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Northampton County Archives - Secrets of the Eastern Shore

Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

The Best Delmarva Trip You’ll Never Get to Take: Cobb’s Island Hotel in the 1860s

Outdoorsman Alexander Hunter wrote an essay describing his visit to the Cobb Island (Va.) Hotel shortly after it opened on the barrier island of that name off of Virginia's Eastern Shore. The essay was published in a 1908 book, but the events it recalls go back much further. The hotel first opened in the 1860s. The Cobbs had no idea how to run a hotel--except…
March 26, 2021
Delmarva WisdomWay Back Machine

When Farming on Virginia’s Eastern Shore Took a Turn Out of “It’s a Wonderful Life”

In the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life," George Bailey is trying to do the right thing by his neighbors in small-town Bedford Falls. By setting up a community-owned banking cooperative--Bailey Building & Loan--he wants to offer those neighbors a fair, homegrown alternative to the bank owned by Mr. Potter, the greedy and heartless antihero of the piece. That 1946 film came to mind as…
July 28, 2020
DestinationsNatural Wonders

Virginia Eastern Shore: The Birding Trail at Brownsville Preserve

This is an excerpt from the coming-soon book, 181 Great Events on Delmarva, which includes more than 100 suggested side trips that are located near an event featured in the book. For a span of 326 years, more than 100 acres outside of Nassawadox on Virginia’s lower Eastern Shore stayed in the hands of one family, the Upshurs. From a colonial-era wharf on Brownsville Creek, they…
May 31, 2020
CharactersFrom the BooksRoad TripsWay Back Machine

JOURNEYS: The British Teenager Left Behind to Live with the Indians in 1608

Every chapter in my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips 2: 26 More One-Day Adventures on Delmarva, is a mix of fun places to visit and interesting stories from days gone by. This free excerpt is from one of the road trips set on the Eastern Shore of Virginia--the book also includes lots of trips in Delaware and on Maryland's Eastern Shore, of course. Thanks for…
May 3, 2020
DestinationsRoad Trips

The Lighthouse that Lived Three Different Lives and is Still Going Strong

Many folks think of the Choptank River Lighthouse in Cambridge, Md. as a newish thing, and, in a way, they’re right about that. The replica was constructed seven short years ago, but the stories that beacon is built on go clear back to before the Civil War—in fact, you might say that this seven-year-old lighthouse is celebrating its 161st birthday this year. In the photo…
October 29, 2019
Way Back Machine

When a Bunch of Birds Lost their Minds and Attacked Hog Island Light in 1900

The scene that unfolded back in the year 1900 on Hog Island, Va. was straight out of the Alfred Hitchcock horror classic “The Birds.” A flurry of unusual avian activity was in the air along the Atlantic Flyway in those weeks. A long and unseasonable stretch of warm weather had set a whole bunch of birds off on their northward spring migration far earlier than…
February 20, 2019
From the BooksQuote of the Day

Quote of the Day: ‘No More Kindly Heart Ever Beat’

This excerpt from Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva is the bonus section at the end of a chapter that leads you along a backroads journey through the countryside and little fishing villages that line the oceanside length of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The chapter touches several times on the history of the barrier islands off of that shore,…
August 22, 2016
Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day: The Terrible Scourge That Halted Work on the Cape Charles Lighthouse, 1895

There is a second Smith Island off of the Eastern Shore, with the lesser-known one shown here located all the way down by the mouth of the Bay. It's home to the Cape Charles Lighthouse, which is pretty as can be but just about impossible to go visit. Between the shifting sandbars and the tricky tides, the landing on uninhabited Smith Island is supposedly a…
June 28, 2016
Quote of the Day

QUOTE OF THE DAY: The Cape Charles Milkman Remembers-“That Horse’s Name Was Frank”

    History lovers in Cape Charles, Virginia rounded up some grant money a few years back and conducted oral history interviews with some older residents there. Here is David Mitchell, remembering his days of delivering milk aboard a horse-drawn carriage through Cape Charles. At an early age my Uncle Jesse had me working. He used to do a little gardening and he would sell butter beans…
June 5, 2016