THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994                  TAG: 9407100036
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SERIES: AROUND THE BAY IN 50 DAYS
        Earl Swift is exploring the geography, history and people of the 
        Chesapeake Bay on a 50-day kayak trip that began July 1.
        
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   92 lines

AN EASY FAMILIARITY MOST NAMES ARE KNOWN UP AND DOWN THE SHORE. AND YOU DON'T GOSSIP ABOUT ANYBODY - YOU MIGHT BE TALKING TO HIS COUSIN.

At Bayford Oyster Co., a mile up Nassawadox Creek, the office wall is adorned with pictures of Norfolk go-go dancers, and the building's clapboard exterior bears hand-painted reminders of how the creek's waters have risen in past hurricanes.

A Chevy Impala was parked outside one afternoon last week, a back door hanging open. A big hound was sprawled inside, panting in the mid-afternoon heat.

I had pulled in to use the phone and talk to the old-timer inside for a bit, and was walking back down the wharf when I met three locals trying to make sense of my kayak.

``Where you headed tonight?'' one asked.

``Outside Belle Haven,'' I said. ``A farm up on Craddock Creek.''

``Whose farm?'' the fellow asked.

``The McCalebs'.''

``Oh, so McCaleb,'' he said, nodding. ``I insure my boat with Phil.''

A few miles to the north, as I bucked a foul tide across the mouth of Occahannock Creek, I passed a family out fishing in a small speedboat.

``Where you headed?'' one yelled to me.

``The McCaleb farm on Craddock Creek,'' I answered.

``Ah, yeah, Phil McCaleb,'' the man said. ``Good people.''

It takes only a short time on the Eastern Shore to recognize that a family with history in Accomack or Northampton county is known to practically everyone here. As I was told later in Onancock: ``You don't talk about anybody on the Eastern Shore because you are probably talking to their cousin or their brother.''

``About 15 families own 80 percent of the land here,'' Phil McCaleb told me from behind his desk at his insurance business in tiny Belle Haven. ``Some of these families hold original patents on their land from the king. They've never had a single deed drawn on their property.''

I knew Phil and Margie McCaleb through their daughter, Sara, an artist who has frequently exhibited her paintings in Hampton Roads and now runs a successful mosaic-tile studio in an unmarked storefront in nearby Exmore. Sara has also achieved more anonymous notoriety as a model. A photographer friend on the Shore took some pictures of her wearing Gitano jeans, and her likeness soon appeared in the women's wear department of every Wal-Mart in the country.

Phil himself is a ``come-here,'' local parlance for a resident not born on the Shore - once a put-down of sorts in an area where status is directly related to the number of generations one's family has held its land. He has been here since early boyhood, lives in a 17th century farmhouse and provides insurance for some of the Shore's oldest families. Still, because Sara was born here, in the eyes of the dwindling number of Eastern Shore residents, she is more of a bona fide ``from-here'' than her well-known and well-respected father.

I spent two nights with the McCalebs before paddling through Craddock Creek's marshes for the open Bay. After communing with ospreys living on otherwise empty Finney and Parker's islands about a half-mile offshore, I turned up Onancock Creek and beached my kayak on the property of I.W. ``Bill'' Bagwell III, a retired oilman whose family has lived in Accomack County since 1632.

Bagwell is one of those surnames that repeatedly appear in Eastern Shore history. Henry Bagwell, a Jamestown settler, moved here to become the county's first court clerk - a distinction, given that the courthouse records are the continent's oldest. Bill and his wife, Ann, live on a round-topped neck of land adjacent to Onancock's picturesque wharf. Their pecan-tree-shaded estate, Mount Prospect, was purchased by his great-grandfather.

The couple was waiting at the creek's edge when I paddled into town late Wednesday; they let me tent up, gave me free reign of their swimming pool and fed me a lavish dinner of pork chops and Shore-grown sweet potatoes.

``Where did you stay last night?'' Bill asked me over dinner.

``Down in Craddock Creek with the McCalebs,'' I said.

``Oh sure,'' Bill nodded. ``Phil McCaleb.'' MEMO: Swift's next report will appear Monday.

ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

EARL SWIFT

I.W. ``Bill'' Bagwell III is a retired oilman whose family has lived

in Accommack County since 1632.

Map

by CNB