Cobb's Island

By Kessler Burnett - From the January/February 2000 issue of Chesapeake Life

"There's nothing new under the sun but the history of Cobb's Island, off the coast of Virginia, differs from any romance ever told."
Alexander Hunter
Huntsman of the South

From "dude huntsmen" to the stalwart men of the Coast Guard, the story of Cobb's Island is a dynamic tale of Virginia's Eastern Shore--a southern narrative that, like the unsullied environment surrounding its shoreline, begs to be preserved.

"In a short time everyone was in motion, the sails loosened, the yards braced, and we began to heave up the anchor, which was our last hold upon Yankee land."
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Two Years Before the Mast


In 1833, Nathan Cobb, a 36-year-old Eastham, Massachusetts, ship builder made a life-defining decision that assured his place in the archives of Virginia's Eastern Shore. This was the year his wife, Nancy, developed tuberculosis. Upon her doctor's suggestion that a warmer climate might prolong her life, Nathan and Nancy, along with their sons, Nathan, Jr.; Warren; and Albert, severed their northern roots, stocked their schooner to the gunwales with food, clothing, tools, lumber, and furniture, and headed southbound for a fresh beginning.

The Cobb's passage was smooth until reaching the barrier islands of Virginia, where a storm forced them into an inlet near the village of Oyster. To atone for the storm, a rather poor ambassador of southern hospitality, the residents of Oyster outdid themselves to care for the refugee family. The Cobbs soon adopted Oyster as their new home where Nathan operated a general store for five years. Yet, for a man like Nathan who had inherited an adventuresome spirit (his grandfather, a whaler, was twice captured by and escaped from pirates), the profession of shopkeeper proved far too mundane.

The combination of the memory of the fateful storm that led him to Oyster and his shipbuilding skills prompted Nathan to begin a shipwreck salvage operation. Realizing that the best location for his new venture would be away from the mainland and nearer to the wreck-inducing shoals, Nathan turned his sight seaward to Sand Shoal Island, eight miles off the coast of Oyster. In 1839 Nathan purchased the island from the Fitchett family for $150. Christened with the family namesake, Cobb's Island became the newest Cobb homestead as well as the headquarters for Cobb's Salvaging Company.

Nathan worked hard to provide his family with a settled atmosphere and comfortable accommodations on the island, which Nathan reportedly nicknamed "Cape Cod." However, their life was again upset--this time by the death of Nanc--the following year. In 1842 Nathan took a new bride, Esther Carpenter, a native of nearby Hog Island. After Esther died, Nathan married her sister, Nancy Richardson, in 1866. Joseph Morgan, Esq., a visitor of Cobb's in the late 1880s wrote this about Nathan's matrimonial habits: "He (Nathan) has been married three times, and should his last wife, who is still living, happen to die, we are very sure he would make the number even."

In the tradition of southern mercantilism, Nathan's sons joined the family business, serving as the wrecker crew in the salvaging operation. To reach the stranded vessels, they used a five-handed Cape Cod fishing boat--an oar-powered vessel that carried a steering oarsman, four rowers, and allowed room for passengers. With their tools of the trade, which included anchors, hawsers, block and tackle, horses, and sail, the Cobbs helped to save thirty-seven vessels. After coming to the distress of the barque Cricket in 1870, the family was paid thirty-five percent of the total value of the ship's cargo and apparel. The same year, for salvaging the schooner Harry Lee, the family was awarded forty percent of the vessel's value and sixty percent of the cargo value. Although they made a handsome living from their operation, aptly referred to by writer Alexander Hunter as the "Rothschilds among the toilers of the sea," they never accepted a dime for the thirty-five lives they saved.

Praising the Cobbs' salvage and rescue efforts, an unknown author wrote in 1905, "...the Cobbs rescued at risk to their own lives, many crews from sailing vessels driven ashore there. Often a crew of ten to twenty would be landed on the island from stranded vessels without a penny, and they were tenderly cared for as though they were millionaires. Money cut no figure with these people. The life-saving service of the present day, with all the modern improvements, has done no more noble deeds than the Cobbs..."

The Cobbs' gallant rescue efforts continued until the United States Life-Saving Service (forerunner to the Coast Guard) established an outpost on the island in 1875.

From 1875 to 1915 the surfmen of Cobb's Island aided an estimated seventy-two shipwrecked vessels, losing only two sailors to the sea. In 1879, three days before the station was to open for the season, it burned to the ground, unofficially determined to be the result of an arsonist's match. Its replacement was constructed in 1880.

