Post by Logan on Jun 25, 2016 23:53:06 GMT -6
TANGIER ISLAND — As often as she can, Carol Moore steers her skiff through the workboats and crab shanties of Tangier harbor and into the Chesapeake Bay itself as she makes her way to what she describes as her favorite place on Earth: a nearby island known to locals as “Uppards.”
Each visit for Moore is bittersweet, as there isn’t much left of Uppards, a defenseless piece of land that is losing ground to the bay at an alarming rate. More than a century ago, Uppards was home to a thriving community of homes, a school and stores, all connected by footbridge to the island occupied by the town of Tangier. All of those buildings are long gone, as are the people, the last of whom left around 1930, and all that remains are slivers of sandy beaches edged around ever- widening tidal marshes.
Moore and others who visit Uppards typically find shells, old bottles and, occasionally, arrowheads, as well as bricks from long-ago house foundations, tractor tires and even a bathroom sink. Something more distressing greets visitors arriving on the extreme northern end of the island: weathered tombstones the bay has lifted off graves now under water. Four years ago, on the day after Hurricane Sandy swept across the island, Moore arrived for a walk along the beach on Uppards and found a skull rolling in the surf.
“I was like, ‘Oh, Lord!’ Then when I looked more, there were at least three complete skeletons on the surface,” Moore recalled. “It bothered me, so I stayed three or four hours just contemplating … just feeling sad for the people and Uppards.”
Read more: www.richmond.com/news/virginia/article_ef4beb8e-c914-5fe8-a0cb-942e60be258f.html
Each visit for Moore is bittersweet, as there isn’t much left of Uppards, a defenseless piece of land that is losing ground to the bay at an alarming rate. More than a century ago, Uppards was home to a thriving community of homes, a school and stores, all connected by footbridge to the island occupied by the town of Tangier. All of those buildings are long gone, as are the people, the last of whom left around 1930, and all that remains are slivers of sandy beaches edged around ever- widening tidal marshes.
Moore and others who visit Uppards typically find shells, old bottles and, occasionally, arrowheads, as well as bricks from long-ago house foundations, tractor tires and even a bathroom sink. Something more distressing greets visitors arriving on the extreme northern end of the island: weathered tombstones the bay has lifted off graves now under water. Four years ago, on the day after Hurricane Sandy swept across the island, Moore arrived for a walk along the beach on Uppards and found a skull rolling in the surf.
“I was like, ‘Oh, Lord!’ Then when I looked more, there were at least three complete skeletons on the surface,” Moore recalled. “It bothered me, so I stayed three or four hours just contemplating … just feeling sad for the people and Uppards.”
Read more: www.richmond.com/news/virginia/article_ef4beb8e-c914-5fe8-a0cb-942e60be258f.html