Horse Racing on the Shore: The Keller Fair - Part II

Written by James E. Mears

Submitted to the Shore Line for December 3, 1970

(From the Collection of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society)

George Doughty's Horse from the Keller Fair
(From the ESVHS Collection)

Thursday was always the “big day” at the Old Fair.  Persons who found it inconvenient to attend on other days would go on Thursday, when one would see more old friends.  Any extra features were given on Thursday, and usually the fastest horses raced on that day.

According to this columnist’s recollections, on all of the five days of the fair there were from three to five races, trotters and pacers, usually separate, occasionally both in free-for-all, and for the first money the horse had to take two of the three heats.  When more than one horse took a heat there had to be one or more additional heats to determine the winner.

In those years there was no system of all the racers lining up at the starting point and leaving together.  Horses approached the starting point at a good speed and if the word “GO” came from the judges’ stand proceeded.  In most instances, however, this did not happen quickly and it was not unusual for the horses to be so far apart that the judges sent them back with the hope of a more even get-away.  This was a disadvantage to horses that would tire towards the end of the mile (twice around the half-mile track) as often they had traveled a quarter of a mile, going forward and turning back before the “GO” was given.  I do not remember seeing a race start at the Old Fair in which one or more of the horses wasn’t from 50 to 75 feet behind the other horses that had reached the starting point.  It was not unusual for a horse with the lead to “break into a run”, and before the jockey got the animal back to trotting or racing, the lead had been lost.  Any horse that was too far from the finishing wire when the first horse had passed under it was “distanced” and not permitted to be raced in following heats.

There was no mutual betting or book-making at the Keller Fair though it is said individuals sometimes bet with one another on the outcome of a particular race.

While the race track was not enclosed with a high fence, those in the grandstand, because the elevation of the seats, could see more of the races than those who were elsewhere on the grounds; however, those on the quarter stretch by moving about had a superior view.

All the races were in the afternoon.  Those who went to the grounds early often were able to see the horses being trained on the race course.  Numerous jockeys stabled their horses on the grounds weeks before the fair began.

This writer now remembers but a very few of those who raced at the Keller Fair: Nottingham, James & Floyds of Northampton, and Bulls, Turlington and Parks of Accomack.  There were a number of others.  Most of the horses that were raced were Virginia Eastern Shore owned; however, some who raced at various tracks, following one fair after another, were from other states.  One year there was a stable from Mississippi.  Spring colts were paraded before the grandstand for prizes, usually the first day.

Quite some years after Keller Fair had been such a drawing card fairs were established at Tasley and Pocomoke City, all patterned after Keller, the same types of exhibits, mid-way attractions, horse racing, etc.  Each though “folded up” before Keller.  Realizing how much the Keller Fair meant to thousands of middle-aged and elderly Eastern Shoreman, Officers kept it going long after it was not making money; in fact it has been said that they advanced it money for several years before its “demise.”

For several seasons during its latter years night attractions, including fireworks, were provided, with a second admission fee to day-time attendants who remained or returned.  This, however, did not save it.

After about ten unprofitable years, with the closing of the meet in 1965, the owners of the property

Keller Fair horse races. (From the ESVHS Collection)

decided it could be no longer continued.  It was sold to the late Mr. Carroll Bull, of Onley and Miami, a highly successful produce dealer, and he kept it as a racing stable for his own and other harness horses.

Among those who had been outstanding it is support for years were Messrs, Harry Mears, the secretary, who really was the general manager, J. Milton Mason and Herman Watson , who are said to have provided funds to keep it going in its last years.  Mr. Mears had done such an outstanding job at Keller that the Tasley Fair owners engaged him to manage that fair during its latter years.  This was not a great additional burden, since so many of the same people raced or operated midway attractions at both Keller and Tasley.

As was the case with others, Mr. Watson continued to have a “soft spot” for the Old Fair, and in years after it had closed in his oil business he carried in the local newspapers very large advertisements showing scenes at the Keller Fair in by-gone days.

In the late 1890’s and very early 1900’s the Chesapeake Fair Association operated a fair with races at Cape Charles.  The Central Fair Association, an organization of Negro citizens, in which the Whartons were leaders, for about half a century operate a fair at Tasley.  There were very exciting harness races, often with very speedy horses.

