Chincoteague and the 1933 Hurricanes

    Two hurricanes affected Chincoteague Island in 1933: the first was the Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane in August and a brush-by with the Outer Banks Hurricane in mid-September.  The September Hurricane had the most impact, with 20 to 30 inches of rain falling before the winds hits the island.  Storm warnings were issued on the 21st of August by the Weather Bureau regarding the hurricane.  On the 22nd and 23rd, 25-foot waves destroyed the dunes on Assateague and then rolled onto and across Chincoteague.  By early morning of the 22nd all power, water, telephone and telegraph services connecting the island to the mainland were cut off by the wind and waves.  Later, tides on the island were reported to be five feet above normal high tides.  At what is now 3747 Main Street, Charles Gall's store had 18 inches of water  inside.  Coffins washed out of cemeteries and were found in yards and streets as the high water receded.  (It was after this storm that quite a few families began using cemeteries on the mainland instead of burying their loved ones where they might wash away.)  The bridges and causeway connecting with the mainland were completely under water.

   In August 1933, there were still a few houses on Assateague (other than the lighthouse keeper's residence) and they were all destroyed by the storm.  The Maryland end of Assateague was still attached to Ocean City, but the hurricane created the Ocean City Inlet, making Assateague a true island.  Most of the homes on the Maryland end of Assateague were also destroyed.  Hunting lodges and fish camps were rebuilt on the Maryland end.  No homes were rebuilt on the Virginia side.

   Surprisingly, there a very few photographs of the damage from the August 1933 hurricane on Chincoteague.  I suppose the views from Ocean City, Norfolk, Buckroe Beach, Washington DC, and points north made for more dramatic pictures.  The losses on Chincoteague were written about in the newspapers, but no photos were published that I can find.

Remains of Queen Sound Bridge, August 1933

   The Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane ended the "golden age" of Virginia's Barrier Islands.  Besides the houses on Assateague, homes had been built on Hogg, Cobb, and other barrier islands.  The 1933 destroyed almost all  of the homes in the town of Broadwater on Hog Island.  A resort had been built on Cobb Island, and only a few boards were found after the 1933 hurricane.  The Wallops Island Hunting Lodge was almost totally washed away.  The high tide reports following the hurricane had the 5-foot tide at Chincoteague, a 7-foot tide at Cape Charles, and a 10-foot tide at Wachapreague.

   After the storm, the surviving houses of Broadwater on Hogg Island were moved to Willis Wharf, along with the cemetery that had been started there.  That community is now known as "Little Hog Island" in Willis Wharf.

The Queen Sound Bridge after the August 1933 Hurricane

       From the newspapers, by date:

Thursday, 24 August 1933  -  The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware, page 9:  "... Chincoteague Island also suffered severely, but the extent of the damage could not be learned.  Coast Guards and veteran mariners said it was the worst storm that had hit the Maryland and Delaware peninsula within historic times. ..."

    The Boston Globe of Boston, Massachusetts on page 9:  "... Salisbury is completely underwater.  Chincoteague Island also suffered severely, but the etent of the damage could not be learned. ..." ***

Friday, 25 August -  The Evening Sun of Baltimore, Maryland, 2 stories, both on page 3, column 2:  "Salisbury Gets Electricity -  Salisbury was still without railroad service from the north, although it is on the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  Occasional trains were being operated southward from Salisbury.  Electric lights and gas were restored.  One report brought into the town was that a man and a woman on Chincoteague Island were in water up to their necks without a place of refuge Wednesday night, and that many wild horses in the noted herd on the island were drowned."   And:  "Wild Horses Drown On Chincoteague Island  -  [Special Dispatch to the Evening Sun]  Princess Anne, Md.; Aug. 25 - Reports reaching here today said that among the sufferers from the storm in the Chesapeake Bay were were large numbers of wild horses of Chincoteague Island.

  Many of the horses, which ran at large and are rounded up once a year, were said to have been drowned when flood waters swept the island.  Pending the restoration of communication with the island, the extent of the loss was not known.

