This is a free chapter excerpt from You Wouldn’t Believe, my book of stories about days gone by on our peninsula. The subtitle is 44 Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales. You can find info on the book and buy it here. There are stories about booze, murder, madness, romance, adventure, and well, flying mayonnaise jars. This one is a wintry affair set on old Holland Island. Here goes–stick around to the end, where there’s a fun (and funny) poem that you might really enjoy.
The new year of 1912 arrived on Delmarva with a frozen vengeance. In some places the ice stretched nearly unbroken from one shore of the Chesapeake Bay to the other. Rivers were impassable. Steamboats and sailboats were idled.
The deep freeze stretched through one whole week, then another, and then a third. Towns on the Eastern Shore endured troubles that went beyond bone-chilling temperatures. Groceries and other staples ran short on store shelves, though railroad lines remained open and served as a supply lifeline.
But those railroads couldn’t help the families who lived in islands out in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Most such places didn’t have telephone or telegraph lines yet. With no boats sailing, no one on the mainland knew how folks out on those islands were faring.
The focus of those worries soon became Holland Island, which is drowned today but then rose out of waters west of Deal Island, Md. Starting at Christmas, no one heard a peep of news from its 250ish residents. Then, in late January, Deal Islanders heard a thunderous run of noise from the direction of Holland. The gunshots rang out in long, clattering bursts. Then, silence.
Then, more thunder. And so it went, almost all through the night.
The Washington Times, Feb. 5, 1912: Persons here [on Deal Island] believe that the firing heard last night above the roar of grinding ice was the attempt of the people on the island to let the outside world know through the only means of communication they possess, that starvation, possibly death, faces their little community.
From Fear to Panic
Deal is an island, too, but a short bridge crossing kept it connected with the mainland during this cold spell. Residents there started thinking back to the deep freezes of previous years and decades. Had an island in the Chesapeake ever been frozen out of contact with the outside world for this long? They didn’t think so. Alarmed by that night of gunfire, they started sounding the alarm and demanding action from public officials.
That alarm soon reached the newsrooms of big-city papers in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., setting off a run of page-one headlines that stoked fears of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe. A few samples:
- DANGER GROWS: Two Hundred And Fifty Inhabitants May Starve
- NO FOOD NOR PHYSICIAN: Marooned Nearly Five Weeks with No Word to the Outside
- HOLLAND ISLAND STILL IN NEED: No Doctors With Them and It Is Feared They May Have Died of Hunger and Sickness
- RESCUE SHIP … SPEEDING TO … RELIEF OF STARVING MEN
Some hearty watermen on Holland Island work on their fishing nets in the early 1900s.
Several Holland Islanders had gotten caught up on the mainland during Christmastime travels, unable to return home. Among them were the island’s only doctor and its only preacher. The newspapers turned that news into word pictures filled with terrifying possibilities.
The Baltimore Sun, Feb. 5: Fifty families comprising 250 men, women, and children … for four weeks have been marooned from the mainland of Dorchester and Somerset counties, deprived of medical aid, cut off from food supplies, and are believed to be in circumstances bordering on starvation and death from disease, according to reports.
A Halting Start to the Rescue
Then things got more frightening. A wicked storm rolled through. Nine oyster boats on Tilghman Island were swept out of protected Dogwood Harbor and into the Chesapeake Bay. That the captains and crew members aboard those vessels survived without a single fatality seemed like a miracle.
The Baltimore Sun, Feb. 5: From all points along the Eastern Shore come stories of hardship and suffering. … Paramount in the interest of Eastern Shoremen, however, is the welfare of the marooned Hollands Islanders. The fact that no word whatever has been received from the 250 souls on this island … is causing much apprehension.
Gov. Emerson Harrington
Governor Emerson Harrington—an Eastern Shoreman himself, from Cambridge—jumped into the fray. But the first rescue vessel he sent, Governor Thomas, couldn’t get through the ice and into the mouth of the Choptank River. The second boat was a bigger, rugged ice breaker called Annapolis. Alas, her struggle through the ice led into a stretch of Hoopers Straits where the water was too shallow for her draft. Next up was a 185-foot U.S. Navy “cutter,” Apache. The governor had to summon her captain, G.S. Carmine, back from leave in New York City.
