Holland Island

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…

The old Holland Island Bar Light was one gorgeous piece of work. Built in 1889 to mark the way into Holland Strait and Tangier Sound, it was a screwpile affair topped with a hexagonal cottage. It stood a little ways south of Holland Island back when people still lived on that little scrap of land between Bloodsworth and Smith islands. On Feb. 19, 1957, Holland…