Life on Chincoteague, Part 1

Wild Ponies, Wild Fowl, and Oysters.

A CURIOUS ISLAND PEOPLE.

Sketches and Photographs by a Sun Reporter.

The Chincoteaguer in His Home - A Haunted House - Story of Two Colored Wizards - Joys of an Oyster Roast at Old Randle Mason's - The Old Flag was Not Hauled Down on Chincoteague - Hell fire Portrayed by the Blaze of Pitch Pine Knots - Chincoteague Crime - A Sportsman's Canaan - The Immense Oyster Business.

CHINCOTEAGUE, Va., May 2. - In a shallow, unnamed arm of the Atlantic, and six miles off the northern end of the mainland of the Virginian peninsula, lies the island of Chincoteague. Though nine miles long by one in width, more than half its area is just awash at every tide, and half the remainder is under water at all but the dryest seasons. A wide belt of salt marshes, a succession of low pine covered ridges that look like stranded sand waves, with broad sweet water glades between, grown full of pond lilies and rank water grasses - such is Chincoteague as nature made her. It is as if a section of Florida had been picked up and dropped down on this coast, with a narrow sea wall of sandy hills stretching for fifty miles up and down the coast, just off to seaward, to protect it. Cut off from the mainland by six miles of water, protected from the waves of the sea by the natural breakwater, its sands and waters the resorts of numberless birds and wild fowl in their seasons, and its shoals covered with clams and oysters of unsurpassed quality, a sunnier, sleepier, happier combination of land and water for the home of a lazy man would be hard to find.

Not only is Chincoteague isolated: it is unique. No other section of the East is able to boast, as Chincoteague is, of being the home of a herd of ponies almost as wild as those the people run down and lasso on the plains of No Man's Land. No other district of equal extent in old Virginia can boast that its whole people, save one man, was loyal to Uncle Sam when the state voted to secede from the Union. In few, if any other portions of the country, is the land under water worth so much more than the dry land as it is in Chincoteague. Rarely can a community be found in such excellent health when so utterly regardless of sanitary laws, while a more curious combination of the old and the new, the conservative and the progressive, the lazy and the thrifty, than the people of Chincoteague, must be sought for long if found elsewhere.

THE PONIES.

Chincoteague has no historical society; indeed, until within recent years, it had very few people who could read. The earliest exploration and settlement of the island are therefore located only by inference and tradition. It is probably, however, that the island was explored not long after the year 1600, for old records in the peninsula show that the first land grant there was made to William Eppes on Feb. 3, 1626, and the second to "Nicholas Hoskins of Accomac, yeoman," two days later. The peninsula was therefore already settled at that time, and doubtless the island was visited by the first settlers.

The early settlers had only such horses as they brought from the old country, and the existence here at an early day of an isolated herd, the only one in the county so far as any one knew at that time, was a matter that must have brought many horse hunters to the island.

The ponies were well worth coming for. Tough, strong, and wiry, they were easily domesticated, and, once broken to saddle or harness, gave excellent service to their owners by day and "rustled for their feed at night," as a Western man would say. Where they came from originally is a mystery. The guessers of the country say they think a ship in the days of Queen Elizabeth must have sailed from some of Sir Walter Raleigh's settlements with a cargo of horses, and, failing to make a landfall at the capes, stranded on Assateague Island, as the long sandbar outside of Chincoteague is called. They guess that the crew and passengers escaped and were carried to the settlements by the tribe of Pocahontas, and that the horses jumped overboard and made themselves as comfortable as the circumstances would permit on Assateague beach and Chincoteague Island. Then, because those circumstances were not always suited to horse nature, because northeasters laden with snow and sleet would sweep down on the island, and because the glades froze over and snow covered the grass in winter, so that feed was scarce, the horse of the days of Queen Elizabeth shrunk into the pony of which there is tolerable trustworthy tradition as far back as 1750. But, if his manner of life made the pony small, it also made him hardy, and that was all anybody in the ancient days cared to know about him. He could endure all the work and ill usage his captors chose to bestow upon him, and that was enough.