While all this was going on, various would-be heroes stepped up to offer their services. Five duck hunters from Cecil County, Md. proclaimed themselves ready to make the trip in flat-bottomed boats fitted with ice-runners and sails. The celebrated young aviator Paul Peck announced that he would fly to the island if the new “airship” he had just built passed an upcoming flight test in College Park, Md. (Peck would die in an unrelated plane crash later this same year, at age 23.)
These offers were put on hold for Apache, which set off from Baltimore on Feb. 6 with two supply-laden steamships sailing in her ice-free wake. Newspaper reporters lodged aboard Apache filed blow-by-blow reports during the vessel’s long, arduous sail down the Bay to Holland Island—the journey took 24 full hours.
Bracing for the Worst Possible News
Every day since hearing that thunderous run of gunfire, Deal Islanders had bundled up and headed out to the waterfront armed with telescopes, hoping to catch a glimpse of human activity on Holland Island.
Deal Island Deputy Sheriff W.J. Tankersley: Those people, I know from conditions before the freeze-up, are now in dire want, and to be absolutely frank we can’t tell whether they are dead or alive. … Not a sign of a man or woman has been seen. I am positive that four weeks of privation has caused a small disaster, if not a calamity, on the island.
A sweet scene from Holland Island in days gone by
The sheriff’s opinion was widely shared, according to the Baltimore Sun of Feb. 5, 1912:
Residents of Deal Island, Oriole, Chance’s Quarter, the lower end of Dorchester county believe that unless immediate aid is given to the islanders it is most likely that many of them will perish.
As Marylanders breathlessly awaited news, the Baltimore Sun pumped public anxiety with a long essay about the hardships of life on Holland Island, both in general and in the current emergency. A few excerpts:
- Many [people] there have never seen a trolley car or moving picture.
- Every storm brings danger, every high wind the threat of the elements to wipe out the settlement… To be on the island during a strong northwesterly gale … would cause a stranger to shudder with fear.
- In the summer mosquitoes almost drive the inhabitants insane. … The mosquitoes are said to be the most poisonous in existence.
- Picture it out—a place where freshwater is as precious as any possession; where life is all but unbearable at best, with fever-bearing mosquitoes in summer, isolation and starvation in winter; with disease ever near, waiting for just such a chance; food [supplies] never above immediate needs. Now—cut off from food, medicine, fuel—for a whole month.
- It is thought that the people are now spending most of their time in praying for assistance in their little chapel.
The Apache Breaks Through at Last
Captain Carmine and his Apache pulled within sight of Holland Island at 8 in the morning on Wednesday, Feb. 7. Carmine ordered a dozen men to row in on a smaller boat. The leader of that rescue team, Lt. Boedecker, had this exchange with the first islander he saw:
“Well, how’s everything?”
“Oh, we’re all right.”
Boedecker then spied a gaggle of islanders. They were … ice skating, quite happily.
Another Holland Island scene
The Baltimore Sun, Feb. 8: [The islanders] invited the officers of the cutter to join in the sport and remain with them for dinner. The revenue officers were somewhat chagrined [by the offer].
When Boedecker offered to sail any islanders in need of safety to the mainland, he got no takers. When Capt. Carmine joined the scene, he mentioned that the Apache was loaded with emergency supplies.
[The islanders] expressed deep gratitude for the interest shown them by the visit, and asked that they be supplied with some lubricating oil and baking powder.\
The Baltimore Sun reported on the investigation conducted by the crew of the Apache:
[It showed that] there were but one or two cases of illness, and these of not a serious nature; that there were sufficient provisions to last another four weeks; that the residents of the island had been having a good time, and that the greatest misfortune of the people had been that because of the absence of the minister, there had been no formal religious service … for more than a month.