  A man and a woman on the island, caught without a place of refuge, were reported to have been in water up to their necks throughout the entire night as the storm waters rose." ***

Saturday, 26 August -  The Evening Sun of Baltimore, pages 1 and 7:  "Islanders Bury 5 Dead; 10 Still Among Missing  -  Chincoteague Fears Oyster Industry Ruined By Storm  -  Coffins and ship wreckage littering the main roads, the bodies of wild ponies flung up on the beaches and the prospect of the destruction of their single industry, oysters, today confronted the fisherfolk of the Atlantic islands off the Eastern Shore peninsula as they buried their dead and set to work to shake off the devastation of the hurricane that wreaked upon them its full fury as it dashed against the coast.

   Five dead were accounted for and ten others were missing and grave fear was manifest that they would ever return.  The sun has been out for two days, the tidal wave has receded and the belief of Chincoteague was that any who lived among the sturdy fishermen would have by now made their way back to habitation.

   - Watch Towers Fall -

   Those known to be dead were, in the greater number of instances, swept from the flimsy watch towers from which they stood guard against poachers over the oyster beds.  These unstable structures, exposed to the full force of the blast, were toppled by the wind and borne away by the tides that engulfed the island.  Among the other dead was a two-year-old girl, torn from her mother's arms as the parent, Mrs. Jessie Davis, was climbing from a second-story window of her flooded home at Oyster to a rescue boat.

  - Missing Men Reappear -

   The death toll in the Virginia peninsula was believed likely to go higher, but reports today from Cambridge reduced considerably the number in Maryland who had earlier been regarded as lost.  Five Hooper's Island fishermen, who had been listed as missing and were believed to be dead, reappeared.  This put the count of dead in Maryland at seventeen.  The body of one storm victim, a bridge tender, was found floating in the Chesapeake Bay at Hooper's Island, but Capt. Winnie Adams and his two sons and Capt. Cornelius Wallace and his son, who had been missing, communicated with their families.

   Oyster, with a population of about 250, was all but leveled by the storm.

   The Atlantic side of Chincoteague Island was ruined.  The waters were receding today, however, and the lee of the island was busy with rebuilding.  The Black Narrows Bridge, only connection with the mainland, reappeared above the surface of the channel and passage across it was possible.  

  -  Wind Razes Home -

   A survivor of the storm who at no time Tuesday or Wednesday believed he would ever be listed as a survivor was Ernest Birch, of New Inlet, whose home was razed by the wind.  It toppled into the flood waters and he clung to a section of the roof.  The following day the waves cast the roof ashore at Magotha, eighteen miles away.  He was unhurt.

   John W. Sharpney, of Franklin City, lived in a more substantial house, and it did not fall before the wind.  Instead, it floated away with the flood and twelve hours later came to rest at Old Ox.

   Five men and a boy sought shelter in a watch tower on Sandy Island.  It collapsed under the battering of the storm and the six drifted to the mainland clinging to the wreckage.

   George Cobb drowned at Cob Island in the sight of Coast Guardsmen, who were struggling against the storm to reach him.  He was in a watch tower which fell and clung to the wreckage until his strength was spent and a wave washed him away.

  - Wild Ponies Drown -

   Capt. George West drowned in the same section in a similar disaster, and Capt. Thomas Phillips and Revell Matthews, both of Willis Wharf, were drowned in a watch tower at Hog Island Bay.

   W. D. Steelman, oyster inspector at Chincoteague, said that hundreds of wild ponies from the herd that thrives on the island had drowned when they were struck with panic at the height of the storm and dashed into the surf.  Their bodies still floated today, and some were washed up on the beaches.

   At Franklin City, a schooner lay across the street, 300 feet from the waterline.

   Daniel Wright, 70 years old, was in a watch tower when the storm beat it down.  He broke a hole through the roof and lashed himself to the floating section.  For most of the day he floated, as the roof was buffeted by the waves, but at last he was cast up on the shore.

   Half a mile from the water, in a ruined bean patch, a heavy workboat lay upside down.

   The home of Raymond Quillen, a small bungalow, was picked by the flood while the whole family was within.  Quillen got his family out in a boat and, when the waters receded, went to look for his home.  He found it 200 feet away, in a marsh.

