Graveyards by the Sea

  —By Tiffany Amber Stockton

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October often invites us to think about the people who came before. The leaves let go, the days shorten, and the autumn air can make the past feel closer than usual. For me, that pull toward remembrance gets especially strong when I'm deep in research, and I found a great little tidbit for this month's feature.

It involves a cemetery. A small one, mostly unmarked. On an island most people have only ever visited for the ponies.

The Village That Disappeared

photo courtesy of Fishing & Wildlife

Most visitors to Assateague Island today see wildlife, wild ponies, and beach. What they don't see is the ghost of a village that once stood near the base of the Assateague Lighthouse bluff.

Assateague Village was established around 1794. At its height it was home to roughly 250 people. A real community, with a Baptist church, a schoolhouse, a dry goods store, and families who had lived there for generations. The residents harvested the sea, hunted waterfowl, grazed livestock, and built their lives on predictable rhythms.

Then, in the early 1900s, a Baltimore businessman named Samuel Fields purchased most of the Virginia portion of Assateague Island and fenced off the land. Suddenly the villagers couldn't reach Tom's Cove or the fish factories that sustained them. Cut off from their livelihood, they did what Eastern Shore people have always done when the water or circumstance forces their hand. They adapted. Gradually, they floated their houses on barges and moved them across the channel to Chincoteague. The church went too. The schoolhouse went. By 1932, the last residents had left.

Today, all that remains of Assateague Village is a handful of building foundations, a historical marker, and a small cemetery.

What the Cemetery Holds

The Assateague Village Cemetery sits on a rise near where the church once stood. It's not much to look at now. The grave markers are mostly gone. Small stone corner markers outline where the churchyard was, and a simple metal plaque marks the location of unidentified human remains located in 2010.

A few names have been pieced together from historical records: Henry Birch's wife and three of their children. Jesse McGhee. George Elliott. Roxilla Birch Scott.

There's also a remote graveyard about half a mile north of the village site. Separate and set apart. Those who remembered the village said it might be connected to a smallpox outbreak around 1900. No one is entirely sure. The records either didn't survive or were never made.

These were people with names and stories and families and faith. They built a church. They gathered on Sundays. They buried their dead with care and marked the graves. And then the community moved on, and the markers weathered away. Now, a metal plaque testifies that someone is here.

The Ones the Sea Is Still Claiming

The sea level along Virginia's Eastern Shore is rising at roughly three times the global average. Old family cemeteries scattered across the barrier islands (some dating back to the 1700s) are now sitting at the edge of tidal wetlands that didn't used to be there. Some have already been partly lost. Holland Island in the Chesapeake, whose last residents left in the 1920s, has a cemetery that has largely fallen into the bay.

The Eastern Shore's coastal cemeteries are, as one conservation writer put it, "long-forgotten cultural markers now threatened by erosion." The people buried there likely never imagined it. They chose high ground, built to last. And now the ground itself is moving.

Why Remembrance Matters

Every one of those names that's been lost belonged to someone whose life mattered. Someone who loved their children, weathered storms, sang hymns, worked their hands raw, and hoped for something beyond what they could see.

That belief is what has sustained coastal communities through loss after loss. They built cemeteries because they believed the dead deserved to be remembered. They marked graves because names mattered. And when the markers wore away or the water rose, the faith that had shaped those communities said this is not the end of the story.

Eula Dukes, the last person born on Assateague Island, returned to the village site in the early 1990s after more than sixty years away. She had lived just two miles from her birthplace her whole life and had never gone back. When she finally did, she went with her sister, her brother, and a cousin. All of them, the last people alive who remembered what had been there.

I don't have family names on the markers on Assateague, but there are family members buried on Chincoteague, and I've paid my respects many times during visits to that little island. The stories of those from the past make the lives of the present possible.

* Have you ever visited a cemetery or historical site where most of the names were lost or unknown? What did that feel like?

* Is there a family member or ancestor you wish you knew more about? Someone whose story has been mostly lost?

* How does your faith shape the way you think about remembrance and legacy?

Leave answers to these questions or any comments on the post below.

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Come back on the 9th of each month for my next foray into historical tidbits to share.

BIO

Tiffany Amber Stockton has embellished stories since childhood, thanks to a very active imagination and notations of talking entirely too much. Honing those skills led her to careers as an award-winning and best-selling author and speaker, while also working as a professional copywriter. Through her love of words, she encourages others to Get Rooted in truth and live a life of purpose.

Currently, she lives with her husband and fellow author, Stuart Vaughn Stockton, along with their two homeschooled teens, and five cats in southeastern Kentucky. In her 20+ years as a professional writer, she has sold twenty-six (26) books so far and has agent representation with Tamela Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. You can find her on Facebook and GoodReads. She also rebooted her longtime blog and is expanding her content creation to Instagram and Twitter, maybe even an audio podcast at some point.