Wash Woods was an

unincorporated town An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

on the coast of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

in the former

Princess Anne County County of Princess Anne is a former county in the British Colony of Virginia and the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States, first incorporated in 1691. The county was merged into the city of Virginia Beach on January 1, 1963, ceasing t ...

(now the independent

City of Virginia Beach Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...

), in the southeastern corner of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. It has been

abandoned Abandon, abandoned, or abandonment may refer to: Common uses * Abandonment (emotional), a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded * Abandonment (legal), a legal term regarding property ** Chi ...

since the 1930s, except for the Life Saving Station which remained operational until the mid-1950s. The site of the former town is located within

False Cape State Park False Cape State Park is a state park located on the Currituck Banks Peninsula, a barrier spit between the Back Bay of the Currituck Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, within the city of Virginia Beach, adjacent to the state border with North Car ...

in Virginia Beach. Wash Woods Cemetery

According to legend, the community was settled by survivors of a shipwreck who waded ashore centuries ago on the remote and uninhabited stretch of beach and decided to stay. The village's

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

church and several other structures were built using

cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word ''cypress'' is derived from Old French ''cipres'', which was imported from Latin ''cypressus'', the ...

wood that washed ashore from

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

John S. Wood that ran aground with a load of lumber and broke apart during a storm in 1889. By the turn of the 20th century Wash Woods was home to two lifesaving stations, a grocery store, two churches, and a school. Three hundred people once lived there, working as fishermen, farmers, hunting guides,

market hunters A professional hunter (less frequently referred to as market or commercial hunter and regionally, especially in Britain and Ireland, as professional stalker or gamekeeper) is a person who hunts and/or manages game by profession. Some professional ...

, and as lifesavers patrolling the beach and manning lifeboats to rescue shipwrecked sailors. Located along the section of the

US East Coast The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Eastern United States meets the North Atlantic Ocean. The eastern seaboard contains the coa ...

long known as the

Graveyard of the Atlantic Graveyard of the Atlantic is a nickname for the treacherous waters and area of numerous shipwrecks off the Outer Banks The Outer Banks (frequently abbreviated OBX) are a string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and ...

, from its beginnings the small town of Wash Woods was subject to the severe weather conditions which had shipwrecked its first residents and brought the lumber ashore to build it. Residents manned one of the first Life Saving Stations, called False Cape, established in 1875. After the disastrous wrecks of the at

Nags Head Nag's Head or Nags Head may refer to: ;In London * Nag's Head, London, a locality in Holloway ** Nag's Head Market, a street market * Nag's Head, Covent Garden, a pub ;Elsewhere in the United Kingdom * Nag's Head Island, Abingdon-on-Thames * ...

and steamship ''Metropolis'' a few miles south of Wash Woods near the

Currituck Beach Lighthouse The Currituck Beach Light ()
, from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

US Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, multi ...

station. The sea inundated the narrow sliver of sand so often that townspeople had begun to leave Wash Woods by the 1920s. Another factor was the

Migratory Bird Treaty Act The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (MBTA), codified at (although §709 is omitted), is a United States federal law, first enacted in 1918 to implement the convention for the protection of migratory birds between the United States and Canada . ...

signed in 1918 which outlawed market hunting of waterfowl. When the disastrous

1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane The 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane was among the most damaging hurricanes in the Mid-Atlantic states in the eastern United States. The sixth storm and third hurricane of the very active 1933 Atlantic hurricane season, it formed in the east ...

followed by the equally severe

1933 Outer Banks hurricane The 1933 Outer Banks hurricane lashed portions of the North Carolina and Virginia coasts less than a month after 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane, another hurricane hit the general area. The twelfth tropical storm and sixth hurricane of the 19 ...

struck back to back, it essentially sealed the town's fate. The storm surge caused by the category 4 storms flooded the entire area, damaged many buildings including the Coast Guard Station, and washed most of the fertile topsoil from farm fields into Back Bay. Subsequently, the few remaining residents of Wash Woods relocated across Back Bay to

Knotts Island Knotts Island is a marshy island and a small unincorporated community. The island is shared by Currituck County, North Carolina and Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States, bounded by the Currituck Sound, North Landing River, Back Bay, and Knotts ...

or to mainland Princess Anne County and the site became the location of several waterfowl hunting clubs. Today, the area is a Virginia state park, adjoining the federally managed

Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Virginia is located in the independent city of Virginia Beach. Established in 1938 in an isolated portion of the former Princess Anne County, it is managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. ...

. There is still a small cemetery adjacent to the ruins of the Wash Woods Methodist church. Vandals demolished the steeple circa 1980. False Cape State Park's Wash Woods Environmental Education Center is housed a converted hunt club house.

The Wash Woods Coast Guard station, built in 1917, still stands a few miles south of the site of the former town across the state line in Carova Beach. The former Coast Guard Station was completely restored in 1989 and is now used as a real estate office. In the mid-1950s, Wash Woods remained a voting precinct consisting of 13 registered voters. On most election days, all of the 13 voters would meet just after midnight and vote. Under Virginia law at that time, when all the voters of any given precinct had voted in person, the precinct could close and report the results of the voting. Since the state at that time was basically a Democratic state controlled by a political machine headed by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., and known as the

Byrd Organization The Byrd machine, or Byrd organization, was a political machine of the Democratic Party led by former Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd (1887–1966) that dominated Virginia politics for much of the 20th century. From the 1890s until the l ...

all of the registered voters of the precinct always voted for the Democratic ticket. The results of the voting at the Wash Woods precinct was reported soon after midnight as a psychological device to promote the Democratic party, whether in local elections or in national elections. In the mid-1960s, during a local election, a group of local Democrats who opposed the local branch of the Byrd organization arranged for two voters to register to vote at the Wash Woods precinct. Those two voters then submitted their votes by mail. Under Virginia law, persons who had voted by mail had a right to report to their precinct on election day, pick up their previously mailed ballots, and then vote in person. Because these two voters had submitted their ballots by mail, the precinct could not close immediately after midnight on that election day and the psychological advantage previously offered by the precinct was lost. Immediately after that election, elected local officials representing the local branch of the Byrd organization dissolved the Wash Woods precinct and transferred the registered voters of that precinct to a larger adjoining precinct.

References

External links

Waterland Farm website
with photos of remains of Wash Woods

Museumsusa.org, False Cape State Park
{{authority control Populated places in colonial Virginia

Wash Woods Wash Woods was an unincorporated town on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the former Princess Anne County (now the independent City of Virginia Beach), in the southeastern corner of Virginia. It has been abandoned since the 1930s, except for t ...

See also

References

External links