Naturally, in their trips to Chincoteague for ponies, the early Virginians noted that it was a goodly land for a pioneer. The sea lay just beyond to temper the cold of winter and the heat of summer. There were no forest of pine here then as now, it is said, but only prairies and bushes around the glades. No clearing of land had to be done. The soil was sandy, but excellent for such crops as the early Virginians cultivated. The fish, the shellfish, and the game, as already mentioned, were abundant. And yet because it was isolated and the pioneers had to live gregariously for protection from the Indians, Chincoteague remained unsettled for a considerable time after permanent settlements were made in Virginia. But when danger from the Indians was over a few settlers came across and having obtained grants of land, erected homes and appropriated the ponies to the extent that if any one on the mainland thereafter wanted a pony it had to be purchased of the Chincoteaguers. But no one thought of collecting the herd into an enclosure. The ponies roamed about over the unfenced meadows and glades as before.

In the course of time, however, the natives began to assert a private ownership as against one another, and to then distinguish the different members of the herd every pony was caught and branded. Out of this grew a custom that has made Chincoteague famous all over the peninsula between the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, and still further inland, the custom of having an annual round-up and market day. Month in and month out, hot or cold, storm or shine, the ponies are unmolested in their wanderings about the island. Fences, save where corn and potato patches exist about the cabins, have been practically unknown until recently. The meadows furnished the ponies with grass, the brush with browse, the glades with water and the pine forest which spread to the island from the mainland a little over a hundred years ago, with shelter. But in August comes the round-up. The annual product of colts must be captured, apportioned, and branded. The whole herd must therefore be corralled.

The natives begin the work by building a pen of rails large enough to hold all the ponies on the island, and more, too. It was always in former days built on a level place of ground on the beach near where the steamer wharf now stands, but now near Ragged Point, at the north end, or on Assateague. The fence is generally from ten to twelve rails high, and a wide opening guarded by two posts is left on one side, to be eventually closed by large gates. Then on the day set the entire population turns out and dozens of men and boys mounted on tame ponies ride off to gather in the herd. In August, when the round-up takes place, such clouds of mosquitoes as can be found nowhere else rise over the glades, and the ponies take to the hills, as the little twelve-foot elevations are called, because there the sea breezes partly protect them from the insects. With whoop and yell the horsemen spread out in lines and sweep along the ridges, driving the wild ponies at a tearing pace before them, until at last all are gathered on the beach, and then away they go, snorting and squealing toward the pen. A double line of horsemen await them, and by skilful riding head the herd into the enclosure and shut the gates.

Meantime the bateaus and the sloops, and in later years, a little steamer, have been bringing over such throngs of sightseers and buyers from the mainland as to create a degree of activity and excitement among the natives that is marvellous to behold. A howling mob gathers about the pen, and, as if awed by their surroundings the ponies huddle in the corners, and stand trembling. Thereupon the most experienced of the natives clamber over the fence, each carrying a long pole and a lasso of new manila rope. Each is followed by a squad of darkies. Carefully hanging the noose on the end of the pole the native approaches the herd, and if lucky drops the noose over the neck of a colt or of some pony which a buyer has called for. Up rises the pony on its hind legs and then away it goes; the darkies grab the rope and sink their heels into the sand to restrain it; the herd surges around the pen, snorting and throwing the sand in air; other ponies are lassoed by other owners; some of the darkies holding the ropes stumble and fall and are kicked and trodden by the frightened herd; the spectators climb on the fence and swing their arms about and yell; and at last the excitement and confusion reach a climax when the darkies with a heroic charge followed by hasty retreat grab a captive pony the legs, hit him off his feet and tumble him, kicking and squealing over on the sand, where one grabs it by the forelock and sits on its head. The discordant yells become a roar of cheers at that, and a well-earned glass of grog each is the portion of the first victorious squad of darkies.

