There’s nothing much left of Holland Island today, but that little spit of land in the Chesapeake Bay used to be a lot bigger. At the turn of the 20th century 360 souls lived out there between Smith and Bloodsworth Islands.
Those folks had a rough go of it during a deep-freeze winter in 1905. No telephones, no telegraph lines, no radios. When the Bay froze up to the point where boats couldn’t get through, those Holland Islanders were cut off from the world.
They did just fine. This isn’t a story about some disaster or rescue.
It’s a story about the dedication of a loving husband.
The Methodist minister on the island in those days was Rev. J.W. Briscoe. That deep freeze descended at a terrible time for him. His wife was sick. She was back on the mainland, laid up in Norfolk, Va.
The old newspapers don’t describe her illness, but it must have been serious considering what Rev. Briscoe decided to do. After a few days of being incommunicado, he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to find out how his wife was doing. He had to get to her bedside.
Single-digit temperatures be damned. He bundled up as best he could and set out on a journey that would soon put his name in dozens of newspapers around the country.
- He walked six miles across the ice of a frozen Chesapeake Bay while a snowstorm was raging. He reached land in South Dorchester County.
- The boats there must have been iced in as well, because he had to walk another 10 miles through that weather to get to a navigable stretch of the Choptank River.
- There, he rented or borrowed a rowboat and commenced pulling his way along a river that probably dotted with ice floes.
- Finally, he reached a real town—Cambridge. There, he hopped on a train.
- The train took him to Cape Charles, Va. He boarded a ferry for the Bay crossing to Norfolk.
His wife was doing just fine. I’m sure Rev. Brisco was happy to see her and get that news, even if it meant he’d put himself through an ordeal that maybe wasn’t really necessary.
Somehow, a newspaper reporter got wind of what Rev. Briscoe had done. The story that reporter wrote about the journey of a loving husband got picked up not just by a slew of regional papers, but by publications in in Florida, Alabama, Canada, and lots of other far-flung places.
Here’s a little kicker. Do you know what day all those stories were published? It was Feb. 14, 1905. I’m guessing Rev. Briscoe didn’t need to get his wife a Valentine’s gift for the rest of their days together, considering that he’d already gifted her with the ultimate show of dedication.
–posted by Jim Duffy in February 2025 for Secrets of the Eastern Shore/Whimbrel Creations LLC.
• NOTE: I first came across the story of Rev. Briscoe’s ordeal in the book Holland Island: Lost Atlantis of the Chesapeake. You can find online info about that book here.
