The First Description of Chincoteague's Pony Penning Was Published in 1835

This is taken wholly from the book Once Upon an Island - The History of Chincoteague, written by Kirk Mariner.  It was copyrighted in 1996, and was published by Miona Publications of New Church, Virginia.  I am quoting seven paragraphs that appear on pages 39 and 40.  This is for informational purposes only.

   "On July 30, 1835, Thompson Holmes of "Chincoteague" - not the island, but the mainland across Chincoteague Bay, in what is now Captain's Cove - wrote a lengthy letter to the editor of the Farmer's Register, which that periodical published shortly afterwards as "Some Account of the Wild Horses of the Sea Islands of Virginia and Maryland."  In it is the earliest known description of the Chincoteague "pony penning."

   No one really knows when pony penning began.  Why it began seems obvious enough: on these islands where livestock roamed free, it was necessary from time to time - annually, as it developed - to round up the herds so that they could be claimed, branded, gelded, and culled.  It seems reasonable to assume that the "penning" developed early in the settled history of the islands, if not yet in the late 1600s at least in the early 1700s.  In addition to the pony penning, there was, until the early 1900s, a "sheep penning" on Assateague Island which was said to have begun even earlier.  Today's annual pony penning, now a formalized and ritualized event, is undoubtedly descended from what was, originally, a practical necessity.

   By the time Holmes described it, pony penning was an "ancient" custom whose origins stretched back beyond memory - well beyond the shipwreck of the San Lorenzo, the alleged origin of the ponies, in 1820.  Holmes himself moved to Chincoteague Bay in 1811, and therefore had first-hand knowledge of pony penning only that far back; in his opinion, the pony pennings of the 1830s retained, by comparison, "scarcely ...a shadow of their ancient glory."

   By 1835 the number of ponies on Chincoteague Island had so diminished in number that they were "nearly extinct," and the pony penning of that day occurred not on Chincoteague but on Assateague Island.  There was also a separate, smaller penning on Morris Island, which had its own herd.  Each June the Assateague herds were driven into a make-shift corral, an "angular pen of pine logs prepared to enclose them," where they were branded and gelded. (Islanders had long since given up an earlier practice of driving the herds straight into the water, from which they could be lassoed easily, because too many ponies had drowned.)  Those selected to be sold, or broken for use, were shipped over to Chincoteague or the mainland in scows, where, depending upon size and condition, a pony might fetch between $35 and $70 each.

   Already the practical necessity of rounding up the ponies had become the occasion for a great annual celebration.  "The adjoining islands were literally emptied of their simple and frolic-loving inhabitants, and the peninsula itself contributed to swell the crowd, for fifty miles above and below the point of meeting... All who had a new gown to show, or a pretty face to exhibit, who could dance well, or sing, belles that sighed for beaux, and beaux that wanted sweethearts" flocked to the festivities.  Tables groaned under under mounds of "fish and water fowl...fried and barbecued by hundreds," and liquor flowed freely.  Pony penning was "a scene of no ordinary revel," a time of "unrivalled noise, uproar  and excitement which few can imagine who had not witnessed it, and none can adequately describe."

   Such was pony penning a century-and-a-half ago when it was already, undoubtedly, a century or more old.  It would be decades before there would be such an event on Chincoteague Island itself, and many of the features of today's pony penning - the pony swim from one island to the other, the auction, the carnival - lay many years in the future.

   By the time Thompson Holmes described  it, Chincoteague Island had been settled for a century and a half.  It was still a place of "inexpressibly sublime and beautiful" scenery.  Livestock was still a major source of  income - "the largest and finest work-steers of the Eastern Shore are raised upon these islands," observed Holmes, and island cattle, when sold, always commanded a good price.  Its population had increased significantly, to about 70 families, most of whom were too "indolent" to suit Holmes.  Their "insular habits are at enmity with systemic labor or provident industry," lamented Holmes, observing that the easy subsistence to be had by fishing, hunting, and a little oystering deterred them from attempting the more "profitable processes of agriculture."  In 1835 Thompson Holmes sold his plantation "Pharsalia" on the mainland and moved to Philadelphia. "

The original letter from Thompson Holmes to the Farmer's Register may be read on-line at  https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/66463#page/434/mode/1up

after scrolling down to pages 417 through 419.    (I have been unable to find the letter that Thompson Holmes claims his is written in response to...)  Pages 531 through 536 describe a visit to Hog Island in 1835, with two mentions  of hearing tales of Chincoteague Island in the final two paragraphs.

The John H. Melvin home, built in 1775, near Horntown, Virginia.