Horse Racing on the Shore: The Keller Fair - Part I

Written by James E. Mears
Submitted to the Shore Line for November 26, 1970
(From the Collection of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society)

The news of the burning of the grandstand of now-gone institution undoubtedly revived pleasant memories of days spent at the Old Fair in thousands of those living on and away from the Eastern Shore.  The ending of no other Eastern Shore institution brought as much regret as did the decision of the operators in 1956 to lower the curtain for the farewell, after an annual "performance" every year in August since 1880 (1877), the oldest continuous agricultural fair in the United States.

When this columnist was a youth it was always spoken of as the Granger Fair.  It was organized in 1880 as an outgrowth of the exhibit of some farm products a few years earlier at Turlington Camp Grounds by the Grangers, a farmers' society, sponsored by Messrs, George Adams, Henry Sattaile, Leonard H. Ames Sr., Judson Kellam, William T. Kilmon, William T. Mason , Wesley Phillipe, Benjamin W. Mears and others, all of whom lived in the southern end of Accomack County.  As some of the Methodists who conducted the camp meeting, ...objected to the parading of colts on the camp grounds, ... the Grangers obtained land not far from the camp grounds, put up Grange Hall and laid out a half-mile race track.  The legal title was the Eastern Shore Agricultural Fair.

My first visit to the fair, as I know recall was in 1896 and I attended every year through 1903, and every year thereafter that I was on the Shore at Fair time.  My recollection of the fair in the late 1890s:  The admission to the Fair grounds was 25 cents per person and if the vehicle was driven the same amount was collected.  Admission to the grandstand (not so large as the one that lately burned) and to the quarter stretch each was a quarter.

Under the grandstand was a concession hall, and among the exhibitions was the Charles M. Steiff piano people of Baltimore; also some farm implements, etc. etc.  In later years automobile dealers exhibited new cars.  On another building there were exhibits of farm products, many kinds of needle work as well as cakes, breads, countless jars of preserves, pickles, canned fruit and other foods. .......

On the midway were numerous "side shows" and other attractions for both adults and those younger, including a "merry go round".  To attract ticket purchasers the concessionaires usually gave a brief "free show" in advance of the performance.  An exhibit of snakes included a boa constrictor.  In the earlier years of the Fair an attraction (daily I now think) was a balloon ascension.  The balloon usually went up until he appeared to the viewers no larger than five-cent-piece, before he cut loose and began the descent.  He never landed on the fair grounds, some times miles away, occasionally in a tree.......

In the earlier years of the 20th century there was a baseball game, played in the quarter stretch, between Eastern Shore teams.  The 20th century was not very old before the Fair provided music by a band from Baltimore.  On a kind of platform extending out from the northeast corner of the grandstand the band played before the races start and between the races.

Horse racing was the major feature of the Keller Fair.  It is believed not an exaggeration to say the

Keller Fair Circa 1920s.  From the Bell Collection of the
 Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society.

"horse racing" was "bred in the bone" on the Eastern Shore in the 19th and first decade or so of the 20th.  This writer remembers that in the 1890s and until there were hard surfaced roads and the automobile was in universal use, any stretch of hard road was a race course for those driving any vehicle from a humble cart to a carriage.  Any attempt of a vehicle approaching .. to pass the latter was an invitation for a contest of speed.  It was the ambition of almost every young man in the foregoing period to own a fast trotter or pacer and the latest in a buggy or harness.  In most instances indulgent parents provided name, often raising colts sired by stallions which had done well on the tracks.

It is assumed that there were running races on beaches at Assateague and the few other islands having wild ponies, but it is believed the few race courses on the Eastern Shore were used almost exclusively for harness racing.  The earliest record of a race track on the Eastern Shore found by this columnist was in 1835, when one was laid out in or very near Pungoteague.  This may have been what in the last two decades of the 19th century was the very popular McConnell track on a large farm between the present roads leading to Belle Haven (on the south side) and Painter-Keller (on the north side) from Pungoteague, between the village and Trader's Branch.  In 1856 a Baltimore newspaper carried an advertisement of steamer services to Pungoteague Creek, and conveyances would take passengers to Belle Haven for the races. (Then the only steamboat wharf on Pungoteague Creek was Dock Point, the present pulp wood loading pier of the Chesapeake Corporation, in Harborton).

