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Introduction to Tangier: A trip through chartered waters
THE CROSSING
Sailing toward 400 years of Virginia history
Brian Charlton Staff Writer
Tangier was discovered in the summer of 1608 by Captain John Smith. More than 400 years later, less than 500 people call the island home.
he air in Crisfield, Md. crackles with sea spray and the smell of the pre-dawn catch, the Bay’s gentle breaks casting a hush over an already busy harbor town.
The small but sturdy Sharron Kay III shares dock space with the tug boats and crabbing vessels – one of a small number of ferries offering passage to and from Tangier Island, 12 miles offshore in the center of the Chesapeake Bay.
Taking the first unsteady step off the mainland and onto the bobbing Sharron Kay – with its sense of apprehension and a slight spike in blood pressure – may bear some resemblance to another embarkation in the summer of 1608, when Captain John Smith would explore the then-uncharted waters of the New World.
All the maps have since been filled out, the peninsulas clearly charted and the rivers named. But in the inhabitants of Tangier Island, whose English ancestors arrived almost as long ago as Smith, pieces of the country’s earliest history show in vestiges – protected and preserved over generations by a twelve-mile stretch of bay.
Tangier Island, like many landmasses, was discovered by accident.
While traveling back to Jamestown from an expedition in the Potomac, John Smith was badly wounded by a stingray; he and his crew stopped on the then-unknown group of islands to search for fresh water.
Smith survived the poison of the sting under the care of his onboard physician, Walter Russell, and officially named the islands the “Russell Isles” in his honor. The origin of the island’s present name is unknown for sure. The theory within the community, however, is that John Smith had thought the island reminiscent of the beaches of Tangier in North Africa.
The Sharron Kay rumbles to life as Mark Haynie, born and raised on Tangier, takes the wheel. As the ferry’s captain, he is an integral part of the limited transportation system between Tangier and the mainland.
Haynie was once one of Tangier’s watermen himself, but like many other watermen in a dwindling economy, had to adapt to stay afloat. After 38 years in the job, he now provides ferry passage for both Tangier natives and tourists. In winter months, though, the island is almost void of visitors: Haynie, as with most of Tangier’s population, is engaged in a fight to keep his home and family above water.
A thick layer of fog envelops Crisfield, Md. in the wake of the Sharron Kay. During a 40-minute ferry ride to Tangier Island, passengers take cover in the boat’s covered cabin. The hum of the engine subdues conversation.
A similar trip to the route of the Sharron Kay provided a strategic launch point for the British Army’s assault on Baltimore during the War of 1812 – the battle which would serve as Francis Scott Key’s inspiration for the Star-Spangled Banner. The ‘rocket’s red glare’ Key describes came from a technology the British had introduced to the United States – until this point in Western history, rocketry was seldom seen outside the East.
In 1814, Tangier was heavily wooded and the British cut down many of these trees to make forts, repair ships and build rocket barges. These barges were used to zip from Tangier to Baltimore and back to fire off explosive rockets in an attempt to sink ships. Most of the structures built then are gone now, somewhere beneath the unforgiving sea.
Hand-built crabbers’ dockhouses emerge from the horizon with the Tangier coastline, and the crabbers themselves are not too preoccupied with their work to wave hello to the ferry as it passes – to the newcomers as well as the Tangiermen coming home. Tangier has been called – and likewise, calls itself – the soft-shell crab capital of the world. Watermen on the docks carry wooden crab-filled crates from their boats for shipping to the mainland.
Dozens of shacks poke out from the water around the island. Many are abandoned, decrepit, or even sinking, in no small part due to two recent hurricanes, Irene and Ernesto – but the broken shacks are also a reminder of the industry that once thrived on Tangier, and an indicator, as well, of where the island might be headed.
Prior to European colonists, Tangier was a summer home for the Pocomoke Indians. Although little is known of their time there, their existence on the island is evidenced by remnants found on the beaches. New arrowheads are occasionally discovered on the shore after a strong wind blows through.
An ancient oyster midden – a huge deposit of mollusk shells, broken open and presumably eaten, which could have only been left by humans – found off the coast of the island was determined to be thousands of years old by archaeologists, and is further evidence of a population before the first European settlers.
The ferry’s engine shudders to a stop and passengers line up to depart from the Sharron Kay. Captain Haynie stands by the ladder to assist any passenger in need of a steadying hand.
With an island of under 500 hundred inhabitants, the locals know a newcomer immediately by sight. Lost tourists are quickly helped on their way by any Tangier citizen who happens to pass, whether on foot, or via golf cart, the island’s preferred means of transport.
Centuries of relative isolation have resulted in a manner of speaking English entirely unique to Tangier Island – the accent and dialect, Cornish in origin, have been a part of the island since the arrival of its first English settlers.
TLocals occasionally speak with the accent strong enough that outsiders wouldn’t necessarily be able to understand at first listen. The back and forth among the watermen, in particular, is thickly rural in its sound, and so steeped in indigenous slang and reversed meanings as to require a local interpreter. Before reaching the Bayview Inn, one of the three Bed and Breakfasts on the island, one can stop at a bridge over a marshy brook to take in the island – a good portion of it is visible from here. A jellyfish eases through the stream crossing under the bridge. It is far from home. The water is only deep enough for very small sea creatures to pass. R
TANGIER TALK “”
Tom died “Tom had a spell” or “Tom slipped out” Tom fainted
Well, that beats all
He or she is small in stature
He or she is dishonest
“Taller than a ware pole”
He or she is lanky
“Tainty”
He or she is picky with food
“Hucky”
He or she is unhygienic and dirty
“Gilt”
Aluminum or paint
“Lubbersome”
He or she is accident prone
That’s great
