collins gave up his Army shirt and his socks to clothe President Eisenhower’s body for his funeral. Now, isn’t that a contribution?”

Everyone laughed, and applauded Warner’s remarks.

The garb provided to the 34th president, who was eventually interred in his beloved hometown of Abilene, Kan., included Collins’ laundry marks, Warner noted. (Collins, born in 1932, had donated his military uniforms to the Smithsonian to help round out its collections.)

The senator’s keynote remarks and relaxed banter with Collins highlighted Port Royal’s celebration of the historian’s life, held under sunny skies on Town Green.

Town officials presented Collins with a life book, which dozens of participants filled with good wishes and favorite memories of the man, and a golden, beribboned key to the town.

Then Collins cut the ribbon for the newest—and fourth—museum operated by the volunteers of Historic Port Royal, a nonprofit group.

Sen. Warner, who has a residence and farm in King George County across the Rappahannock River, lingered to chat with Collins and see the Port Royal Museum of Medicine—which preserves the office, examining room and some of the artifacts from three of town’s past doctors.

Helen Marie Taylor, former U.S. representative to the United Nations, drove down from her home in Orange County to see Collins and buy a copy of his just-published book, “Country Crossroads: Rural Life in Caroline County, Virginia.”

Taylor also toured the new medical museum and the adjoining Port Royal Portrait Gallery, which Collins has furnished with more than two dozen portraits of Caroline’s most notable people—from 1696 to 2012. Across U.S. 301 are the Port Royal Museum of American History—the group’s largest facility—and the Old Port Royal School.

At a ceremony there last month, Historic Port Royal President Caroline “Cookie” Davis thanked Collins for his many gifts to the Museum of American History, which occupies a former bank building along the highway.

“Herb has been wonderful to us,” Davis said. “He said, ‘You’ve gotten the building. I’ll help fill it up.’”

Collins has donated many artifacts, including what is regarded as the best collection of White House china in private hands and an exact replica of the desk on which Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence.

The many books written by the historian include histories of Bowling Green and Port Royal. The latter town was established in 1652 as an important Colonial trading post on the Rappahannock River. It predates Fredericksburg, which two of its residents founded.

Collins’ devotion to Caroline is legendary.

He recently gave a vast trove of books and documents about genealogy, Virginia and local history to the Caroline County Library. Today, its Herb Collins Room is available by appointment to researchers.

During its session earlier this year, in recognition of that and his countless other contributions to American heritage, the Virginia General Assembly issued a resolution commending Collins.

Lawmakers noted that Collins “has dedicated his life to protecting and preserving the unique history and culture of the region and the commonwealth,” expressing their “admiration for his mission to preserve Virginia history and culture for future generations.”

Warner said will introduce a similar measure in the U.S. Senate.