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    Accomack County
    Accomack County
    Accomack County
    Ebook176 pages45 minutes

    Accomack County

    By Tom Badger and Curtis Badger

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    About this ebook

    Accomack County's history revolves around two elements: the land and the sea. The land is fertile, capable of producing great bounty, and Accomack is surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. So Accomack has enjoyed two advantages: an ability to produce food and the means of getting it to market. Public wharves were once located on many creeks where farmers would bring crops for market. Then, in 1884, the railroad came through. The railroad created new towns--Parksley, Onley, Keller, Tasley, and Painter--and it meant the demise of the numerous public wharves. Today most of these old gathering places exist only as names on a map and perhaps a collection of twisted pilings at the water's edge, the last tangible evidence of a time in our history long past.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439622780
    Accomack County
    Author

    Tom Badger

    Coauthors Tom Badger and his father, Curtis Badger, have roots in Northampton that go back to the 1700s. Their ancestors farmed on the shores of Red Bank Creek and ran a shipping business there. After the railroad came through, they moved to Birds Nest, where they farmed, raised livestock, and operated a barrel-making house.

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      Book preview

      Accomack County - Tom Badger

      Ocean.

      INTRODUCTION

      The fertile land and the waters that surround Accomack County have shaped its history and culture. For centuries, the land has provided a wealth of vegetables and grains, making Accomack a great provider of food for Virginia and beyond. The shallow waters and tidal flats that surround the county have also supplied a bounty of oysters, clams, crabs, and fish. And the bay and the ocean have given a convenient source of conveyance, a way of getting the vegetables, grains, and seafood to eager markets in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Norfolk, and many other cities. Accomack has enjoyed a wonderful natural arrangement: a source of food to feed the multitudes and a means of getting it to them.

      And so, the land and the water have defined us. We are farmers, and we are seafaring creatures who enjoy the grit of sand between our toes, the sweet aroma of a seaside tidal flat at low water. The process of growing crops and delivering them to market created our waterfront communities, places such as Onancock, Chincoteague, Wachapreague, and Harborton, which in steamboat days was known as Hoffman’s Wharf. It is no coincidence that the majority of the photographs in this collection deal either with the water or with food and the process of growing it and getting it to market.

      In 1884, when the New York, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk Railroad (NYP&N) came through, it brought about a great change in how we got our food to market, and so it shaped our history just as the sailing ships did and the steamships that came after them. The railroad sparked the building of towns such as Parksley, and Onley was a sleepy crossroads until the railroad came. (Indeed, Crossroads was the name of the village in 1884.) The railroad gave us Melfa, Keller, Hallwood, Tasley, Painter, and Belle Haven Station. The railroad also brought prosperity, as evidenced by many stately old homes in these communities.

      Thanks to the railroad, Accomack was consistently one of the top producers of white and sweet potatoes in the nation in the 1920s and 1930s. The railroad shipped thousands of cases of strawberries to market each spring, wagons laden with berries lining the streets of railroad towns awaiting the strawberry auction. The railroad also shipped clams, oysters, and fish packed in ice in barrels, and it delivered live diamondback terrapins to gourmet restaurants in Northern cities. The railroad shipped wild ducks to market before the practice of market gunning was made illegal.

      The railroad also created the modern era of tourism in Accomack, which today is our largest growth industry. People certainly visited prior to the railroad, and there were numerous private clubs and hotels along the barrier islands that catered to fishermen and hunters, but the railroad opened up Accomack’s natural attractions to the masses. A family could board the NYP&N in Philadelphia and in a matter of hours disembark at Keller, where transportation awaited to take them to the famous Wachapreague Hotel and perhaps to the Island House on Cedar Island. The northern beaches, such as those at Wallops, were equally accessible.

      The railroad almost changed the location of the county seat. Accomac had been the hub of county business since Colonial times, but when the railroad opened, many residents thought the people would be better served by having the courthouse in Parksley, convenient to the railroad. The matter was put to vote, but the majority elected to keep the courthouse where it was, in Accomac.

      Today life no longer revolves around the train schedule and the local rail station. We progressed from sail to steamship to railroad, and in more recent years, we have again changed the way we grow and ship our crops and how we travel. The boxcar has given way to the 18-wheeler. Our clams are spawned in laboratories and shipped to market in the bellies of jets. Our most lucrative food product today is the chicken and the grains that provide food for them. And our fastest growing industry today is tourism, as people from all over the country discover the natural wealth we have in this land between the waters.

      To consider our history is to realize that we do not live in a world that is static. Sail gave way to steam, which gave way to rail, which gave way to highway. The things that endure are those that have always sustained us: the land and the sea. As long as we take care of them, we will be okay.

      As this young woman waded into the surf at Wallops Island around 1905, she could not have imagined that the island where she was vacationing would one day be a pioneer in American space exploration. Wallops, a barrier island southwest of Chincoteague, was the home of the Wallops Island Club, owned by a group from Pennsylvania. The island was purchased by the group in 1887, and the club existed until the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA, acquired the property through condemnation in 1945. The Wallops flight facility is an important part of America’s space program today. (Stout family, courtesy of NASA Wallops.)

      One

      LIVING ON THE WATER

      Water has always been the common denominator of life in Accomack County. Years ago, Native Americans gathered shellfish on tidal flats, caught sturgeon in weirs, and traded goods with other Indian nations using bays, rivers, and creeks as avenues of commerce.

      Europeans arrived shortly after the Jamestown settlement of 1607, exploring the Eastern Shore peninsula by boat and eventually establishing permanent settlements. Fish and shellfish from Accomack fed the young colony, and salt distilled from seawater was a valuable preservative, enabling the settlers to survive winters when food was

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