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

The geophysical backdrop of the Eastern Shore of Virginia is predominantly one of change, both on long- and short-term scales. The current mainland-marsh-lagoon-barrier island complex has its origins in the sea level rise at the end of the last Ice Age (about 15,000 years ago), which released water from the polar ice cap and eventually inundated the Susquehanna River Valley. The melting slowed about 3,000 years ago, at which time the Chesapeake Bay took its current form.9

The pace of sea level rise began to increase around 1850 and yet again around 1920 until it approximated its current rate of about 0.14 inches per year at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Given the low relief on the Eastern Shore (although the highest point on the peninsula reaches an elevation over fifty feet above sea level, barrier islands average only about seven feet above sea level), these changes in sea level resulted in significant geomorphic alteration to low elevation marshes and barrier islands that buffer the mainland from the Atlantic Ocean. For example, marshlands declined 16 per cent between 1852 to 1960 due largely to sea level rise. Moreover, between 1872 and 1910 the south end of Hog Island eroded landward (to the west) while the north end eroded seaward (to the east), eventually leading to the submergence of the village of Broadwater, which today lies more than a mile out into the Atlantic Ocean.10

In 1870 the Eastern Shore’s level terrain comprised a patchwork of fields and woods penetrated by sinuous tidal creeks. The woods were predominantly loblolly pine (travelers often remarked on their “pungent odors”) but also included shortleaf pine and hardwoods such as oak, hickory, and sycamore. The soils of Accomack and Northampton, mostly light, sandy loams, were well drained, easily cultivated, and receptive to the application of fertilizer. “Cultivation is exceedingly cheap,” an agricultural expert reported, “as a one-horse plough is sufficient generally, and a horse requires no shoeing, and vehicles and farm utensils will last double as long as in the mountain regions. For ‘trucking’ purposes, it is unsurpassed.” Another authority deemed the soils of Accomack and Northampton “among the most productive . . . of the Atlantic Coastal Plain.” The Eastern Shore also enjoyed the agricultural advantages of a mild climate, abundant rainfall, and a long growing season.11

Because the mainland was so narrow — averaging six to eight miles wide — no locality was remote from a wharf or landing or, after the coming of the railroad, a depot. Some of its bayside creeks and seaside inlets were deep enough to admit steamboats and all accommodated small sailing craft such as schooners and sloops. In 1880 the Eastern Shore customs district registered 358 sailing vessels, the largest registration of Virginia’s seven districts. The navigation of the waterways depended on knowledge and skill. A few longstanding structures, such as house chimneys, served mariners as guideposts.12

The great majority of the peninsula’s 28,455 people (12,690 of whom were black) made their living from the land. Their farms averaged 128.5 acres and were seated close to waterside landings and wharves. Eastern Shoremen were commercial farmers, having long participated in the commerce of the Atlantic coast. For generations their cash crops had been corn and, recently of more importance, oats. “We eat our own grain, and drink our own grain, and sleep upon our grain,” a Northampton man had remarked in 1824. By the 1870s, Eastern Shore farmers found their oats undersold in their principal markets – Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston – by those of the immense bonanza farms of the Midwest. By the 1890s, moreover, Midwestern economies of scale and the efficiency of the national transportation network insured that corn imported to Chincoteague Island from New York would undersell that grown on the adjacent mainland. Eastern Shore farmers responded to the new competition by gradually shifting over the 1870s and 1880s to the production of sweet and white potatoes.13

The Eastern Shore was overwhelmingly rural. Only Chincoteague, locus of the Chincoteague Bay oyster industry, and Onancock, where granaries lined the north branch of Onancock Creek, were worthy to be called towns. A few villages stood at wharves, at crossroads, and at the heads of creeks. In 1883 a traveler found at the crossroad hamlet of Temperanceville in upper Accomack County “two stores, steam saw, flour and grist mills, a smith’s shop, postoffice, etc. and about a dozen scattered dwellings.”14

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