Holland Island was a

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...

y, rapidly eroding island in the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...

, in

Dorchester County Dorchester County is the name of two counties in the United States: * Dorchester County, Maryland Dorchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. At the 2020 census, the population was 32,531. Its county seat is Cambridge ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, west of

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of ...

. The island was once inhabited by

watermen A waterman is a river worker who transfers passengers across and along city centre rivers and estuaries in the United Kingdom and its colonies. Most notable are those on the River Thames and River Medway in England, but other rivers such as th ...

and farmers but has since been abandoned as sinking of the land's surface associated with isostatic subsidence and

sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...

. It is located in the Holland Strait, between Bloodsworth Island and Smith Island, six miles west of Wenona, Maryland and Southeast of another former island, Long Island.

History

Holland Island was originally settled in the 1600s, taking its name from early colonist Daniel Holland, the original purchaser of the property from the Dorchester County Sheriff. By 1850, the first community of fishing and farming families developed on the island. By 1910, the island had about 360 residents, making it one of the largest inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay. The island community had 70 homes, stores and other buildings. It had its own post office, a two-room school with two teachers, a church, baseball team, community center, and a doctor. The islanders supported themselves mainly by dredging for oysters, fishing for shad and

crabbing Crab fisheries are fisheries which capture or farm crabs. True crabs make up 20% of all crustaceans caught and farmed worldwide, with about 1.4 million tonnes being consumed annually. The horse crab, ''Portunus trituberculatus'', accounts for on ...

. Their fleet of workboats included 41 skipjacks, 10 schooners and 36

bugeye The bugeye is a type of sailboat developed in the Chesapeake Bay for oyster dredging. The predecessor of the skipjack, it was superseded by the latter as oyster harvests dropped. Origins Between 1820 and 1865, the state of Maryland banned th ...

s, some of which were built on the island. In 1914 the wind and tide began to seriously erode the west side of the island, where most of the houses were located. This forced the inhabitants to move to the mainland. Many disassembled their houses and other structures and took them to the mainland, predominantly Crisfield. Attempts to protect the island by building stone walls were unsuccessful. The last family left the island in 1918 when a tropical storm damaged the island's church. A few of the former residents continued living on the island during the fishing season until 1922 when the church was moved to Fairmount, Maryland. Stephen White, a minister, cared for the island for many years and formed The Holland Island Preservation Foundation. In June 2010, White sold the island to the Concorde Foundation. In October 2010, the last remaining house on Holland Island, built in 1888, collapsed.

Lighthouse

The Holland Island Bar Light, a lighthouse originally built to the south of Holland Island in 1889, was dismantled and replaced with an automated light in 1960.

Geology and ecology

The land of the island has been submerged as a result of erosion exacerbated by climate-change related

and associated with the sinking of the land's surface associated with isostatic subsidence. This process has caused a major loss of land on the island. Like other Chesapeake Bay islands, Holland Island is primarily made up of

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

and

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel ...

. The western ridge of the island is very exposed to waves in the bay, making it prone to erosion as well. The island's size was reduced by half, from approximately in 1915 to in 2005. Most of the remaining land on the island is now marsh, but most of the time the entire island is underwater. Many birds, including

terns Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists of ...

herons The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...

songbirds A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5 ...

, and

brown pelican The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mout ...

s used to be found on the island. A survey in 1995 counted 609 nesting pairs in a heron rookery on the island.

Hurricane Isabel Hurricane Isabel was the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Mitch, and the deadliest, costliest, and most intense hurricane in the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. Hurricane Isabel was also the strongest hurricane in the open waters of the Atlan ...

, a tropical storm by the time it reached Maryland in September 2003, destroyed 60 percent of the trees that previously served the rookery.

References

External links

*
The Last House on Holland Island
''Sometimes Interesting''. 8 Apr 2013 * A.M. Foley and P. Smith Rue. ''Holland Island: Lost Atlantis of the Chesapeake.'' Dogwood Ridge Books, 2015. {{authority control Maryland islands of the Chesapeake Bay Landforms of Dorchester County, Maryland Former populated places in Maryland Uninhabited islands of Maryland Underwater ruins Former islands of the United States