If the pony is for sale it is secured by stout lines tied around its nose, and is hobbled and led out. If it is a colt it is taken to a barn or shed near by, and kept there till all the colts have been captured. Then, since no one can tell which mares the colts belong to, a disinterested committee divide the colts among the owners, in proportion as near as may be to the number of mares owned by each, and they are then thrown and branded, and all odd colts are sold and the money divided in like manner.

Years ago the herd numbered from 300 to 400, but now there are less than 200 adrift among the meadows and glades. To see the Chincoteague pony at his best approach him cautiously as he stands on a sand hill where the wind blows fresh from the Atlantic. He will be feeding away very quietly until disturbed by the presence of the spectator. Then up goes his head, his tail curves, one fore foot is slightly raised, and there he stands for a moment with the wind shivering his rough coat and blowing his shaggy mane about his head, a perfect picture of animation and apprehension. The next moment he goes scampering away in a terrible hurry to get out of sight.

As captured in the pen the pony stands not far from 12 hands high, and weighs, perhaps, 450 pounds. He is too big bellied to be handsome, but his legs, neck, and head are never ungraceful. They are of various colors, generally red, brown, or brownish gray. They are always wicked looking little rascals, but, when properly broken, become perfectly safe for women and children to use, and on the mainland are very popular for dog carts and for saddle ponies for young people. The average price of the unbroken pony is $40.

THE CHINCOTEAGUER.

A line of railroad controlled by the Pennsylvania Company runs down the eastern shore of the peninsula and terminates on a pier in a queer little community called Franklin City, on the shores of the bay in which Chincoteague lies. The train, for there is but one a day, reaches Franklin City early in the afternoon. It finds there a little tug of a steamer called the Widgeon, waiting to ferry the wayfarer over the water to Chincoteague. The steamer has a low hull, with a narrow engine house amidships, and a hurricane deck propped upon stilts about six feet above the main deck. On the upper deck is a seven-by-ten cabin and a pilot house, and a bench running around outside for use in fair weather. Sitting up here the traveller watches the roustabouts, who are white, and Capt. Pruitt himself, trundle the merchandise from the car to the steamer, and then, after a few toots to call in the passengers who may be loitering in the Franklin City stores, away she goes like a great fat duck - and not much faster. It is said to be a seven-mile run across the bay, and it takes the Widgeon just an hour to swim it.

As the steamer approaches the island the distinctive characteristics of the people appear. Dozens and scores of the kind of little shanties in which colored people live in the rural districts of Long Island and New Jersey are to be seen, and it is not without a mental shock that the New Yorker notices that the occupants are almost invariably white. Scattered about among these shanties are perhaps a dozen or more houses of a style of architecture and finish that would be creditable in any village near the metropolis. Surprising as this mixture appears, the wonder of the visitor at the sight becomes little if any short of amazement on landing. The main street literally follows the coast of the bay, winding along about 100 feet from the water's edge and following the crooks and turns very faithfully. From this street at intervals side streets run at various angles. The main street varies from 30 to 60 feet in width, apparently at the whim of the property owners facing it. The side streets are from 10 to 20 feet wide. The streets have never been either paved or graded. They are the universal dumping ground for house sweepings and refuse, save only where a vacant lot adjoins a dwelling; in that case the refuse goes on the vacant lot because it is handier to the kitchen. Tin cans, torn paper, old rags, odds and bits of bones, bottles, and oyster shells, especially oyster shells, appear everywhere, but the bones are invariably dry and clean of meat or muscle, for the pigs that run the street have a watchful eye for such things. It is along such lanes as these that the handsome residences seen from the steamer are to be found.

Both sides of the main street are pretty well lined with stores, and these vary in size and style more than the dwellings do. Some of these buildings are so old that the moss-grown shingles are dropping to pieces rotten. Some are so new that only the first coat of paint has been applied, and the shingles are bright with the color of the original cedar.