   Outside of Chincoteague, water supplies were cut off when the sea flooded wells.  The Chincoteague supply was maintained, however, and the fishermen around the island are hauling water from the town to their homes.

   In the roadway when the storm abated were three caskets that had floated from graves in the Red Men's Cemetery.  A vault in that cemetery was smashed and its contents floated into the center of town.  Broken fishing craft blocked the roads today and clearing them away presented a major task.

  - Coast Guard Busy -

   Coast Guard stations all along the ocean were reported destroyed, but the guardsmen kept busy at rescues during every hour of the storm.  When they received a report that a woman was marooned alone in a house surrounded by raging flood waters, they hauled a motor boat inland by truck and launched it into the torrent around her house.  She was brought out uninjured.

   Miles Hancock, a terrapin trapper and dealer, had his entire stock in trade wiped out during the storm.  He had 700 diamond backs on hand alive and when the flood appeared in their pens they calmly swam away.

   Drowned poultry scattered around the island gave rise to estimates that 5,000 chickens were destroyed.

  - Wild Animals Drown -

   Bert Meredith, of Easton, reported today that in the neighborhood of Fishing Creek, Dorchester county, yesterday he saw scores of wild animals drowned and spied a wolf marooned on a tree stump just above the water level.  One hundred and twelve dead sheep were found on one farm, he said, and at another, a prize hog was brought indoors and quartered on the second floor when the water began to rise.

   He and four other men pushed an automobile nine miles near Toddstown, he said, when the motor stalled on an inundated highway." 

   The Knoxville Journal of Knoxville, Tennessee on page 10:  "Stories Of Suffering Follow Reports - Accomac, Va., Aug. 25 (UP) -  Stories of suffering in the worst storm ever recorded here were told today in first reports from the stricken counties of Accomack and Northampton, which had been isolated since early Wednesday morning.

   Four persons were known to have lost their lives and 10 others were still missing.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage was reported in the worst hit towns of Chincoteague, Wachapreague, Willis Wharf and Oyster.  

   Wharves were wrecked, hundreds of boats sunk, and sea food plants wrecked.  Sea going crafts were swept inland, where many collided with buildings and strewed the towns with debris."  ***

Sunday, 27 August -  The Evening Star of Washington, DC on page 3:  " ...  Chincoteague Submerged - Chincoteague Island was submerged, with water standing waist deep at the highest point.  Hundreds of the islands famous ponies swam across the sound to the mainland, but many were believed to have drowned.  

   There was not a life lost at Chincoteague, however, and serious structural damage was done to only a few houses on the eastern side.  Shipping was seriously damaged.

   Magotha, a little fishing village just south of Oyster, was another example of practically total loss.  The houses were knocked off their foundations or badly twisted.

   Willis Wharf was a scene of utter desolation along the waterfront.  ... "

  The Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, on page 1:  "Damage Terrific To Fish Industry On Eastern Shore - Not An Oyster House Or Fish Plant Left, Cape Charles To Chincoteague, Armstrong Says - Red Cross Provides Immediate Relief - Oystermen Ignorant as to How They Stand; Unable To Survey Beds -  "There is not an oyster house, clam house or fish house left standing between Cape Charles and Chincoteague, although that place weathered the blow through being protected by Assateague Island, " was the message brought back to Hampton last night by Richard  Armstrong, chairman of the Virginia commission of fisheries, after a two days' trip of personal inspection of the damage wrought on the Eastern Shore.

    Franklin City, not far distant, however, did not make out so well, he said, and had been practically wiped out as a result of the hurricane and high seas that swept the Atlantic seaboard on Wednesday.

   Fishing boats along the whole ocean side either had been sunk or carried ashore and deposited in fields while the smaller ones had been completely demolished or carried away for good.

   Some of the larger gasoline boats had huge holes rammed in their sides or bottoms and what could be repaired would need considerable overhauling, he said.

   All of the nets at sea had been lost but those on land which would not have been set until fall season will probably be salvaged to some extent.  At all events the expense will be heavy and at this time it is impossible to set a definite figure of damage.