"Above me infinite space, flecked now with white, swift-flying clouds--I dream of a world without railroads, or mail--the happy hunting-ground the red man saw in visions of the olden time."
Thomas Dixon, Jr., on Cobb's Island
The Life Worth Living



No matter how great their salvaging profits, the wealth of the Cobbs could not equal the rich abundance of waterfowl on their island. In the late 1800s the nation's wildfowl population was regarded as inexhaustible and the Cobbs behaved as such, claiming an estimated 150 birds per day including ducks, geese, and shore birds. Ever the entrepreneurs, the Cobbs recognized the island's potential as a bird hunting Mecca and began a side business of market hunting, a venture that would prove to be even more lucrative than salvaging. The fowl were sold for fifty cents each to restaurateurs in New York City and other cosmopolitan locations.

It was not long before the island's reputation for excellent hunting and fishing spread, attracting sportsmen willing and able to pay for the Cobbs' services as guides. In response to the increasing numbers of year-round hunters requiring lodging, Nathan built a hotel on the island in 1860 that accommodated up to 200 guests. The 1874-1882 register from Cobb's Hotel documented the arrival of "dude huntsmen" from twenty-seven states and Canada, including a Maryland governor and congressman, the son of General Ulysses S. Grant, vested gentry from Virginia, and an English count and countess. Entertainment on the island included a clubhouse, ballroom, billiard room, bowling alley, a Methodist chapel with a bell and steeple, croquet lawn, live music, and carriage rides. Eventually the resort's facilities included the construction of separate guest cottages and living quarters for domestic employees. The Cobbs even dabbled in real estate--selling several lots on the island ranging in price from $500 to $5000. To feed the growing number of staff and guests, the Cobbs built a grain mill on the mainland and in 1868 purchased a farm where they raised vegetables, fruit, beef, pork, lamb, and chickens.

Although located in a remote area, transportation to Cobb's Island was convenient for its time. Passenger steamers out of Norfolk and Baltimore made weekly trips to Virginia's Eastern Shore, landing on the bayside in Cherrystone, a short distance from Oyster. From Cherrystone, visitors were transported by hack to Oyster and then boarded a sailboat that carried them to the island. In 1867, the Cobbs bought their own transportation, a 56.5- foot wooden, coal-burning steamer christened the NWA Cobb for sons Nathan, Warren, and Albert. Later in 1884 a special train stop, appropriately called the Cobb's Island Station was established near Oyster by the New York, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk railroad, popularly known as the "Nip-n-N."

Apart from hunting, the most popular activity for gentleman at the resort was trading stories in the barroom after dinner. The mood on Cobb's was relaxed, and no doubt, the smoky atmosphere of the barroom was equally congested with bravado-ridden "fish tales" of who caught what and the skillful tactics used to do so. Concerning the bar, guest Joseph Morgan wrote, "It seems that no matter what adverses overtake men or places, this institution is still in full blast. We patronize it pretty extensively, and should be excused, as the atmosphere of Cobb's Island leads to exhilaration."

An unknown author writes of one particularly interesting narrative of Cobb's, "In the summer of 1859 a party of gentlemen, who had been spending some days on the island gunning and fishing, chartered a sloop...to take them over to Old Point. The morning was propitious, and they were borne safely to their destination. On returning, however, a fierce storm was raging...and Mr. Doughty was washed overboard...He was unable to catch the rope that had been thrown to him. The last that was seen of him he was swimming against wind and tide and making for one of the neighboring islands. The crew returned with saddened hearts. Quite a number of ladies and gentlemen were guests...on the island...and it had been arranged for a large ball there on that evening. Musicians had arrived from the mainland, and ladies were preparing for attractive toilets. When the returning sloop came in and the sad news was brought, all hearts were touched with sympathy...and all idea of a dance was abandoned. Mr. Nathan Cobb was utterly inconsolable. Some weeks afterward, Mr. Cobb went down to the shore (as was his custom when a boat came over from the main) to welcome the passengers. What was his surprise to see his old companion, whom he mourned as dead, well and hearty and dressed in a handsome new suit. At first he started back in terror, exclaiming, 'Is this Doughty or his spirit? It cannot be he.' He was, however, soon reassured by a warm grasp of the hand. Then all collected to hear his adventures. After vain endeavors to reach land he had resolved to float with the tide, hoping that he might be rescued by some passing vessel. His cries for help were heard, and he was taken on board a barque, bound for Annapolis. Doughty was the first man whom the captain had ever saved. He took great pride in the fact, carried him to Annapolis, showed him around the town, gave him an entirely new suit of clothes, paid his fare to Norfolk, and from there he was taken to Northampton where he soon found a conveyance to the island. He had been six hours overboard when he was taken on board the barque."

