THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 11, 1994 TAG: 9407110004
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Around the Bay
In 50 Days
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
From the mouth of Onancock Creek, two dark lumps shimmer on the northwest horizon. Locals don't give much thought to Watts Island. ``Nothing out there but flies,'' one told me over a beer on the Onancock wharf. ``Bring your bug spray,'' another advised.
But the island, which appears to be two from the shore because of forests at each end, has had a busy history. Discovered by Capt. John Smith in 1608, occupied by the British during the War of 1812, reputedly a pirates lair after that, Watts eventually was settled as a farming community. Herds of cattle and sheep roamed its high-grassed flats.
By 1800, at least 15 people lived there, and in 1832 a nearby lump of land, Little Watts Island, was bought by the feds, and a lighthouse was built at its center.
The settlement wasn't to last.
As at Bigger Smith Island to the northeast, Watts Island's shores began falling into the Bay. Its waters whittled at Little Watts until the 50-acre island measured only 3 acres, and in 1908, the Bay cut a swath through Big Watts' middle.
The islanders headed for the mainland.
Friday morning, after paddling out of Onancock, I started to cross the 6-mile stretch of Lower Pocomock Sound to those two distant islands.
It was a rough trip: Winds from the southwest whipped the Bay into white-capped waves of three feet or higher. At one point, I pulled alongside a head boat, The Dolphin out of Chrisfield, filled with fishermen from Baltimore. They stared and shook their heads.
But after 90 minutes of paddling, I reached the island's eastern shore. Ospreys wheeled and peeped overhead as I beached. Then the flies arrived - the dreaded ``greenheads'' that draw blood when they bite and are worse this summer than anyone up here can remember.
Slathered in repellent, I walked the island's perimeter. A few years ago, this might have been an all-day proposition. But the erosion continued after the islanders cleared out. The main island is a fraction of its size of just a few years ago. Little Watts Island is under water. The lighthouse is long gone, toppled by a storm, its bricks incorporated into a house in Onancock.
The island's marshy interior isfilled with nesting birds - egrets, herons, gulls and more ospreys. But no signs of people.
I'd particularly hoped to find some trace of the hermit. In 1910, Charles Hardenburg of New Jersey, a well-educated 35-year-old, took up a solitary existence on Watts. He's said to have lived comfortably on fish, crabs and figs from the island's orchards.
Hardenburg moved to the lighthouse keeper's house on Little Watts in 1924. Six years later, he won national acclaim when he gave an interview to a New York newspaper. He immediately was besieged with marriage proposals, one of which he accepted.
The couple lasted three years on Watts until the killer hurricane of 1933. When the pair took refuge on the mainland, Hardenburg couldn't get his wife to return to the island. Alone again, he stayed on the island for another three years.
Unfortunately, nothing remains of his labors. Not even a foundation can be found among the island's thick vegetation. Watts' cemetery, which used to be one of the most visible reminders of its history, was swallowed by the Bay years ago. MEMO: Swift's next report will appear Wednesday.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff color map
Day 8
For copy of map, see microfilm
by CNB