   The oystermen do not know where they stand, he added, for they have not had a chance as yet to examine the beds but it can safely be taken for granted that the damage will be wide-spread and severe. ..."   ***

Tuesday, 29 August  -  The Daily Press of Newport News, on page 4:  "Islands Sustain Tremendous Loss - Conditions on Tangier Island and Smith's Island Called Deplorable -  Governor Pollard of Virginia and Governor Ritchie of Maryland, were called upon yesterday to utilize the states' resources to aid hundreds of islanders in Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic coast, who were left homeless and destitute by the violent storm along the coast last week.

   Governor Pollard was informed that a "grave situation" exists on Tangier Island where "nearly all means they have of making a living are gone."

   About 300 residents are on Tangier Island, entirely dependent on the seafood industry.  Entire fleets of boats and buildings used in the industry were destroyed last Wednesday.

   Smith's Island, where some 850 people reside, was also severely punished by the storm, and the inhabitants left "in a rather defenseless position," Governor Ritchie was informed.

   Chincoteague also suffered heavy damage, but not as much as did other places, it is said, being protected by Assateague Island."  ***

Monday, 4 September  -  The Baltimore Sun of Baltimore, Maryland, on page 14:  "Only 3 Ponies Reported Left On Chincoteague After Storm  - Hundreds Drowned, Swepson Earle Reports - Maryland Lost Nearly 2 Square Miles by Erosion, It Is Estimated -   If reports reaching Baltimore are true, it will be many a day before "pony penning" is held on Chincoteague Island.

   For 300 years these spirited little animals have been known to run wild along the sea-swept peninsula on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia between the Chincoteague and Sinepuxent Bays and the Atlantic Ocean.

  - Hundreds Of Ponies Lost -

   But the recent hurricane which swept the Eastern Shore and sent the waters of the ocean thundering across the sands of that area to meet the bay waters on the other side have apparently drowned the ponies by hundreds.  Only three, in fact, are reported to have survived, according to Swepson Earle, State Conservation Commissioner, who has just completed an inspection of the lower Chesapeake Bay area.

   The inspection was requested by Governor Ritchie.   ...  "   ***

Thursday, 7 September, 1933 -  The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware on page 6:  "Chincoteague Pony Ranks Decimated  -  If it be true, as a survey appears to indicate, that the recent disastrous storms and floods that ravaged the Atlantic seaboard, seriously decimated the ranks of the famous Chincoteague pony, there will be deep concern not only on the part of the residents of Chincoteague Island, but also many other persons in different parts of the country, who have enjoyed the annual "pony roundup" of the diminutive horses, for some many years.

   According to a Baltimore dispatch, Swepson Earle, conservation commissioner of the state of Maryland, made the discovery, during a survey of the storm damage in the lower Chesapeake Bay area, that only three of the herds of Chincoteague Island ponies survived the flood.  While Chincoteague Island, as well as Assateague Island, over which the ponies have roamed for many years, are in Virginia, they are off the coast of the Delmarva Peninsula, in which Maryland, as well as Delaware, feels a distinct interest.

   Just how serious the pony enterprise suffered from the recent storms perhaps is not definitely known by anybody.  Nor has it been learned how many of the animals comprise the known surviving herds.  Neither is there information at hand to indicate whether the living facilities for the little horses, as provided by nature, have been jeopardized seriously.

   It is certain, however, that many persons all over the East, feel some anxiety in the matter, with the hope that the surviving ponies are sufficiently numerous to perpetuate the breed, and that to the extent that the annual roundup can be continued.

   This roundup is staged each year, usually on the last Wednesday and Thursday in July, or on one of those days.  It is, indeed, a novelty in the East, to be able to witness the rounding up of horses that actually are wild, that take care of themselves and that have to be captured before they are put on the auction block.  But that is what has been happening these many years on Chincoteague Island.

   There is some mystery as to just how the pony "colony" first started.  The trail of the Chincoteague pony, in fact, runs back into the realm of legends.  An oft repeated tale, and the one that seems to be given the greatest credence, has it that they were imported, via storms and shipwrecks, by a Spanish nobleman some 400 years ago.  According to the records, the roundup, in July of this year, was the 264th, which means that this function has been carried on for 264 years.