Around the turn of the century well known and fast horses (for that period)  owned on the Eastern Shore were Gray Eagle, White Tips, Sport, Goldiur, Little Guy, Durry, a large black stallion , and Lamp Girl, a small bay mare.  In 1902 she was sold to a non-Eastern Shoreman, who successfully raced her in the Grand Circuit, and was the first Eastern Shore bred horse to make a mile under 2 minutes 10 seconds, before she was sold and shipped to Europe for breeding purposes.

Eastern Shore owned horses (some of which were bred and or fold) which raced at the Keller Fair

and in the Grand Circuit in the second quarter of this century included:  Hail Worthy (trotter)2:05 3/4; My Nan (pacer) 2:03 3/4; Sallie D. (pacer) 2:03, the Keller Fair track record: Morgan Hanover (pacer) 2:00; the only Eastern Shore horse ever to make the mile in two minutes, made when three years old.  Jane Azoff (pacer) 1:59 3/4; the only two minute horse ever bred on the Eastern Shore but not Shore owned during her racing career.

An attraction, which cost the Fair management nothing, that was hardly second to the racing as a "drawing card", was the meeting of old friends, really numerous miniature "reunions" of old acquaintance living on and off the Shore.  Many former residents planned their visits "back home" to correspond with the Keller fair dates.

To be Continued....

Voices from the Past: Sailing on the Annie C

Written by Joe Valentine

What was it like to sail on a Chesapeake Bay log canoe 100 years ago?

Fortunately we can answer that question, thanks to Dr. Harry Holcomb who had a fascination for maritime history. Harry got involved with Frank Young who had purchased the log canoe Annie C. The Annie C had been built in Sanford, Virginia in 1904 by Horace Bundick, who worked as a waterman and a carpenter. Growing up in Sanford, Frank had known about the Annie C since his childhood. He loved her lines.  When he found her abandoned in 1989, Frank bought her for $300. Harry found out about her shortly thereafter, and joined Frank in her restoration. In addition to restoring her, Harry started tracking down people who had sailed on her and recorded interviews with them. Thanks to Harry’s recordings of her history, we can get a feeling of what it was like to sail on the Annie C.

The Annie C is an exceptionally large log canoe. She is built of five logs and is 9 ½ feet wide and 45 feet long form stem to stern, not including the rudder or the bow sprit. Her mast was about 47 feet tall and she carried a mainsail and a jib.

One of the interviews was with Mr. Donald Corbin, the son of the first owner of the Annie C. The vessel was named for Donald Corbin’s grandmother, Annie Hall Corbin. According to Mr. Corbin:

"Annie C made a trip to Baltimore and was to return home to Sanford. There was a steamer in 

Steamer: Three Rivers

Baltimore at the same time called the Three Rivers. My Uncle, Spencer D. Hall was her Captain. A bad storm came up. The storm was so bad that my Uncle, Captain Hall, told my father to leave the boat there and to take the steamer home to Crisfield. My father would not go on the steamer and after the steamer left, he sailed Annie C out of Baltimore in this storm and straight home to the Hummocks. He beat his brother [Brother in law, Captain of the steamer Three Rivers] home from Baltimore. When he got in there was not a sail left on her."

Louise Temple with the Annie C above and behind the stern.

While we do not have a picture of the Annie C under sail, we do have a picture of his sister ship, the Louise Temple, also built by Horace Bundick. The picture to the left is actually of the Louise Temple, but it is believed that the boat above and behind her stern is the Annie C.

The larger canoes, like the Annie C, were used to travel across the bay and collect oysters  around the James and Potomac Rivers. One of the people Dr. Holcomb interviewed was Captain Clifton Stant, the son of Harrison Stant who owned the Annie C with Al Hall in the early 1900’s. At the time, Captain Stant worked as the “culler” for his father.  The crew would travel across the bay in the winter and sleep in the small forward cabin. Captain Clifton Stant tells us what it was like to live aboard, especially in the winter when they would go across the bay for oysters: 

"It was all in one little cabin, we pretty near slept, ate, and everything all in the same spot, it was just tight, you can't imagine how tight it was in that little cabin for four people. On each side they had a little seat maybe about eight inches up off the floor. That is where you pulled your beds out.  You could push them up under the bow and pull them out at night. Sometimes we would sleep forward of the mast, two could sleep up there, tight sleeping. They had a little four burner cook stove, the top of it wasn't more that eighteen inches square. It burned wood and we had to cut pieces about six inches long to fit. You would be surprised what it would do to keep us warm. Of course we would keep putting a little piece of wood in her all night long during cold weather and kept the fire going all night into her."