Standing around, singly and in groups in front of these stores, or straggling along the streets, or sitting in chairs tilted back against the front of the big hotel, can be seen fair specimens of the present population of Chincoteague. The population can be divided on one line into two classes - the native and the imported. It is greatly to the sorrow of the native class that the immigrants have become so numerous in recent years as to crowd the natives very hard in more respects than one. By another division of the population there are the producers and the non-producers, the producers being without exception oystermen, while a majority of the non-producers, so-called, being capitalists, have their money invested in some way in the oyster business, and so those who are strictly non-producers are very few in numbers. Chincoteague is founded on oysters; it lives, moves and grows rich on oysters; it even gets fat on them; but this assertion must be limited to the immigrant class. The native Chincoteaguer does not get fat, though now and then one, like old Uncle Ken Jester, becomes rotund on abundant whiskey.

The native Chincoteaguer has long, bony legs, a gaunt body, long, dangling arms, long, skinny fingers, a long, wrinkled neck that sprouts out from between his shoulders like a tangent from a curve; a head of long, wriggly hair, and cheeks that are as hollow as his chest is concave. The hair under his chin grows undisturbed. On his upper lips, chin, and cheeks it is choped off by the wife with scissors, ordinarily, but on state occasions, such as election days and at pony round-ups, he shaves himself, and it is a shave that is so close in spots as to draw the blood and so far away in others that the hair is left in broad patches undisturbed. His eyes are watery, his teeth scattered and worn, his breath redolent of strong drink and tobacco. How in the world it happens that the daughters of such men should be sweet-faced and of rounded forms, often voluptous and how these girls who are so charming at 18 or 20, should be shriveled and cadaverous at 30, is one of the things not fully understood, but these are the facts.

The Chincoteague man was raised on homespun trousers cut high in the waist and short in the leg, a shirt that was short in the arm and opened as low in front as the evening dress of a society woman, a soft hat that rose to a peak on top of the head. He would be glad to wear that sort of a dress now, but he cannot afford it. It takes so long to raise the flax, and hackle, spin, and weave the product that the time can be devoted to oysters much more profitably. He now buys store clothes of such ample widths and folds as to the body and scantiness as to length of arm and leg, and of such diversity of colors, checks and stripes that either Solomon or Joseph in all their glory could hold a candle to him. But it is in his footwear that he takes a special pride. In the season, and that means while oysters can be shipped, the feet of the Chincoteaguer are encased in rubber boots that may be drawn up to his hips. But though they may be, they seldom are. The pliable tops are turned down half way below the knee, and then turned and drawn part way up again, and there they hang in such wide folds that the Chincoteaguer must needs straddle. Just imagine a man six feet tall, stooped and gangling, with boots whose rolling tops measure a foot across, straddling along the street, with his arms swinging in unison with his legs; then you have the native Chincoteaguer in all his pride.

The wife of the old native is to be seen about the streets on every pleasant day. She comes to town riding in a cart. The cart has wheels 5 feet in diameter, with tires 3 1/2 inches wide. It has thills or shafts like those of the garbage carts of New York, only they are longer. Between these thills stands the team, a cow or an ox or a pony or a mule, just as the owner happens to own one or the other. If it is a cow, it has to keep its neck stretched to prevent the ends of the thills chafing its horns.

Seated on a board laid across the box of this cart is the woman, dressed in a calico gown and a sun bonnet, while sitting about her feet are four or five of the younger children - say from a third to a half the number of the family. The wife is gaunt and worn; the children are fat and good looking.