   Just when the ponies first came to the islands off the Virginia coast is not definitely known.  According to the legend mentioned above, the Spanish nobleman who is believed to have been responsible for the coming of these ponies to our shores, before setting out for America, some four centuries ago, collected, for purposes of breeding, a herd of fine Moorish and Arabian horses.  The animals were loaded aboard the same ship on which their purchaser embarked.  The vessel, so the story goes, was driven off its course by storms and ultimately was wrecked.

   The Spaniard, as the yarn goes, was lost, but many of the horses swam ashore and survived.  Those horses, so it is said, were the "ancestors" of the beach ponies of Virginia.  The small size of the ponies is believed, by some experts, to be due to the climatic and sustenance conditions under which they live, for the originators of the breed are believed to have been much larger.

   At the roundup held in July of each year the ponies are herded by young men who are accustomed to that sort of work.  Each herd, as it is understood, although wild, has an owner, who is the owner of the land on which it lives.  Each owner rounds up part of his herd for the annual sale and miniature rodeo.  After the little horses are caught they are driven to the corrals, in the town of Chincoteague, where they are offered for sale.

   These events in some years have attracted several thousand visitors, many of them prospective buyers.  Sometimes the bidding has been spirited.  Prices, which vary little from year to year, usually place Spring colts at $20, one-year-olds at $30, and two-year-olds at $50.

   The full grown Chincoteague pony stands about thirteen hands high, weighs about 600 to 650 pounds, and is well proportioned.  Many farmers on the Delmarva peninsula have used them for farm work, as well as for their children to ride.  Their wildness is said to soon disappear in the farm environment.

   Ponies that are not sold on the occasion of the annual roundup are turned loose to forage for another year, in the main being sent over to the adjoining island, Assateague, where they herd together and thrive, regardless of the vagaries of the weather."

   From The Evening Sun of Baltimore, MD on page 38 and continued on 22:  "More Wild Ponies Found On Islands - Second Survey Shows Storm's Toll Smaller Than First Reported -  Reports reaching Baltimore today indicated that, contrary to earlier bulletins, There are still wild ponies in considerable numbers on the islands lying along the peninsula of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia between the Chesapeake and Sinepuxent Bays and the Atlantic Ocean.

   In an earlier survey Conservation Commissioner Swepson Earle found there were only three of the spirited beasts remaining on Chincoteague Island after the storm that swept across the coast line two weeks ago.

  - More Ponies Found -

   A second party sent out by the commissioner managed to make a more complete survey, however, and reported today that Assateague and other small islands still have small herds.  Wild ponies have been roaming the islands for 300 years.

   Captain E. O. Townsend, chief inspector for the commission, made the trip to the end of the peninsula yesterday and there joined forces with Captain Scott, inspector for that region.

  - Many Perished -

   They reported today that it was true that only three from the herd on Chincoteague had survived the storm, scores of the wild animals having perished in the heavy seas that inundated the island.  Other islands, according to the two men, however, were not so badly hit and enough of the ponies remain on them to insure the future propagation of the species.

   Numerous wild cattle and sheep also were killed by the storm which caused widespread property damage on the islands."  ***

Friday, 8 September  -  From The Daily Press of Newport News on page 2:  "Third Of Ponies On Chincoteague Killed By Storm  -  Two hundred wild ponies on Chincoteague Island survived the hurricane of two weeks ago.

   The storm destroyed about one-third of them.

   Richard Gilliam, secretary of the Commission on Conservation and Development, asked for accurate surveys of the damage to these picturesque pets, in view of many reports to the effect that the tidal wave and high wind had destroyed the pony colony which had roamed the remote sections of Chincoteague for many years.