Captain Clifton Stant of Hallwood sailed aboard the Annie C around 1912 and further describes the Annie C and the Louise Temple:

"The Annie C. and the Louise Temple were built for speed and looks. They were built in a little different shape than the rest of the log canoes. She was almost as sharp on the stern as she was on the bow. Annie C had a couple of pieces of pig iron back in her stern for ballast to keep her bow up a little bit. She could fly if you had the right wind. If you had a good breeze with about one third sail onto her that thing would fly,  she'd go right over until she'd pretty near take water into her. She was a pretty sight when she would come up with water on her wash boards. The Annie C and the Louise Temple used to race under sail. The Annie C was a little faster than the Louise Temple. The Annie C was the same style [as the Louise Temple] but just a little bigger."

Captain Clifton Stant also talked about crossing the Chesapeake Bay in a Northeaster: 

"In 1912 we went to the James River oystering and we had about two hundred and fifty bushels of oysters in her to bring home, to plant; it was in the fall of the year. We got practically all the way back across the Bay coming into Tangier to what we call Tangier Cod Lighthouse when we struck a heavy Northeast storm, I mean it was a storm! I thought it was fun at the time, I was in the cabin with my feet propped up on a little stove we had to keep it from turning over. My father and little Al Hall owned her together. Mr. Hall was at the tiller and my father held a piece of canvas over the two cylinder Bridgeport engine keeping her dry. They had the sail reefed down just as low as she would go, just a little piece to steady her a bit and my uncle, Neil Stant, was bailing water just as hard as he could bail to keep her afloat. They knew that we were on our way home from the James River and I guess practically half of Sanford was down to Messongo Creek waiting to see if we made it, they thought we were lost. They were waiting there when we come in safe."

The engine Captain Stant referred to was a two cylinder, 16 horsepower, Bridgeport make or break engine that was installed around 1910. There was ambivalence about the introduction of the gasoline engine into the log canoe. The old timers preferred to use sail while the younger generation of watermen were enamored with the new engines. Harry interviewed  Leslie Drummond, who worked with his father and grandfather on the log canoe Madcap. His comments quoted here illustrate the tension over the use of engines: 

"She (the Madcap) had a Mianus seven horse power motor. I wanted a larger motor and bought a Buick forty five horse power motor. I put the new motor in her and my Grandfather said 'You have something in her now I don't know anything about.' I said, 'You steer and I'll run the motor.' He said, 'you bought the thing now you pay for it.' So I had to work for the rest of the year to pay for the motor."

The log canoes with their fine tapered ends were not well suited for the use of power. Under power they would tend to "squat" in the stern. Leslie Drummond describes Madcap under way with his Buick forty five horse power motor: 

"I opened her up. The stern was clean down, the rudder right under the water - she was a trottin."  

Annie C in 1978.

The Annie C evolved over time from only sail to power. Ultimately she had similar engines installed around the same time as the Madcap. When the larger engines were installed, the centerboard and bowsprit were removed and eventually “squat boards” or planning boards were installed on the stern to keep the stern from squatting down when under power.

The pictured to the right is the Annie C at the end of her working live in 1978. If you look closely at the stern, you can see the remnants of the squat boards.

The Annie C worked on the water from 1904 till 1978 when she was beached in Saxis by Delany Linton who had hopes of restoring her. Unfortunately he had cancer and was unable to fulfill his dream. Thanks to Frank Young and Dr. Harry Holcomb, the Annie C was saved and resides today at Ker Place in Onancock. She has been restored to her original design as a pure sailing vessel. 

The Annie C today at Ker Place

Sources: Interview tapes and transcripts made by Dr. Harry Holcomb.

British Invade Chesconessex!

By Terry Malarkey, from London, England and Chesconessex Creek.

