Shipwrecks
Shoals, bad weather, and lack of navigational aids contributed to hundreds of shipwrecks along Assateague. Many wrecks were schooners and cargo vessels sailing the busy coastal ship lanes in the 1800s.
The total number of wrecks off Assateague is not clear, nor is much known about individual wrecks. In one brief 40-year period (1875-1915), the four U.S. Life-Saving Stations aided 261 ships.
Salvaging and Wreck-masters
Shipwrecks were considered an economic boon by early colonists. Local people salvaged goods washed ashore and often resold them later. Some successful "wreckers" were nicknamed for the cargo they specialized in - Molasses Smith, Sugar Brown, and Rum Jones.
Ship owners complained about this illegal salvaging, and in their later 1700s Maryland and Virginia hired wreck-masters to oversee a wreck site and prevent looting.
Marker is at the intersection of Ferry Landing Road and Bayberry Drive, on the right when traveling west on Ferry Landing Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
