Cobb's Island Story

This is the second in the series of The Cobb's Island articles taken from newspapers of early years. This article is from The Richmond Dispatch of August 26, 1896. We reprint the picture of last week in which caption was inadvertently omitted.

HISTORY OF THIS CHARMING RESORT IN THE SEA

About the Cobb Family -- their Wrecking Business -- Forty-Odd Vessels Lost Off This Shore -- No One Drowned -- Romance of the Sea.

Staff Correspondence of the Dispatch.

COBB'S ISLAND, August 20. -- There is a peculiar, indefinable charm about this spot which every one who lingers here twenty-four hours is sure to experience. It is a charm which overcomes all the inconveniences and discomforts which abound, for while Nature has lavished her choicest gifts, man has done little or nothing.

THE HOT SPELL

Providence, however, did not give us an immunity from the recent hot spell. There was a succession of calms for four or five days, and the little wind that was wafted over the beach now and then seemed to come from a blast furnace, though the thermometer never recorded higher than 90 degrees. It was the hottest spell ever experienced in forty years. The patriarch of the island, Mr. Nathan Cobb, for the first time since he came to manhood, deserted his labors in the field and mingled with the loungers under the arbor. It was the first opportunity I have had of hearing him talk, and your readers will have to thank the hot weather as being the indirect instrument by which I have been enabled to write the first complete history of Cobb's Island, and I give it as told me by the patriarch.

FROM CAPE COD TO COBB'S

Nathan F. Cobb was born the 15th day of December 1797 in Eastham, Mass., and came to Northampton county, Va., in October, 1837, where he opened a "Yankee sore" on the seaside road about a mile from Cobb's Station. In the May following he purchased Cobb's Island from "Hard-Time" Fitchett for $100 cash down and a two horse wagon-load of salt. There was no building on the island, but the elder Cobb at once proceeded to built what is now known as "Tammany Hall" and used as servants' quarters. The building was framed on Cape Cod and brought all the way to Northampton. It is a substantial structure still.

The elder Cobb was married three times, his first wife being Nancy Doane; the second, Esther Carpenter, and the third, Mrs. Nancy Richardson. The last union was the third marriage for both the contracting parties.

THE COBB FAMILY

Mr. Nathan Cobb, Jr., my informer, is now 71 years of age, and he is possessed of a wonderfully bright memory. The only record he had from which to give this history is a rare family heirloom. It is a family chart, worked in block-silk on a piece of Irish linen, 18 inches square, somewhat of the nature of what is known as a sampler. The following is an exact copy:

FAMILY RECORDS

Nathan F. Cobb, the son of Elkanah and Gerusha Cobb, was born in Eastham Mass., December, A. D. 1797.

Nancy Doane, the daughter of Jesse and Thankful Doane, was born in Eastham, August 23, A. D. 1799. Died January 1, 1840.

They were married December 25, 1820. The children are as follows -- viz.:

Dorcas D. Cobb; born Sept. 28, 1821; died July 25, 1844.

Thankful M. Cobb; born Oct. 5, 1823; died July 3, 1839.

Nathan F. Cobb, Jr.; born Sept. 27, 1825.

Nancy D. Cobb; born Nov. 2, 1828; died July 30, 1844.

An infant son; born Dec. 29, 1830; died Jan. 1, 1831.

Warren D. Cobb; born March 29, 1833.

Albert F. Cobb; born Feb. 14, 1836; died Nov. 6, 1890.

Martha Cobb; born Aug. 7, 1838; August 1, 1839.

Jerusha R. Cobb; May 9, 1844; Aug. 1, 1839 [sic].

Nancy D. Cobb; Dec. 5, 1846 (Dead).

Children of Esther Carpenter.

This wrought by Dorcas D. Cobb, A. D. 1833.

This is the work of my own hand,

Left for my friends to see,

And I am gone not to return,

That they may remember me.

The young generation is as follows:

Elkenah Cobb, son of Nathan F. Jr. George, Arthur, Henry, Eva and Burr, children of Warren D. Cobb. Mrs. Sadie Travis and Lucius, children of Albert F. Cobb. Warren, Lee, Joe, Elkenah, and Cordelia, children of Jerusha Cobb Cornell. The elder Cobb lived to see sixty two children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Cobb's Island was probably first called Sand Shoals [Island], and on the government chart of to-day the inlet goes by that name. The elder Cobb promptly opened the island as a public resort, primarily for sportsmen.

The first steamboat which landed at Cobb's was the Osceola, Captain Mitchell, from Washington, bringing an excursion of forty or fifty person. The place has ever since been a favorite resort for sportsmen, but game of all kinds has been sadly on the decrease as the years go by. Geese, duck, brant, and snipe fed about these waters in marvelous numbers until the introduction of the breech-loading gun. From that date they have been growing beautifully less. So, too, with the fish. The ruinous pounds which infest the Chesapeake and other waters are rapidly depleting the sea of fish, and the purse nets of the fishing steamers, are completing the work by robbing the waters of the menhaden and mossbankers, the great food for other fish.

THE WRECKING BUSINESS

In addition to running the hotel and gunning and fishing, the Cobbs, up to the war did a considerable business in wrecking. With an old-time Cape Cod fishing boat, known as the five-handed boat, they did much wrecking, depending largely upon the use of anchors and hawsers, &c., on stranded vessels. This at times proved quite remunerative. They saved many a life, and 'twas just such work as this which led to the establishing of the United States Life-Saving Service. The means used then for saving life were in a crude way, much the same as have now been perfected in the service.