Location of Chesconessex
Creek on Google Maps.

When Judy (also a Londoner) and I came to United States in the early 70's, Judy got a job running the Murrysville Community Library in western Pennsylvania. One day some schoolkids came into the library and said they had a project to research and report on the war between Britain and United States in 1812. Judy, a history specialist, said “What war?” And after doing some research with the kids she found that there had indeed been a war between our two countries in 1812. She came home and told me, and I too was surprised.

So imagine the irony of reading an article by Kirk Mariner in the Eastern Shore News, and discovering that the British had invaded Chesconessex Creek, where we now live, in 1814 and that June 25 was the 200th anniversary of that invasion. So with some help from Kirk Mariner, Miles Barnes, and the Web, I tried to put together a little story of what happened.

To set the scene:

• 200 years ago, in 1814, the War of 1812 was in its 3rd year.
• Napoleon was on sabbatical (it turned out!) and exiled to an island off of the coast of Italy called Elba.
• The land we now live on on the Eastern Shore was still owned by the Wise family (until after the Civil War).
• British attentions now turned to the Western Hemisphere. A distraction was needed to deflect the USA in its invasion of British North America (Canada).
• 500+ British troops, fresh from the wars of Europe, were encamped on Tangier Island (which you can see from our house) in newly-constructed Fort Albion, surrounded by redoubts, breastworks and armed with cannon. Often, powerful Royal Navy warships were anchored close by.
• Also present were the British Corps of Colonial Marines, comprised of escaped slaves from Virginia and Maryland, now in red Royal Marines uniform and with $20 bounty each in their pockets. In despatches they were described as “marked by great spirit and vivacity and perfect obedience”.
• There were various skirmishes, probes by both sides and some personal animosity between rival personalities, Captain Scott of the British army and Captain Joynes of the American militia.
• The American militia had barracks and artillery on Chesconessex Creek, and were commanded by Captain Joynes.
• At dawn on June 25, 1814 the British were running out of food. (Fresh Pride had closed!) With the food shortage and the rivalry in mind, the British admiral approved a raid by 500 Royal and Colonial Marines in barges. They were guided by the Colonial Marines who, being escaped slaves, knew the land intimately.
• The British invaders seized food, cannon, and burned down the barracks. No casualties were reported.
• Captain Joynes and his militia fled, leaving behind his sword, feathered hat, and uniform. These items were then given to a Colonial Marine sergeant (a former slave) as a prize and to humiliate Joynes.

Coda:

• Fort Albion on Tangier was used as a base to blockade the Chesapeake & attack Washington D.C. (where several public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion, were burned down), and Baltimore (giving rise to the National Anthem).
• Fort Albion was manned by the British until the end of the war by the Treaty of Ghent, in February 1815. It has now been lost to erosion.
• The escaped slaves & their families went as free citizens to Trinidad, Bermuda, Canada, & etc.

Sources:

The Internal Enemy by Alan Taylor
Pungoteague to Petersburg, Vol 1 Eastern Shore Militiamen by Alton Brooks Parker Barnes & Lee Howard
Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Jan. 1, 1808 to Dec. 31, 1835 by H. W. Flournoy, VA State Library
'Niles" weekly register, Robt E. Spencer

Secrets of the Beverly Plantation Arch Revealed

Written by Dr. Arthur Fournier

Figure 1. Beverly near Pocomoke, MD.  Photo located in
National Register of Historic Places Program.

The Beverly plantation on the Pocomoke River was initiated by Littleton Dennis circa 1760 and completed by his widow, Susanna Upshur Dennis around 1770. (1) Framing the stairs leading to the rear entry is a unique wrought iron arch adorned with curious symbols. The description of the arch in the 2012 Garden Tour brochure gives vague reference that the arch may have been forged by Haitian craftsmen. This piqued my interest as I have worked as a medical volunteer in Haiti for 20 years and in the process, become quite familiar with Haitian history, art and culture.

