William G. Thomas III, et. al., The Countryside Transformed

The railroad first touched the Eastern Shore seaside in 1876 when a line (soon to be part of the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad, a possession of the Pennsylvania) laid southeastward from Snow Hill, Maryland, reached its terminus just below the Maryland-Virginia boundary and next to the Chincoteague Bay oyster grounds at what became Franklin City. The construction in 1884 of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk placed wharves all along the seaside within easy hauling distance of the rail depots. By opening innumerable new markets, the railroad vastly stimulated the seaside seafood industry. The fisheries attracted hundreds of people to the islands and the adjoining mainland. They came with their families from Maine, Long Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Several of the newcomers became leaders in the seafood trade, outside expertise and capital playing a much larger role in the fisheries than in agriculture.74 Oystering was the most important of the seaside industries. From the late 1870s through the mid-1890s, the watermen of Chincoteague Bay harvested from 110,000 to 325,000 bushels of oysters annually. The oysters went almost exclusively to established markets in Philadelphia and New York, half traveling by rail and half by sail. In 1890 a New York journalist observed a dozen men dressed in the "rough clothes" of the waterman awaiting the arrival of the mail train in Franklin City. "They open the envelopes, which have the names of well-known wholesale oyster dealers in New York and Philadelphia printed on the corners, and . . . out drop checks and statements comforting to look upon." The journalist learned that for these men in "brown-twilled overalls and long-legged boots, the average income is not far from $7,000 a year."75

Sailboats also engaged in the seed oyster trade, carrying small oysters from the Broadwater, Chesapeake Bay, and the James River for planting in Chincoteague, Johnson’s, and Parker’s bays. Paradoxically, they also ran Chincoteague Bay oysters to New Jersey and Connecticut for planting there. In 1884 a Delaware man estimated that since the coming of the railroad the number of oysters planted in Chincoteague Bay had climbed from 36,000 to 300,000 bushels annually. By 1889 more than one hundred vessels of from five to sixty-five tons and about two hundred decked vessels of under five tons participated in the upper seaside oyster trade. The growing commerce necessitated the construction of private wharves on Chincoteague Bay at Chincoteague Island, Franklin City, and Greenbackville and on its tributary Swan's Gut Creek.76

Since 1849, individuals had claimed portions of Chincoteague Bay as private planting ground. The Broadwater's lower bays, on the other hand, were largely commons. Almost immediately after the coming of the railroad, watermen began to worry that the free-for-all on the Broadwater commons might exhaust the oyster rock. Their concerns coincided with those of Cheasapeake Bay oystermen, and in 1892 Captain James H. Baylor of the U.S.C.S. surveyed Virginia’s oyster grounds. Meanwhile, the General Assembly passed legislation providing for the leasing of the barren commons to private interests. The commons identified by Baylor as productive oyster grounds remained in the public domain.77

Private leasing dramatically increased oyster harvests. "The development of the shipments of shucked oysters from the planting section on the ocean side of the peninsula has been marvelous," a correspondent told a Richmond newspaper in 1906. "Two cars are attached to the local express train every night to handle the receipts. Orders are received from over a greater part of the country. Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Omaha and many other large Western cities are large customers." When oyster dealers learned that they could earn a higher return by shipping oysters shucked rather than in the shell, shucking houses, including the reputed largest in the world, opened up and down the seaside.78

The privatization of the barren commons came at a cost. For along with greater yield, it also encouraged litigation, poaching, intimidation, and bloodshed. "A state of warfare developed between the lease holders protecting their property, and those called 'oyster pirates,' who believed they had an inalienable right to anything produced by the sea," recalled a conservationist. "In order to protect the planted oyster beds it finally became necessary to station guards armed with rifles along the shore during fall and winter. Small houses were built near by for their accommodation." Around 150 of these watch houses appeared along the seaside from Chincoteague Bay to Cape Charles. Oyster planters, usually wealthy, well-connected men, hauled common oystermen into court for trespass, the sheriff of Northampton County was overpowered by depredating oystermen and marooned on a deserted island, and, on Mockhorn Island, a man shot and killed an old friend whom he accused of stealing his oysters. Meanwhile, on the public commons, the natural rock was in some places destroyed by illegal dredging, a problem exacerbated by the introduction of the gasoline power boat around 1905. The fierce competition put the oyster grounds, public and private, under intense stress. In the 1920s the strain became unbearable. Between 1920 and 1933, Eastern Shore oyster production (seaside and bayside combined) declined by 42 per cent, from 4,797,821 to 2,783,806 pounds.79

Seaside watermen also made their livings from other catch. They clammed, crabbed, and scalloped. They hauled seine and built pound nets for the capture of several species of table fish. They caught sturgeon for express shipment to Northern gourmands (in 1912 sturgeon roe sold on the dock at Oyster for $1.50 per pound; a single fish might provide roe worth $100) and supplied menhaden to factories for rendering into oil and fertilizer. The new technologies – power boats, ice plants, improved pounds and nets – that facilitated the harvest also hastened the decline of the fisheries. Between 1920 and 1933, production of fish and shellfish fell in almost every category. Only crabbing and clamming made appreciable gains during the period.80