   A. A. Richards, secretary of the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce, reported as follows:  "About one-third of Chincoteague ponies destroyed by storm.  Over 200 ponies are still on the island."  ***

   Then, on 14 September 1933, the Weather Bureau issued another storm warning from Jacksonville, Florida up to Beaufort, North Carolina for a tropical disturbance; six hours later the storm warnings were extended to the Virginia Capes.  On 15 September it was determined the (now) hurricane would make landfall near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and storm warnings were extended to Boston, Massachusetts and then to Portland, Maine.  Less than 23 days after the August hurricane, the barrier islands of Virginia would be hit by a second influx of winds and water from a hurricane.  This one is now called the Outer Banks Hurricane of 1933 - the 12th tropical storm of the season and the 6th hurricane.  According to several books, the people along the coastlines heeded this storm warning and moved inland.  Norfolk sand-bagged and did what they could to restrict further damage.

   What is extremely interesting is the small amount of newspaper coverage of this storm along the Delmarva Peninsula.  The eye of the hurricane passed over Cape Hatteras and Diamond Shoals in North Carolina, then crossed over Norfolk (for the second hurricane in 22 days).  It then angled back to the northeast and passed below Cape Charles, before turning back up the eastern seaboard, passing the Delmarva barrier islands about 20 miles off the coast.  This storm flooded the bridges and causeway to Chincoteague, and (possibly because of the storm less than a month before) removed the Queen Sound bridge to Chincoteague.  Most of the bridge supports remained standing, but the roadway itself was gone. 

  On Monday, 18 September, The Evening Sun of Baltimore, had on page 3 an article about Ocean City residents returning to the beach resort after fleeing inland from the hurricane on Friday and Saturday.  The last paragraph reads: "... No storm damage had been reported at Salisbury, with the exception of a few telephones that were temporarily out of commission.  High winds had again swept Chincoteague, where high tides had flooded many cellars.  But no serious damage appeared to have resulted. "

   And then newspapers started printing articles that starred Mrs. Victoria Pruitt and the Chincoteague ponies.  On Tuesday, 19 September, The Evening Sun, again on page 3, printed this:  "She Rises To Assert That Chincoteague Still Has Wild Ponies And Will Pen 'Em  -  The first thing Mrs. Victoria Pruitt did after reading reports that all of Chincoteague Island's wild ponies had perished in the big coastal storm of August 23was to sit down and write immediately (well, immediately after nibbling on the end of the pen for a while) that the reports positively were not so.

   No ponies were lost at Assateague or Wallops Beach and only two were missed at Chincoteague, penned Mrs. Pruitt, who is commissioner of Associated Charities there.

   "The Chincoteague ponies," her fine Spencerian flowed on, " always know how to take care of themselves.  They are great swimmers.  In storms they hurry to the hills and in winter freezes they break the ice with their hooves to drink."

   Mrs. Pruitt says she "keeps a close record of things that happen on our island."  And she has no record of the island being totally inundated on August 23, as some of the big city newspapers had.  In fact, says she, the island kept its head above water - its heads above water - oh, well, the island was above water in many spots and very little damage was done.  

   Eighty-five years ago, Mrs. Pruitt's father, Mr. Robert Watson, and Mrs. Kendal Jester helped inaugurate Chincoteague's annual Pony Penning Day (they always capitalize it down there, even in conversation).

   "It means to us," explains Mrs. Pruitt, "what many another big day means to other towns and cities.  It is not only a home-coming for our own people, but attracts crowds from many States."

   So as soon as Mrs. Pruitt read all Chincoteague's ponies had been drowned, she said, she went right to headquarters - to the pony owners - for verification.  The pony owners told her it was the bunk.  Mrs. Pruitt writes that "as regularly as the years come these Pony Penning Days will come" and she wants all lovers of ponies to visit her island for the next one - the last Thursday in August, 1934."   ***

Friday, 22 September The News Journal of Wilmington, DE had on page 16:  "Denies Storm Killed All Chincoteague I. Ponies  -  Reports published widely by newspapers. particularly in Baltimore, following the August hurricane, that pony herds on the Chincoteague Island were almost wiped out by the storm, are denied by Mrs. Victoria Pruitt, of Chincoteague.

   Mrs. Pruitt's letter, addressed to the editor of the Peninsula Enterprise, a newspaper published in Accomac, Va., is as follows:

Mr. John Edmonds,

Peninsula Enterprise,

Accomac, Va.