While the identity of the sculptor cannot be identified with certainty as being Haitian, careful study of the arch reveals that the artist that designed and forged it had a thorough knowledge of and reverence for ancient West African cosmology. This cosmology was preserved in Haitian culture through the centuries and is still present to this day in Haiti as part of the world

Figure 2.   Veve of Legba

view and value system known as Vodou. Court records and a family history indicate that the Dennis family conducted considerable commercial intercourse with the West Indies. (2) They may therefore have brought back slaves from the West Indies as skilled artisans to contribute to the construction of the plantation who were well-versed in the mysteries of Vodou. Vodou is a form of African spiritualism that survived among slaves in France's colony, St. Dominique, by syncretecly adopting a veneer of Catholicism. Catholic saints such as the Virgin Mary also represented African Saints – in the case of the Virgin, Erzilie, the goddess of love and family. (3, Figure 4)) The term Vodou is most likely derived as the Kreyol pronunciation of the French "vieux dieux" or old gods. Each of these old or African gods is represented by an abstract symbol called in Kreyol "veve". (See Figure 2, Wikipedia examples of veve) It is these veve that adorn the arch and also continue in Haitian Vodou art to this day (See Figure 1 & 3).

Figure 3. Examples of veve in the Beverly Arch.  Photo
located in National Register of Historic Places Program.

For example, the heart with a cross above it is a symbol of Erzilie-the heart for love and the cross for suffering. The serpentine curves represents Damballah, the snake god, the same symbolism embodied in the caduceus, our symbol for medicine. Large crosses stand for Legba, the guardian of the crossroads which represent the intersection of past and future, life and death. Even the arch itself is a symbol, depicting both a rainbow and the Milky Way. In Vodou cosmology, creation began with the mating of the feminine rainbow with the masculine snake god (the metaphors to human anatomy should require no elaboration).(4) The stars in the Milky Way represent the souls of departed ancestors.

Figure 4.   Cover of Dr. Arthur
Fournier's book.

How did this African cosmology survive in Haiti and not among the enslaved in what is now the United States? Well, it did, to a certain extent, among the French settlements in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. It may also have persisted amongst the slaves of the Beverly plantation, as Maryland was the only Catholic colony among the original 13. As Alex Haley described so poignantly in "Roots", however, most African-Americans in what is now the United States were deprived of their cultural identity through progressive generations of enslavement. In Haiti, however the slaves successfully revolted against their French masters beginning in 1793. By 1804 Napoleon abandoned his attempt to reconquer Haiti, selling Louisiana to the United States to finance that misadventure. In the decades that followed, the United States and European powers isolated and ostracized Haiti, fearing the Haitians would export their revolution. This explains why Vodou exists in such a pure form in Haiti to this day. Which brings us back to the construction of the Beverly plantation and its arch – it had to be done before the Haitian revolution!



Sources: 
1. Beverly, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form 
2. The Dennises of Beverly and Their Kin (private printing, 1992)
3. Vodou Saints: Lessons on Life, Death and Ressurection From Haiti, Arthur M. Fournier,M.D.
4. The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis

Celebrating 400 years since the first English settlement on the Eastern Shore of Virginia

Excerpts summarizing The Company’s Garden: Dale’s Gift

"The first settlement on Virginia’s Eastern Shore was started by Sir Thomas Dale in 1614. Shortly after he became governor under the Virginia Company, Dale “bought from the Indians the southern part of the Eastern Shore peninsula…on a body of water given the name Plantation Creek."

“At first there were only seventeen men there…whose labor was to make salt and catch fish in the spring and fall.” The new settlement “shortly developed a plantation or garden…’private gardens’ for each man and …’common gardens’ for hemp, flax, and other seeds."

"Governor Dale developed a portion of land solely for the profit of the Virginia Company, a “Plantation”or “Garden”. He proceeded “with great zeal to the good of the Company (to) sett up the Common Garden to yield them a standing revenue…”

For several years Dale’s Gift seemed to be an epitome of a typical plantation.

Due to mismanagement by Captain Argall , a subsequent governor, by “…Easter 1619 there was not left to the Company, the Garden, or any tenant, servant, rent, tribute corn, cow, or saltwork – only six goats…”.

“One thing only remained to the settlement, and that was the term commonly used by the planters in referring to it, namely: ‘the Plantation’.”

Something of importance, at that time, of the settlement on the Eastern Shore, both in securing for those inhabitants a regular and sufficient supply of fish and salt and in securing for the Company an annual revenue, may be gathered from peer tributes to Sir Thomas Dale’s ability in managing the affairs of the Colony, and also from the fact that the name given to the new settlement was Dale’s Gift, a name indicative of its value to colonists and company.

