Assateague

Before the
Revolutionary War
From Lillian Mears Rew

Besides these, fish, oysters, clams, and crabs were in an abundance along the shores. All one had to do was to clear off a small parcel of land, catch an ox, make a wooden plow of some sort, till a little soil and the living was there for the family.

Sheep were there too, many of them never sheared, going in and out of blackberry bushes and briars. Much wool was left hanging free for anyone to get. Much of this Mrs. Birch gathered and knit fingered gloves and socks, not only for her own family, but to take once a year to sell at Green Run, a distance of about 15 miles.

With the husband tilling the soil, etc., the family of three were happy at home with plenty of wood to keep them warm and away from the busy, noisy city of Philadelphia.

But this was not to last for long. The little home and field in Assateague was quite accessible to pirates. Tom's cove was in the making and ships began to anchor to the south in times of storms or head winds. This was the only thorn in their happiness.

One day Mr. William Birch hitched his old ox to his wooden plough and started to his small field to work. When the time for the noonday meal came he did not return, but Mrs. Birch thought he was trying to finish his plowing, knowing to plow with a wooden plow was both tedious and burdensome. It may be she had plowed herself.

Night came and Mr. Birch did not come home, so in her fear and anxiety she sent her only small son, Joe, to look for him, thinking possibly he was sick. Joe came back with the startling news that his dad was not there. The ox was standing hitched to the plow in a newly-started furrow. All night she watched and waited, never once telling Joe her real fears.

From that day on until the close of the Revolutionary War she never saw or heard from her husband. The days, nights, weeks, and months dragged on like a nightmare. What could she, a lone woman, on an almost barren Island do to get bread and clothing for herself and Joe? Then she decided to go up to Green Run and sell some of her yarn socks and fingered gloves. The father had in some way hewn out a log, something to ferry home to and from Chincoteague, a stone's throw away. This was called a Punk.

Mother and son with the socks and gloves boarded the small Punk and started for Green Run, fifteen miles away, poling along close to the bank on the west side of Assateague and Pope's Island, resting at night near Ragged Point. As they poled along, the boy said, "Mother, I see a man coming toward us, and I'm afraid." The man's clothing was ragged, old and faded, his beard and hair long, looking very much like the pirates the boy no doubt had heard about, and the mother feared.

About the time the boy saw the man, the man had seen the woman and boy. Increasing his pace he headed straight for the two. Joseph (Joe) being only 12 years old, clung to his mother crying. Then the mother said, "Joe, that man walks like your father," the father he had not seen in years and no doubt would not have recognized even if he had been dressed in his working clothes, as he had been when he left home that morning with his ox for his field.

But it was William Birch, the lost husband and father. They hugged and cried and hugged again, until they came near to sinking the Punk.

Then he told his wife how, while he was at work plowing in the fields, some British soldiers captured him and took him aboard their ship and kept him a prisoner; and when the War was over and the ship was returning to England, they gave him his choice: they would take him to England or they would set him adrift on a raft, telling him he was near the place where he was captured, Assateague.

Mr. Birch asked to be set adrift on the raft, came ashore farther up the beach, and was on his way home to his family, when he met them going to Green Run.

(This story was obtained from the Eastern Shore Historical Society, Onancock, Virginia.)