VA: Chincoteague, Gloucester Courthouse
24 images Created 15 Jul 2012
View photos of Chincoteague Ponies, Assateague Light House (built 1867), water birds (Great White Egret, Snowy Egret, Glossy Ibis, Black Skimmer), historic Gloucester Courthouse, and pretty garden lilies by Tom Dempsey. Assateague Island is within Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Virginia Eastern Shore, USA, and can be reached by road bridge from Chincoteague Island. The Chincoteague Pony (or Assateague horse) is a breed of small horse (Equus ferus caballus) which lives wild on Assateague Island in Virginia and Maryland, USA. The breed was made famous by the “Misty of Chincoteague” series written by Marguerite Henry starting in 1947. Legend claims that Chincoteague ponies descend from wrecked Spanish galleons. But they more likely descend from stock released by 1600s colonists escaping laws and taxes levied on mainland livestock. In 1835, settlers began pony penning to remove some horses. In 1924 the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company held the first official "Pony Penning Day," where ponies were swum across Assateague Channel and auctioned to raise money, a tradition thriving ever since as a public spectacle. The federal government owns Assateague Island, which is split by a fence at the Maryland/Virginia state line, with a herd of around 150 ponies living on each side of the fence managed separately. The Maryland herd of “Assateague horses” lives within Assateague Island National Seashore and is treated as wild, except for contraceptives given to prevent overpopulation. The Virginia herd of “Chincoteague ponies” lives within the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge but is owned by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. The Virginia ponies get twice yearly veterinary inspections to cover possible auction sale into the outside world. Only about 300 ponies live on Assateague Island, but 1000 more live off-island, having been privately purchased or bred.
Gloucester County was the site of Werowocomoco, a capital of the large and powerful Native American Powhatan Confederacy, which affiliated 30 tribes under a paramount chief. It was home to members of early colonial First Families of Virginia and important leaders in the period up to the American Revolutionary War.
Gloucester County was the site of Werowocomoco, a capital of the large and powerful Native American Powhatan Confederacy, which affiliated 30 tribes under a paramount chief. It was home to members of early colonial First Families of Virginia and important leaders in the period up to the American Revolutionary War.