Source: 

The Company's Garden: Dale's Gift, by Susie M. Ames, Phd., published for the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society

Onancock and the Oyster Wars

Written by Joe Valentine

Onancock seems like a peaceful little town, so who would think that an Onancock resident would declare war on Marylanders and sink their boat? Well it happened in 1889 and it didn't even make the front page of the local paper, it was a page two article! Check out the forerunner of the Eastern Shore News, the Peninsula Enterprise issue from November 30, 1889 … http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn94060041/1889-11-30/ed-1/seq-2/ . The Peninsula Enterprise reports that on November 27, 1889, Onancock resident Charles R. Lewis hired Capt. William S. Russell to operate his tug boat, the Ida Augusta, and sink any boat that should poach oysters on his grounds off Hog Island in the mouth of the Potomac.

To provide a little background, in the 1850’s, Chesapeake oysters were being shipped to New England where the local watermen had depleted the New England oyster beds by using very efficient dredges. New Englanders soon started sending their boats down to the Chesapeake to harvest more oysters. Competition for the oysters started to become very stiff. Maryland and Virginia started to put constraints on the harvests. In 1868, Maryland founded the Maryland Oyster Navy to enforce their laws and keep outsiders from harvesting Maryland oysters. Virginia was lax in enforcing their laws. After the Civil War, the oyster business became big business. Virginia made its own attempts to fight illegal oystering. In the 1870s, Virginia imposed license fees, seasonal limits, and other measures to prevent over harvesting and preserve the oyster population. The demand for oysters continued to grow, and by the 1880s, the Chesapeake Bay supplied almost half of the world's supply of oysters. Meanwhile, violence broke out between oyster tongers and more efficient oyster dredgers. Finally in 1879, Virginia banned oyster dredging.

The abundance of oysters started to diminish, and in 1899, Virginia allowed watermen to lease private grounds with hopes that they would reseed them with oysters. This caused a lot of controversy as some of the grounds were jointly claimed by Maryland and Virginia. Charles R. Lewis, an oyster dealer from Onancock, had leased just such grounds located off Hog Island near the mouth of the Potomac.

When the governor of Maryland proclaimed that the area around Hog Island to be the common property of both Maryland and Virginia, the Smith Island watermen began to move in around Hog Island. Charles Lewis was determined to protect his leased oyster grounds from the raiders from Smith Island. He hired Captain William Russell, a deputy of the Virginia Oyster Militia, and gave him command of his steam powered tug, Ida Augusta. He told Captain Russell, “If them damned Smith Islanders try to loot my oyster beds, then sink their vessels.”

On November 27, 1889, Captain Russell steamed out of Onancock bound for Hog Island. When he got

Saxis Oystermen circa 1930's from the ESVHS's
Roberston Collection.

there he spied a Smith Island oyster boat, the Lawson, dredging over Mr. Lewis’s grounds. He proceeded to follow Mr. Lewis’s orders and took aim at the Lawson. One of the cullers on the Lawson looked up to see the tug and hollered “By Jesus, she’s fixing to ram us!” The tug hit the Lawson with a glancing blow when Captain Evans of the Lawson yelled “What in the hell are you doing?”

Captain Russell brought the tug around for a second run at the Lawson, this time crashing through the hull. When the Lawson began to sink, the well armed crew on the tug “invited” the Smith Islanders to come aboard.

The tug made its way back to Onancock with the angry crew of the Lawson. Charles Lewis met Captain Russell and the Smith Islanders at the dock in Onancock. He declared that no governor of Maryland could issue a proclamation by which he would be robbed. The Smith Islanders departed the next day stating that they would return to Hog Island, but would be well armed and would shoot anyone trying to take their boat. Later that month, Captain Russell attempted to capture another Maryland boat but was met with a hail of bullets. In the winter of 1989, a dozen men were killed on the Hog Island oyster beds.  The Oyster Wars on the Chesapeake started around 1865 and lasted until the 1950’s.

Sources:
Peninsula Enterprise, November 30, 1989
The Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake Bay, by John R. Wennersten
Leslie Drummond interview, by Dr. Harry Holcomb