Dear Mr. Edmonds,  

   Yesterday, September 5, there appeared an editorial in The Baltimore News that all of the Chincoteague ponies had been drowned and since then there have been several long distance calls to know if this is true.

   The Baltimore News gives as its authority, Mr. Swepson Earle, State Conservation Commission of Maryland.  As soon as I read this article I went directly to the owners to find out just how many had been drowned, and find that there have only been two that could not be accounted for, one of these was a very small pet pony that had been turned out and had wandered away from the bunch as they came before the tide to higher land.  Chincoteague was not covered, in many places, where these roam wild, beside the higher places up on the ridges and Main street.

   You know, I have always kept as near as possible the history of our island especially the ponies since my father, Mr. Robert Watson and Mr. Kendal Jester were two of the first to start the famous Pony Penning Day.

   Mr. Clarence Beebe has 75.  The men at the Wallops Beach Club counted 90 that came yesterday to a water hole to drink.  Besides these Mr. John Addison, Mr. Joseph Pruitt, Mr. Frank Derrickson and several others that I did not go to see, own several.

   We do not know just how such a statement could get to the press but we do know it is without authority.  It is true there has been a storm not only at Chincoteague but the whole Del-Mar-Va peninsula, Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well.

   In the storms of 1812, 1837, 1856 and some in my time the Island suffered greater loss than in this one.  I can recall one storm when my father lost 90 and still the ponies exist.  They are swift and intelligent and know how to take care of themselves in storms as well as how to get their feed.  When the tide threatens they go for the hills and in winter freezes, they break the ice with their hoofs for water to drink.

   The Pony Penning Day has always meant and will still mean much to our island and we are asking you, Mr. Edmonds, to either publish this letter or in some way write an article contradicting this editorial in the Baltimore News and other papers reminding them that there are still hundreds of wild ponies roaming the marsh land of our island and that the Annual Pony Penning will be held as usual at Chincoteague, Va., next July, 1934. 

   (Mrs.) Victoria Pruitt

   Chincoteague, Va.

   September 6, 1933  "     *****

    In the Outer Banks Hurricane (September 1933), Chincoteague again saw high winds and flooding.  But Chincoteague was only mentioned once in the newspapers.

   On Thursday, 14 September, the day the Weather Bureau issued storm warnings up to Boston, J. J. Murphy, stationed in Norfolk by the Weather Bureau, informed several newspapers that he felt that Norfolk would not take a direct hit, but there would be strong northeast winds Friday afternoon, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch in their Friday morning edition.

   On Saturday, 16 September, The Daily Press of Newport News was reporting that the Weather Bureau was predicting gale force winds (39 to 54 mph) to strike Norfolk around 6 a.m., with "raging seas sweeping the waterfront and flooding lowlands."  All police and firemen on leave were recalled for duty.  All ships and boats were berthed and no ferries were running.  Residents along beaches were told to take clothing and flee inland.

   Later on Saturday, The Daily Mail of Hagerstown, Maryland  carried a story on page 1, "Norfolk Hit By Hurricane," that had J. J. Murphy in Norfolk, the same man mentioned above, stating, "I cannot stress too much the seriousness of this storm.  ...  The wind will increase steadily in velocity until this afternoon when the city will feel the full sweep of the storm.  It is possible that the main force of the hurricane may have been spent by nightfall.  It is equally possible that we may be battling a terrific gale on into the night."

  The Baltimore Sun, on Saturday, the 16th,  had a few paragraphs regarding "Eastern Shore Battened Down For Today's Storm" on page 3, which did not mention the island, but did mention the new Ocean City Inlet that made Assateague an true island:  " ...  The natural inlet cut by the last storm from the ocean to Sinepuxent Bay was widened another 100 yards by heavy seas today and Mr. [J. Edward] White [a real estate agent] predicted that tomorrow morning's high tide might sweep away some buildings and flood the bay.  ... "

Did you know that since 1930 Chincoteague has felt the effects (high winds and flooding) of 59 tropical storms and/or hurricanes?