Wash Woods, Virginia

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.

Three hundred people once lived there, working as fishermen, farmers, hunting guides, market hunters, and as lifesavers patrolling the beach and manning lifeboats to rescue shipwrecked sailors.

[4] Located along the section of the US East Coast long known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, 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.

[5] After the disastrous wrecks of the USS Huron at Nags Head and steamship Metropolis a few miles south of Wash Woods near the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, both of which resulted in great loss of life, Congress responded to the public outcry and an additional lifesaving station known as Deal's Island Station was established south of Wash Woods in 1877.

Subsequently, the few remaining residents of Wash Woods relocated across Back Bay to Knotts Island or to mainland Princess Anne County and the site became the location of several waterfowl hunting clubs.

[7] 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.