Eventually, one of the rescuers asked about that thunderous gunfire, which had so alarmed the folks on Deal Island. That, the islanders explained, happened on a night when ducks and other waterfowl descended on Holland Island in huge numbers.
Last word from the Baltimore Sun: It might have lent dramatic interest to the month of uncertainty since communication stopped if the islanders had been found starving and dying of pestilence, but that they were found enjoying good health and comparative plenty, notwithstanding the embargo of nature, has been made a matter of rejoicing.
Postscript #1: Apache Gets Stuck
Upon hearing the shockingly good news from Holland Island, the Navy ordered Apache to proceed to Norfolk to join in the ceremonial launching of two new Navy cutters. Alas, the trip did not go well.
The Washington Times, Feb. 9: After a night of ceaseless vigil on the part of Captain Carmine to prevent the United States revenue cutter Apache [from] being carried ashore by the heavy ice tides, the gallant little vessel finally gave up the fight at 7 o’clock this morning and became firmly wedged in the ice at Somers Cove in the Little Annemessex River. … The Times reporter and photographer … on the boat, were forced to clamber over her side onto 12 inches of solid ice and to make their way to shore.
Postscript #2: A Voice of Reason
Lt. A.H. Scally of the Apache deserves some credit here for being a voice of reason. In all the articles I reviewed, he served up the lone quote that tried to tamp down the growing panic about starvation on Holland Island:
There are some adventurous characters among the oystermen, and I believe some of them [would] have put off for the mainland [by now] if they were suffering to any great extent.
Postscript #3: An Ode to the Survivors’
Poet Folger McKinsey
In those days, the Baltimore Sun had a “staff poet” named Folger McKinsey. A native of Cecil County on the Eastern Shore, he often wrote ditties celebrating the natural beauty and cultural charms of Delmarva. He whipped up this poem for publication the day after the news broke that the islanders weren’t starving after all.
The Rescue of Holland Island
From Honga Strait to Tangier Sound
The cry of fear went up afar;
Deal’s Island sent the wide alarm
By letter carrier, clerk, and tar:
“Those Holland Islanders are lost,
They’re starved and dying day by day:
They’re sick and frozen in their huts,
Oh, succor, succor, sirs, we pray!”
The heart of Maryland heard, and sprung
With ready will to give relief:
The Governor sent words of cheer,
The whole land joined the common grief.
The gallant Thomas did her best,
The iceboats sought the lower bay;
The lithe Apache through the field
of Arctic-bleakness broke her way.
At last, at last, an isle in sight!
“A mile southeast, and we’ll be there
To lift them from their frozen night,
To save them from their dark despair!”
They heaved the lead, the line showed shoal,
But inch by inch they worked along;
The engines backed and went ahead,
The pistons answered every gong.
A half a mile, a quarter—joy!
The small boat lowered reaches land;
And there a hardy islander
Extends his brown and brawny hand.
The captain looks at him, looks he,
And eager to hear tales of woe,
Asks how the perishing have fared
In all that waste of ice and snow!
The native grins between dark teeth,
The native’s eyes are twinkling bright:
“Come in! We’re glad to see you, Cap!
Tie up your ship and spend the night!
We’ve got the nicest canvasback,
And fresh wild goose and terrapin!”
The captain threw up both his hands,
The crew swore black and blue as sin!
They stowed the bread and meat away,
They hid the medicine full deep;
They bade the islander good day,
And sought at last a wink of sleep.
Far o’er the waters rang the song
Of Holland’s children, strait to strait:
“Why don’t you stay to dinner, friend!
The finest ducks you ever ate!”
–posted by Jim Duffy from Whimbrel Creations LLC/Secrets of the Eastern Shore in December 2024. All rights reserved. Here again is info on the book this comes from, You Wouldn’t Believe!
One last note: I couldn’t find any photos from Holland Island during the deep freeze of 1912. The photo up top here is a wintry scene from nearby Tilghman Island, Md. during another cold spell in 1918,.
