The Pony's Home

Chincoteague Island, Va., August 20, 1888.

The week just ended has been the most notable for many years on the island. Chincoteague lies off the northeastern corner of Accomack on the seaside. It is about seven miles long and from one to one a half miles wide, being separated from the mainland by a broad and beautiful bay, which is interspersed here and there with little islets, most of which are covered with water at high tide. East of Chincoteague and separated from it by a narrow inlet lies the island of Assateague, which fronts the open sea, and though not more than two miles wide at any place extends for nearly forty miles in length from the northern part of the Eastern Shore of Virginia all the way up to Indian river, near the mouth of Delaware bay, so that at low tide one can drive for fully forty miles along the hard sand beach in full view of the mighty ocean. Chincoteague is, so to speak, a land-locked island, but a short drive over the wooded sand-hills and a ten minutes' sail across the inlet brings one to Assateague, on which the stands the great light house, whose flaming lamp burns a warning to sailors nearly two hundred feet above the level of the sea. The massive circular tower was rebuilt in 1867 and stands on a considerable eminence that has been thrown up by the combined action of the wind and waves. Twenty years ago the shore-line was at the foot of the little hill on which the light-house stands; now it is more than a mile away. All the seaside islands off the coast of Accomack are rapidly encroaching on the domain of the sea and every year or two a life-saving station that was once built on the beach has to be moved farther out in order to enable the captain and his crew to operate with convenience and dispatch when vessels come ashore or are in distress. The Assateague light-house, which is one of the finest and best-kept on the whole Atlantic coast is ascended by a winding iron stairway of 175 steps. The tower is surmounted by an iron-framed dome with the apertures filled with the finest French-plate glass. Inside of this and enclosing the light are the prismatic lenses. The great lamp has six circular wicks, which consume from five to six gallons of oil every night in feeding the flame. Under favorable circumstances this light can be seen forty miles out at sea, and has warned thousands of vessels off the treacherous shoals of Assateague. From the top of the light-house a magnificent view can be had of sea and land. Below you lies the long island, with its herds of grazing ponies and cattle. To the west lies Chincoteague, with its pleasant bay, and further on rises the mainland, with its wooded shore-line and fertile fields, dotted here and there with pretty villages and prosperous farm-houses. Speaking from experience, the writer thinks the sunrise seen from the top of Assateague light-house a far grander spectacle than one sees from the summit of the Peaks of Otter.

Though Assateague is much larger than Chincoteague it has but few inhabitants. Its soil is not so fertile, and its facilities of communication with the mainland are nothing like so good. A dozen families with the three light-house crew are the only human inhabitants of the island. But there are large droves of ponies, sheep, and cattle, and no end of foxes and seaticks. Chincoteague, on the other hand, is quite thickly settled, having a population of more than 3,000 inhabitants, most of whom have come here since the war from Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. Kendall Jester, one of the patriarchs of the island, who was born here seventy-four years ago, recollects when there were only a dozen houses on the island, all built of pine logs and daubed with mud. His father built the first framed house and brick chimney on the island and during the War of 1812-'15 made salt by boiling sea-water and sold it in Baltimore for $8 a bushel. "Uncle Kendall," as he is familiarly called by the people of the island, is the leading pony-raiser on Chincoteague, and can tell you more of the history of the island than any other man. "Uncle" Isaac Daisy and "Uncle" Joshua Reed are two famous old natives, the latter being a Second Adventist in religion and a Republican in politics, though he voted for Andrew Jackson, and still maintains that he is a Jackson Democrat.

"Aunt" Bridget Sneed is the most notable of the old women of the island. She is chock-full of old traditions, and is bitterly opposed to the modern ways and fashions which "them furriners" have fetched to the island. In no portion of Virginia has greater progress been made since the war than on Chincoteague. The people here will compare favorably in appearance, education, thrift, and industry with the people of any part of the State outside of our large cities. There are five good churches and one or two more in process of building, five good schools, the largest and best hotel on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the greatest abundance of good things to eat the year round. The Accomack Baptist Association, which has just concluded its annual session here, was one of the best-attended meetings in the history of the organization, and all the visitors seemed to enjoy themselves to their heart's content.