Old Newspaper Mentions of Chincoteague Island and the Ponies

    About two months ago, I decided to buy a six-month subscription to old newspapers on-line.  Now, these are definitely not every newspaper ever printed, but they cover a broad range of time and places.  The island of Chincoteague and the Chincoteague Shoals are often mentioned in newspapers and broadsides from the year 1770 up to today.  The majority of mentions are of ships of different types having weather difficulties or running aground on the shifting shoals off the east coast of Maryland and Virginia.  Losses of cargo, ships, and lives are almost continuous from the 1770 papers up until the 1940s.

   Chincoteague Island was mentioned frequently in newspapers during the Civil War, especially since the island declared for the Union, and was accorded the presence of a Federal gunboat, which kept shipping open, and from which several raids against the Rebels took place.  The newspaper reports during the Civil War were released from Fortress Monroe (also known as Fort Monroe), at Point Comfort, Virginia.

Fortress Monroe depicted in 1861

   Of course, my main interest is in the wildlife on Assateague and Chincoteague Islands, and, particularly, Chincoteague ponies.  The first mention I can find of Chincoteague ponies is in The Cecil Whig, a newspaper printed in Elkton, Maryland, in an advertisement for a "Public Sale, without reserve" at the place known as the John Reynold Farm near Delaware City on page 2, on Saturday, 11 March 1865.  The item that caught my eye was "2 Chincoteague Ponies, matched."

   Then an article that made me laugh out loud, and roused a little bit of anger, too, toward the writer of the following report: From the Brooklyn, New York newspaper The Brooklyn Union, on Monday, 20 May 1867, on page 4 - "From Fortress Monroe, May 18 -  ...  A party of strangers from Norfolk recently visited Chincoteague Island, some forty miles above Cape Henry, on a gaming and fishing expedition.  They found a remarkable state of society existing among the inhabitants.  Out of a population of fourteen hundred only a few could read and write, and the principal means of subsistence are farming and fishing.  Great numbers of ponies of a small species roam about the woods.  These are annually caught and taken to the Eastern Shore and sold.  When broken they make very good farm teams.  The inhabitants are exceedingly jealous of strangers, and manifest their aversion in a very decided manner.  Their means of communication with the other shore is very limited, and they have little knowledge of events transpiring outside their own little domain."

   It sounds to me like a group of rich tourists came in and tried to play over-lords to the Teaguers, who responded in a way aimed to make the visitors appear even more over-bearing than they already were.  - The let's play dumb gambit, so we can make fun of them after they've spent their money here...

   The article sent from Fortress Monroe in 1867 is the first mention in a newspaper of the capturing and selling of ponies on Chincoteague and Assateague that I have been able to find.

   The first mention of a "pony penning," however, is first found on 4 June 1858, and it relates to what we now call the Outer Banks ponies in North Carolina.  In the Greensboro, North Carolina newspaper, The Greensboro Patriot, on a Friday, with the above date, on page 1, in column 5, is the heading:  "From the Salisbury Watchman -  Salt Marsh Ponies -  It is known to comparatively few, especially of the younger people of this part of the State, that there is a section of country in North Carolina where ponies are reared.  ..." Many marsh pastures stretch along our coast, "and on them inhabitants of that part of the State raise what they call the 'Marsh Grass' or 'Bank Pony' - a species of small horse native to the soil. ...

  "There are two days in each year when owners of the ponies visit the pastures and have what  they call 'pony-pennings' - these are very public days and large numbers of people usually attend them.  The objects  in view are, either to brand the colts which have been dropped during the Spring, or to take away such of the horses as the owners may wish to use or sell.  - Last Saturday, May 15th was one of those days, and 15th of July is the other.  These are days of excitement and fun as well as of business.  It is said to be rare sport to catch and confine the ponies.  Foaled and reared on the sand banks and marshes at some distance from the habitation of man, they are wild as mountain goats; and to capture them requires skill, courage, and strength.  ..."

National Geographic photo of the 1925 Pony Penning of North

Carolina Outer Banks ponies at Shackleford