The homes of the Chincoteaguers are built on one model; it is that of the dry goods box. They were originally of logs, but for the last thirty years or so are made of lumber. They have a single room with a low attic above, reached by a cross between a ladder and a stairway. A doorless cupboard in one corner holds a few dishes. A pot, a frying pan, a coffee pot, and a few basins and pie tins are piled behind a rusty stove. In one corner stands the bed. No such bed as that, probably, can be found in the metropolis. The bedposts are as thick as a common stovepipe. Huge timbers serve as rails, and the bedding rests on a rope that is stretched criscross around pegs in the rail. But the most noticeable feature of all is the stock of feather beds. They swell up like hay in a New England mow. Winter and summer the Chincoteaguer must have a soft bed, and his idea of softness is in no way so well met as by abundant feathers. The thought of such a bed in such a climate as this is in August is enough to make a Northern man gasp, but there the Chincoteaguer sleeps content. The children sleep on the trundle bed and on feather beds on the floor in the attic.

The Chincoteaguer is exceedingly hospitable. He will share his well-feathered nest and his pork, corn bread, and coffee for such is his diet, with a stranger at any time, and be heartily glad of the opportunity. If the stranger will only take a drink from the ever-present whiskey bottle and then sit down and chew tobacco and spit in the stove hearth while the old woman sits by in the old wooden rocking chair and smokes a stone wall pipe with a fish pole stem, the comfort and pleasure of that family is complete. But it takes a stranger with iron nerve and stomach to stand the ordeal.

GHOSTS AND CHARMS.

Living in an isolated hut on an isolated patch of land, with no books, no newspapers, and no schools or teachers, the tendency of the Chincoteaguer's mind was inevitably toward a belief in the supernatural. The wind sighing through the pine, strange voices from the sea, strange calls from across the meadows, strange lights that danced above the stagnant water in the glades - all came to him as manifestations and tokens of the spirit world. Old Elisha Bloxom, living a mile below the village, went one day down the beach to help discharge the cargo of a beached vessel - wrack the ship, as they say here. Coming ashore the yawl was capsized, and Elisha was struck on the head by the boat, stunned, and drowned. Some thought his mates should have saved him. In a short time they were sure of it, for the soul of the old man, they said, could not rest in the grave they dug for him in the sand hill overlooking the sea. Sounds that were unaccountable were heard in the old house. The widow and her children moved out and a family of immigrants, who knew not Elisha, moved in. Before the year of their lease was up they moved out, unable to stand the nightly visitations. That was eight years ago, but no tenant has lived there since, while the belated wayfarer on the old road that leads by the house runs by it with hastening step and bated breath, fearful lest the old man appear to seek vengeance for his untimely death.

For many years Widow Zippie Tulle lives in a little hut near Jamestown, on the mainland. Old Nigger Dave Blake lives alone in the swamp near Horntown, also on the main. Neither priest nor secular ruler ever exercised a stronger sway over parish and subject than these ignorant old conjurors over the minds of the old Chincoteaguers. Did husband suspect his wife or wife her husband of loving another, they believed, good souls, that the erring one was bewitched. Did the husband become petulant or the wife peevish unexpectedly, so that quarrels followed, the evil eye had fallen upon that household. Did aches and pains or distress of any sort come; did the cholera affect the pigs, or murrain the cow or some other disease the ponies, or green gill the oysters, the powers of the evil spirits were at the bottom of it all. There was but one hope for relief. Widow Zippie or Nigger Dave must be consulted. The Chincoteaguers went over the bay in their dugouts by the dozen at times to see thee two conjurors. The widow held the hands of those that applied to her, examined the skull of a drowned sailor found on the beach, mumbled over the dried heart of a frog, and made the sign of the cross again and again with a wand made of a serpent's skeleton bound together with human hair plucked, she said, by unseen spirits from the heads of those who had offended her. This done, she gave to the applicant a powder wrapped in black paper, and with that for a charm the distressed one went away comforted.