"With his keen eye surveying from the heavens the glories of the world, he sweeps over the wild beauty, calling now and then his silver trumpet-note of command to his flock."
Thomas Dixon, Jr.
The Life Worth Living


Despite the success of the resort, one must suppose that life on the island became a bit too swish for Nathan, a New Englander unaccustomed to Southern social conventions. Alexander Hunter recalled that, "Old man Cobb took no part in the new deal; no one ever saw him at the hotel. He had a fine plot of ground, and a snug, comfortable house, and there he stayed with his tame brants, as isolated as if he were a lone fisherman on a lone isle..."

Nathan died in 1890 at the age of 92. Almost immediately following the patriarch's passing, the onslaught of tumultuous storms diminished the popularity of the resort. Quite possibly unable to afford the constant maintenance of the resort's facilities, according to a 1896 report from a Baltimore Sun writer, not long after Nathan's death, Nathan, Jr. and Warren sold twenty-five acres of the island, including the hotel and a number of cottages, to a Lynchburg syndicate. The era of the Cobbs resort was quickly coming to an end.

The island's final blow came with the hurricane of October 1896, when, with the swiftness of a tempest's wind, the Cobbs existence on the island came to an abrupt halt. The storm reduced the island by fifty acres and, save for the life-saving station, the chapel and a few cottages, all of the hotel buildings were destroyed including the hotel, barroom, billiard room, and bowling alley. The members of the Cobb family who still lived on the island were driven from their homes and evacuated by the crew of the lifesaving station to the mainland where they remained.

Eventually even the Coast Guard, who had built a modern facility in 1936 to replace the 1880 life-saving station, retreated from the island. With the advent of radar, shipping fatalities were largely reduced along the Atlantic thereby decreasing the need for lifeboat stations. A commandant of the Coast Guard sent Cobb's Island station orders to cease operations by July of 1963.

With the departure of the Coast Guard, the island changed ownership several times, until The Nature Conservancy purchased it and its station in 1973. Despite its new ownership, the 1936 station remained deserted, vulnerable to the folly of vandals and storms. In the good name of conservation and historic preservation, The Nature Conservancy transplanted the station in May 1998 to Oyster by barge where it resides on a thirty-three acre site also owned by The Nature Conservancy, close to where Nathan Cobb settled 165 years before.

Moving the mammoth station was an awesome sight. Where usually shore birds and tranquillity dominate the island, heavy equipment and workmen camouflaged in Carheartts invaded the shorefront. Expert Movers of Virginia Beach deftly dislocated the immense station from its foundation and lifted it directly onto a dolly. For the crew of Expert Movers, hauling the 210-ton station onto the barge proved to be a test of wills as the building seemed determined not to leave without putting up a good fight. As the truck hauling the station began inching toward the barge's loading ramp, one of its wheels sank into the mud, prompting the shims balancing the load to shift and the bolts on the dolly to break. The jolt of the sudden stop caused the immense building to wobble on its base for what seemed an eternal moment until deciding to come to a somewhat tilted rest.

Moments after the barge and its hefty cargo successfully left the island, a blinding fog rolled in. Remarked Expert Movers owner Jim Matyiko, a strong, stocky man of Hungarian decent, "It was scary. The driver of the tug couldn't see any channel markers or poles. Must'a been old man Cobb putting his curse on us." The fog followed the station three-quarters of the way into Oyster where, within 100 yards of the harbor, the building emerged unscathed from the gray density as if a ghostly apparition.

"Break, break, break at the foot of the crags, O sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to me."
author unknown

Today the island appears as if an aquatic ghost town with the only tactile evidence of its days of grandeur being the symmetrical rows of rotted pilings that mark the sites of long-destroyed piers and buildings. The only remaining structure is the derelict 1880 life-saving station that lies in an elegant heap amid the stocky dunes.

To share the memory of the Cobbs and their island is to immortalize a people quite possibly extinct among the modern. Yet, in an era when so many are held captive by the material pleasures found on terra firma, it’s likely that only a few will truly understand the Cobbs who found freedom in isolation and peace atop the instability of an island's shifting sands.

Posted: 7-31-2000