On Sunday, May 16 at 4:00 PM, the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society presented a virtual program entitled, “Tangier Islanders in Urbanna and The Great Storm of 1933.” The program included a discussion of Tangier Islanders in Middlesex County in the 1930s and thereafter, and the effects of their presence on the county.
Tangier Islanders, residents of a community located in the Chesapeake Bay that is largely dependent on fishing, began to appear in Middlesex County in the 1920s, often as part-time residents who worked as watermen during the week and returned to their families on Tangier on the weekends. After the Great Storm of 1933—a hurricane in the era before hurricanes were named—damaged and destroyed many of the buildings on the island, many families left the island and settled in other parts of Virginia. Those who came to Middlesex relocated to Urbanna, and many of them stayed.
This presentation included an introduction by journalist and local historian Larry Chowning and recorded interviews with Carl M. Dize (1921-2018) and Catherine Payne Walton Via (1929-2017), both of whom experienced the storm on Tangier and moved to Urbanna in 1933. There will also be a roundtable discussion involving descendants of those who came to Middlesex and of those who interacted with them when they came. Participants in the roundtable included Richard Shores, Nancy Lewis, Thomas Lee Walton, Sr. and Thomas Lee Walton, Jr