Old Nigger Dave's process was more mysterious still. The visitor found the old man in the hut in the swamp rolling a ball of unknown composition on a shaky table. To and fro, round and round, the old darky sent the ball, while he bent his whitening head above it and whispered words which no one understood. Not infrequently the visitor would not be allowed to either explain the cause of the visit or ask a question; he must stand in silence while that ball rumbled about on the table till the old colored man was ready to stop it. Then, to the amazement of the Chincoteaguer, the old conjurer would tell in a solemn voice all about the trouble that had brought his visitor to the hut in the swamp. Surely, the powers of darkness must have told him about it, and impressed with that belief the Chincoteaguer paid the price, took the proffered charm and went away to obey the injunctions of the conjurer to the letter.

The fame of old Dave as a healer of domestic woes became wider than the confines of Chincoteague or Accomack county. In the plenitude of his power he brought the one complained of before him when the complainant was absent, and by his mysterious knowledge of facts and his awful threat extorted the truth, and then said such commands on both husband and wife as invariably healed the difficulty; for faithfulness and kindliness, one toward the other, followed on the commands of the old negro. Though he practiced the black arts he did for the Chincoteaguers what neither judges nor juries nor religion could do. There was a deal of hearty sorrow in many homes that he had made happy when one morning a visitor in distress went to the little old hut in the swamp and found old Dave sitting by the table with his face down on one arm, and the conjuring ball in his hand. He did not move when the visitor entered, nor answer when spoken to, nor was he ever able to again set the ball rolling in the interests of either health or peace for he was dead. The widow Zippie had died before him, and no one has arisen to take their places. The preachers came to the island of Chincoteague with their prayers and sermons, but while the old Chincoteaguer will attend, and listen, and believe, he will not be wholly comforted.

THE OYSTER ROAST.

Old Randle Mason kept the first hotel on the island. The house, which faced the bay, did not differ in size or appearance from the other dwellings, but in 1855 Randle hung up a sign and made people who came from the main land welcome for a consideration. His place speedily became popular, far and near, because of the frolics held there under the name of oyster roasts. There are features about an oyster roast that are exceedingly attractive to the wilder sorts of the Virginia peninsula even to this day.

Old Randle would announce a roast some weeks in advance, generally naming some such holiday as Washington's birthday, for in this climate the weather can ordinarily be depended on save in January. When the day and the people came many bushels more of oysters than could be eaten were to be found beside the Mason house, and a huge stack of pine chunks as well, in the old-fashioned fireplace within, and over a broad hearth made of stones without, big fires were made with the chunks, and then the roasting began. Oysters fresh from the sea water cooked in the corner of a big fireplace, or on red-hot rocks out of doors have a flavor found nowhere else, but the oysters were not the chief attraction for old Randle's family consisted entirely of girls, and it was a large, good-looking, harum-scarum family. Moreover there were the choicest products of Virginia and West India stills, the latter smuggled in by the sloops that then traded to Jamaica and other ports down that way.

As the oysters began to sizzle and sputter under the heat the old man brought out the jugs and stood them on a table with tin cups and tea cups in bountiful array. With every oyster a drink was the hilarious custom, and here was no exclusion of the gentler sex from the ring about the liquor table.

Finally, inspired by the flavor of the oysters, the fiddlers drew their instruments from blue cotton bags, screwed and scraped at keys and strings for a while in discordant notes, and then, with a musical twang and a thump of cowhide boots, called for he opening dance! Oh, the reel and the quadrilles. Oh, the jigs and breakdowns! Such grace when bowing "Honors to yer pardners." Such vigor and enthusiasm when told to "Balance all." Such hearty embracing at the call of "Swing." And when each dance ended the young man always led out his palpitating partner, first of all to the jug-burdened table and then to a seat. Everywhere present, to smooth rustled tempers and keep the fun going, was old Randle. Every where present, to see that no young man sulked for lack of a sweetheart, were Randle's buxom daughters. Without let, break, or hindrance, the afternoon and the night wore away until even Chincoteague muscles and brains could stand up no longer under the influences of fatigue and liquor, and then down the young folks dropped wherever the end of the last dance left them, indoors or on the dooryard green, and went fast to sleep.