Hollands Island MD

Hollands Island is one of the northern Chesapeake islands included in the "Russells Isles" group named by Captain John Smith and in Dorchester County, MD. Once inhabited, today Hollands Island remains as a reminder of the force of Mother Nature. First patented in 1667 as 220 acres to Thomas Courtney as Courtney's Island "on a island near Kedges Straits," it was later named Hollands Island by Haney Holland. Today it has been reduced an old abandoned house once owned by Grant Parks. When I last visited Hollands Island about 12 years ago there was more land surrounding the house and the island had three cemeteries on it, one in an old churchyard (the church was gone), one in the middle of marshland and one on the upper end of the island. Now the cemeteries are "overboard."

The inhabitants of Hollands Island shared many Island names and relations such as Parks, Bradshaw, Pruitt, and Dize, along with names and relations from Somerset County, MD. They shared the same Methodist religion and preachers as Tangier, Smiths Island and all the islands in the bay. Traveling up and down the bay these ministers would "island hop" to each island including Hollands about once a month to hold services, baptisms and marriages, usually on a weekday. During the time that a minister was not present services and prayer meetings would be held by Class leaders of the church.

Joshua Thomas, "The Parson of the Islands", married Charlotte (Lottie) Bradshaw, the daughter of Richard Bradshaw, after his first wife Rachel died on Tangier in 1814. Lottie, a young girl of about 15, was living on Hollands Island when Joshua Thomas got Richard's consent to marry her. "Richard said, 'if she agrees I will,' so Joshua gave her a sermon while she was milking a cow. She said, 'If the lord insists, I will marry you.'"

The people on the Island lived very simple lives. In the early 1800 censuses they were listed as farmers and by 1850 most of them were listed as watermen. In 1918, with the Bay encroaching on them, most of the inhabitants moved off to the mainland, taking houses and even some graves of their dead with them.

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