The mystique of Misty
Chincoteague’s simplicity preserves its storybook charm

by Elizabeth Hayes
for Virginia Business
May 2007

If your idea of a beach vacation calls for high-rise resorts, pricey seafood restaurants, a boardwalk and kitschy T-shirt shops, read no further. But if you’re partial to uncrowded beaches, bird watching, picturesque lighthouses and wild ponies, then consider visiting Chincoteague Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Chincoteague — of “Misty of Chincoteague” fame (more on the horse and children’s classic book later) — is an unpretentious place. The big attraction here is the lack of attractions. And people and traffic. Lodging consists mainly of rental cottages, motels and a handful of inns. Fancy restaurants are nonexistent. As for shopping, the usual T-shirt and beach gift shops line Main Street, but you could probably cover them all in a half hour. The island is only seven miles long and a mile and a half wide.

What Chincoteague — and neighbor­ing Assateague — do offer in abundance is peace, serenity and lots of birds, horses and salt marshes. With development and traffic engulfing many East Coast beach destinations — from Cape Cod down to Cape Hatteras — Chincoteague is a low-key alternative. A stay here is about relaxing with a book and a pair of binoculars.

We stayed in a funky converted boathouse that faces the channel between the two islands. From our dock, we saw snowy egrets — one of which preened on our dock — blue herons, barn swallows, seagulls, cormorants, terns, osprey, ducks and geese. We paddled a canoe through the marshes and collected clam shells and crab claws at low tide.

As our friend Chris put it: “There aren’t many places with that kind of quaint charm left. It’s sort of a return to an earlier era. It would remind me of Cape Cod in the 1940s, when it was sort of rustic.”

For serious, and casual, birdwatchers, the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge sits just over the channel bridge on Assateague, a barrier island where you’ll also find the public beach. Located on the Atlantic Flyway, the refuge encompasses 14,000 acres of wild bird habitat consisting of marshes, dunes, beach and forest.

Fifteen miles of walking trails wind through the refuge. We stopped first at the visitors center, which features exhibits about the island’s native wildlife. The center and trail are free, but it costs $10 for a week’s pass to the refuge (or only $15 for the year). Be prepared to stop for turtles crossing the road.
We also visited the red-and-white-striped Assateague Island Lighthouse and climbed the 198 steps to its summit. The 360-degree view from the top made the climb well worth it, with the ocean glistening on one side, horses grazing in meadows below and Chincoteague’s eastern shore (and our weekend home) spread out on the other. Built in 1867, the lighthouse is still operating — and we looked forward to its flashing every evening.

The best wild horse viewing is along the road leading to Assateague’s beach, about a quarter mile from the visitors’ center. You can’t get too close to the horses, but on the second day of our visit a herd grazed about 200 feet from the road. You can always tell if there are horses visible by how many cars are stopped.

What makes the Chincoteague ponies special is not only their painted coats, but their history, or rather legend. No one is exactly sure how they came to live on Assateague, but the fact is that they’ve been there for hundreds of years. I prefer to believe the story that the original herd swam ashore in the 16th century from a Spanish galleon that wrecked at sea while bound for South America.

Every year on the last Wednesday and Thursday of July, the horses are rounded up and herded into the water, where they swim across the channel to Chincoteague for Pony Penning Day. The tradition goes back to the early 1920s, as a way to raise money for Chincoteague’s volunteer fire department. Young horses are sold as pets every year to maintain the herd at 150 animals and prevent overgrazing. The 82nd Annual Pony Swim and Auction will be held this year at Chincoteagu Memorial Park and the Carnival Grounds on July 25 and 26.

Marguerite Henry set “Misty of Chincoteague,” first published in 1947, during a Pony Penning Day. I read “Misty” and played with a Breyer model horse of Misty when I was in my preadolescent horse-loving phase (and rest assured that you can pick up Misty models and books at shops all over the island). I started brushing up on my Misty lore as soon as we decided to spend a long weekend on Chincoteague.

The story is mostly fiction, but many of the characters were real, including Misty and siblings named Paul and Maureen Beebe and their grandparents, Clarence and Ida Beebe. Henry fell in love with Misty and persuaded Grandpa Beebe to sell the filly for $150, promising to make his grandchildren characters in the book.

The story describes how the children so yearn for a horse of their own, they secretly raise money to buy Misty’s dam, a supposedly untamable mare named the Phantom, and end up returning the mother to the wild and keeping young Misty. It’s still a pretty exciting read — a bit dated, but in a quaint, homespun way.

The book was a huge success when it debuted and spawned a movie of the same name in 1961. Misty was featured several times in Life magazine and National Geographic. And her story continues to capture young imaginations, with translations in eight languages and more than 30 printings, says Billy Beebe, who runs Beebe Ranch. With a splash of gold around one eye and a white marking on her withers resembling a map of America, Misty enjoyed a stardom right up their with Flicka, Black Beauty and Mr. Ed.

Misty bore three ponies before her death in 1972. The story of Misty’s most famous offspring is told in “Stormy, Misty’s Foal.” The two ponies are preserved and on view at Beebe Ranch, in the house where Misty was kept in the kitchen during a 1962 storm that inspired Henry to write the sequel.

Billy Beebe, Paul and Maureen’s cousin, today runs the operation with his wife, Bonnie. Misty and Stormy photos and memorabilia are on display, including pictures from the movie. And you can buy copies of the books autographed by Billy Beebe and stamped with Grandpa Beebe’s branding iron. The day of our visit, a fifth-generation descendant of Misty, Angel, grazed in a field next to the stables where Misty and Stormy once lived. Misty’s saddle still hangs on a stable wall, now covered with cobwebs and dust.

We didn’t linger too long, not only because our daughter is a little too young to be swept away by the Misty story (and how do you explain taxidermy to a 4-year-old?), but also because we were meeting friends for lunch at the Sea Star, a sandwich joint on Main Street. We followed our black forest ham and smoked turkey and brie sandwiches with dessert at Mister Whippy, a soft-serve ice cream parlor with blue raspberry and chocolate dips. Then we bought fresh, giant scallops, shrimp and flounder — directly out of coolers at several different stands around the island — to cook for dinner.

Late in the afternoon, a storm suddenly swept over the islands. After 15 minutes it passed, leaving a double rainbow stretching from one end of Assateague to the other, framing the lighthouse. The pounding of rain was probably the loudest noise we’d heard all weekend. After dinner on the dock, we retreated indoors for a game of Fictionary.

Who needs spas and swim-up bars? This is what a beach vacation is all about.