Independence and the Island Spirit

 —By Tiffany Amber Stockton

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And now, on with this month's post.

When I think about Independence Day, I think about flags and fireworks and parades. But the deeper I dig into the history of these coastal communities, the more I realize these barrier islands didn't treat independence as a holiday. It was a way of life, and sometimes it was a choice that cost something.

Cut Off From the Rest of the World

For most of their history, the barrier islands of Virginia's Eastern Shore were genuinely isolated. They were part of a small sliver at the very bottom of the Delmarva Peninsula. Before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel opened in 1964, getting to or from the mainland was a long ferry ride at best. The island communities that built up here — Chincoteague especially — developed a satisfying self-reliance simply because they had no other choice. Geography shaped the character the same way it always does when people are left to solve their own problems without much outside help.

You can still see it. These communities were defined by fishing, oystering, boat-building, and the practical ingenuity that comes from living at the edge of things. They knew how to read the weather, manage the tides, and handle whatever the season brought without waiting for someone else to fix it.

The July Fourth That Meant Something

In July of 1861, the country was coming apart. Virginia had just voted to secede from the Union, which put the island communities of the Eastern Shore in an extremely uncomfortable position. Their whole economy depended on selling seafood to markets in Philadelphia and New York. Siding with the Confederacy would have cut off everything.

On July 4th of that year (the 85th anniversary of American independence), 418 men from the barrier islands of Maryland and Virginia gathered on Chincoteague and signed a document pledging their loyalty to the United States. A War of 1812 veteran named Captain Edward Whaley stood up and declared he would defend the old flag to his last drop of blood. Not long after, Chincoteague voted to remain in the Union by 138 votes to 2, becoming the only part of Virginia to do so.

John A.M. Whealton, a merchant and oyster entrepreneur, was the man who organized that loyalty and made sure Washington knew about it. He later explained the decision plainly: "We sold nearly all the oysters we raised in Philadelphia. It would have meant starvation to us to have seceded." When Confederate sympathizers on the mainland tried to force the issue, Whealton's men took to flatboats and turned them back without losing a single islander.

Practical men, making a principled stand. That is the very essence of the Eastern Shore. And it's often found in smaller communities anywhere you go.

The Island Spirit

Interesting that these men chose to celebrate Independence Day in 1861 by signing a loyalty pledge. With the country fracturing around them, they gathered on their island and recommitted to the idea that freedom was worth defending. That some things don't bend.

That instinct runs all the way through the history of these communities. The barrier islands shaped people who were stubbornly self-reliant but also fiercely tied to one another. Islands by their nature draw people together. You take care of your neighbor because your neighbor is the only neighbor you have.

What happened on Chincoteague that Fourth of July didn't make the history books the way bigger battles did. Confederate Virginia barely noticed. As one account put it, Richmond simply didn't care about a small island choosing to go its own way. But Chincoteague didn't need Richmond to notice. They knew what they'd decided and why, and they went back to catching oysters.

This is just one of the many quiet decisions, made by ordinary people in ordinary places, that don't get monuments or headlines but shape everything that follows. I've been writing historical fiction long enough to know that the best stories are usually hiding in the footnotes. Chincoteague's July Fourth of 1861 was one of those footnotes. But it carried a lot of what independence actually means.

Independence – Gateway to the American West

This post is brought to you by Janalyn Voigt

Traveling the Oregon Trail Backwards, a Road Trip Adventure, Part 10

The wheels carrying me through Independence, Missouri, turned beneath a car rather than a wagon, but I fancied that the broad streets and heavy traffic of this jumping-off point to the American West hadn't changed much since Oregon Trail days. Take a look at the map, below, and you'll see why so many people converged in Independence.

Gateway to the west, Independence Missouri.by Chris Light (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

What would pioneers have thought of the speed of our modern conveyances, I wondered? An automobile would be hard enough for them to come to terms with without adding in airplanes. How would neon lights, modern dress, or changes in morality have struck them?  I could hardly imagine their shock. The smile that touched my lips gave way to a frown at what we as a nation have lost. That’s not to say that all progress is bad. I like my washing machine, finding a crop that failed in my garden in the grocery store instead, and the Internet for connecting with readers. Not all change its bad. 

Not all change is good either. Sometimes I wish I had been born on an earlier day, at a time when America was young. I suspect I’d have been one of the emigrants who eagerly went westward, pursuing a dream. Some of the women who forged a new world in the West did not have that mindset, however. The advice, famously credited to Horace Greeley, for young men to go West was a call to adventure. With the New World to conquer, men flocked to Independence, a popular gateway to the American West. Some of the wives and daughters who came with them protested in their diaries that they considered the undertaking foolhardy, but they followed their menfolk into the unknown, regardless.

