In April 1876, the Worcester Railroad finished laying rails to a terminus at Franklin City, next to Greenbackville. The side-paddle steamboat "Chincoteague" ran passengers and freight from the railroad to, and from, Chincoteague. The ship was 100 feet long and 21 feet wide, and docked at the Railroad dock, which was directly across from the Church and Main Street junction. The "Chincoteague" was in use from 1876 until 1909, getting an annual overhaul, new paint, updates and repairs in Wilmington, Delaware. She was known as "Old Faithful" by island patrons, as she made her run once a day, even breaking through ice when necessary. The advent of smaller, privately owned and operated excursion passenger boats doomed her. The railroad company decided a tugboat, drawing "monitors" (barges) could do her job at half the cost, since there were fewer passengers to be had. When she was replaced by the steam tugboat "Broadwater" in 1909, she was sold and ended her career traveling up and down the Mississippi.
The Worcester Railroad replaced the "Chincoteague" with a gas-powered steam tugboat named the "Broadwater," which was a 69-footer, and the Captain was Joseph "Jack" Pruitt of Greenbackville. He had captained the "Widgeon" for many years between Franklin City and Chincoteague. The photo below is of the "Broadwater" at the Franklin City railroad dock with Captain Pruitt aboard in 1910.
It is rumored, but is not a fact, that the "Broadwater" was named in honor of William F. Broadwater. Who was he? Broadwater was born a slave in October 1821, and worked on the farm of the Broadwater family near Atlantic; in 1850, he married Mary Parker, a slave, of Horntown. After Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, William and his family, and a handful of other previous enslaved people, moved to Deep Hole on Chincoteague. Broadwater became a boatbuilder - and was known from Cape Charles to Wilmington, Delaware for his boat crafting. He and his wife had two children, but there are no descendants on Chincoteague any longer. He died on 18 April 1915, at that time the oldest person on the island. He was found dead, with his planer in his hand, when he didn't appear for lunch.
William F. Broadwater also has one other distinction on Chincoteague. He was very active in politics, and embraced the policies of President Lincoln, who had set him free. It was his voice and activism that garnered a foothold for the Republican Party on Chincoteague Island in the late 1860s and 1870s.
I have been unable to find any photograph of Mr. Broadwater...
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