A WONDERFUL RECORD

They never charged one cent for saving lives or personal property, and always made bargains with the captains of vessels as to what should be paid for saving vessel or cargo. And it is a most wonderful record that with fifty or more vessels stranded off the island, no person was ever drowned, either in storm or while bathing in the surf. It is true that on a vessel stranded in the night some of her crew were frozen in the rigging, and by the explosion of a boiler in a steamer other casualties occurred. But no one was ever drowned off Cobb's Island, and there has been but one fire on the island in its history.

WRECKED VESSELS

The first vessel ever stranded here, and boarded by the Cobbs, was the schooner Columbia, from Charleston, S. C., for Baltimore, and loaded with lumber. This was about 1839. There were on board six men and the captain's wife. They were, together with the vessel and cargo, all saved. From this lumber was built in part the residence now occupied by Mr. Luther Nottingham, on the mainland.

The schooner, Hannibal, Captain William Morse, went ashore, and was a total loss. They were three days in rescuing the crew. The cargo of flour was from the Haxall Mills in Richmond, and was in great part saved.

A THRILLING ADVENTURE

A thrilling adventure, in which John Doughty was saved from a watery gave, and finally, after many years, took his own life by drowning, was narrated at length by Mr. Cobb.

Mr. Albert Cobb, with John Doughty and George Brown, had taken Mr. James Hamilton Easter, of Baltimore, and party to Old Point in the sloop Josephine, and were on their return to Cobb's. A heavy gale was blowing, and both Cobb and Brown wanted to turn back, but Doughty persisted in going, saying that he must get to Cobb's Island to meet a payment that was due upon his boat. Seas were running mountain high, and they determined to run into Smith's island inlet. Cobb had climbed into the rigging to look for the best water, when a fearful sea struck the Josephine.

SWEPT OVERBOARD

So immense was the wave that it struck Cobb in the rigging. Brown, seeing the approaching sea, lashed himself fast with the main sheet. Doughty was swept overboard. Brown threw coils of rope to him, and among other things, an oar, but Doughty seemed dazed, and was soon lost to view. The next day all the beaches were searched for the lost man, and he was finally given up for dead. About ten days later, to the astonishment of everybody on the island, Doughty made his appearance, and as it seemed to his friends he had risen from the grave. His property had already been administered upon.

It seems that when Doughty came to himself the oar which had been thrown to him was nearby, and he clung to this, which proved to him a life buoy. He drifted, he said, through five miles of breakers, and it must have been so, for he was lost near Dry Isaac's Shoals, off Cape Charles Light, and after being in the water for five hours, he was picked up by a schooner bound for Alexandria, Va., in the North Channel of the Chesapeake, just off Fisherman's Inlet. He was too weak to be put ashore, and was carried to Alexandria.

A STRANGE ENDING

It is a strange fact in the history of Doughty that after clinging to life so tenaciously he should have ended his days by drowning at his own hand. It is said that he gave a friend $100, stipulating that if he (Doughty) should die first, his friend would take his body, and sailing twenty miles in a northeasterly direction in the Atlantic Ocean, would there weight and bury his remains. However, he moved to the mainland, and one day dressed himself in his Sunday clothes, went out and drowned himself in a deep channel near by. They traced his footsteps to the spot and found he had weighted himself with bricks and waded into the water.

VESSELS ASHORE

Following is a list of vessels stranded off Cobb's, as complete as could be given from memory:

Schooner Columbia.

Schooner Frank, of Frankfort.

Brig Tremont.

Ship Blanchard.

The Edward Preble.

Schooner Lamontine.

Schooner Gassebus, from Maine to Jacksonville, Fla.

Schooner Purdy Smith, New York.

United States Coast-survey Steamer Hetsel; blown up; six men killed.

Ship Luna, of Baltimore.

Brig Massachusetts

Ship International, United States; loaded with ammunition. It is believed the ammunition exploded when the ship struck.

Schooner Jane Ingle, from Rockland, Me., for Alexandria, Va. Six men. Man at wheel struck and badly wounded.

Schooner Empire, New York packet, about 1861. Two men frozen to death.

George Bartall.

Alexandria Blue; total loss; crew saved.

Schooner Grant, of Philadelphia.

Schooner Martha Collins. Captain washed overboard, but saved.

Three-masted schooner John A. Bailey.

Schooner Minvera Wright.

John T. Grice.

Lewis Spanier, of Centreville, Mass.

Brig. John Gibbons of St. Johns, N. F.

Schooner Trudell.

Schooner Morning Light.

Steamer Ironsides; total loss.

Steamer Antelope.

Fishing smack Priscilla Ann.

Bark Cricket.

Schooner Harry Lee.

Schooner William B. Jenkins; Christmas '57.

Schooner Thomas Whelsey.

Schooner Pawnee.

Brig. Sarah Graves.

Schooner George Todd.

Sep. Candis.

Ship Ann Eliza; two men killed by explosion of steam-pump. Young Joe Baker, of the Baker Salvage Company, was one of those killed.

Schooner Enoch Pratt, of New York.