A scene from an earlier day: Independence Courthouse [Missouri]. Engraving, Drawn after Nature. Aus d. Kunstanst. d. Bibl. Instit. in. Hildbhsn. Eigenthum d. Verleger. (circa 1853)
Title: Independence Courthouse (Missouri).[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons 

What did these brave women think and feel when they left civilization, not to mention members of their family behind? Did they cling to remnants of the life they’d known in the East? That many women scratched entries into diaries in between camp chores and tending children after walking an average of twenty miles in a day, often while pregnant, points to their understanding that they had become part of history. They made their mark on the West as surely as the men they traveled beside, softening its rough edges and calling for churches to be built. 

Eager to reach Hannibal, where we’d booked a stay in a historic home frequented by the likes of Mark Twain, the small family group in which I traveled hurried through Independence. I’ll never forget my impression of its far-flung streets, buildings built in a bygone era juxtaposed with modern structures, or the glint of the Missouri River on its outskirts. Riverboats once plied the muddy waters, carrying emigrants as far westward as the Missouri Breaks in Montana.

Bry Brennan, the heroine of Cheyenne Sunrise (Montana Gold, book 2 – releasing February 1, 2018) travels part of the way West by riverboat in the company of her brother, Con, one of the characters from Hills of Nevermore (Montana Gold, book 1). While researching Cheyenne Sunrise, I learned that a riverboat journey was not as comfortable as it might sound, nor was it without danger. Partially-submerged logs known as “deadheads,” hidden sandbars, and overheated boilers were some of the hazards that could cause delay or outright disaster. Whatever trails pioneers took westward, the means by which they traveled often brought them to Independence.

Hills of Nevermore (Montana Gold, book 1)

Library Journal: "Manages to keep the reader glued to every twist and turn. For readers who like their romances squeaky-clean and those interested in the historical Western setting."


Romantic Times: "Voigt is a talented author who has weaved several genres into her novel, and has created a beautiful first story in her Montana Gold series."

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About Janalyn Voigt

My father instilled a love of literature in me at an early age by reading chapters from "The Wizard of Oz," "Robinson Crusoe" and other classics. When I grew older, and he stopped reading bedtime stories, I put myself to sleep with tales I "wrote" in my head. My sixth-grade teacher noticed my storytelling ability and influenced me to become a writer.

I'm what is known as a multi-genre author, but I like to think of myself as a storyteller. The same elements appear in all my novels in proportions dictated by their genre: romance, mystery, adventure, history, and whimsy. 

 Escape into creative worlds of fiction at http://janalynvoigt.com.

The First Independence Day

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

On June 7th, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, representative from Virginia, made a resolution in the Continental Congress. He proposed, "Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

The resolution was postponed until July 1st to give the delegates a chance to convince the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina to vote yes on the resolution.

On June 11th, Congress commission five men to write a declaration listing grievances against the king of England and to declare the United States of America to be an independent nation. Those five men were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Thomas Jefferson was considered the most elegant writer of the five and was elected to write the document. He finished it on June 28th, and it was submitted for review.

On July 1st, debate on Lee's resolution began. The Congress decided that any resolution for independence should be unanimous, and the vote was postponed a day. The next day, the resolution was passed with every state but New York voted yes. New York abstained from the vote.

John Adams was sure July 2nd would be known as Independence Day. He write to his wife, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

The Declaration of Independence was accepted on July 4th^. Later that evening, the liberty bell rang out in celebration. 200 copies were ordered to be made called the Dunlap Broadsides. The first real Independence Day celebration that year took place on July 8th when the document was read in the square in Philadelphia. A few days later, it was read to General Washington's troops.

The next year, the day was celebrated with picnics and fireworks, a tradition that continues to this day.

Congress established Independence Day as a holiday in 1870, but it didn’t become a legal federal holiday until 1941 when Congress passed the law. Even before the law was passed, Adam's vision of Independence Day became a reality every year since our Independence was declared.


Tamera Lynn Kraft has always loved adventures and writes Christian historical fiction set in America because there are so many adventures in American history. She has received 2^nd place in the NOCW contest, 3^rd place TARA writer’s contest, and was a finalist in the Frasier Writing Contest. Her Novel, Alice’s Notions and her novellas Resurrection of Hope and A Christmas Promise are available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.