Hog Island (Machipongo, Virginia)

About

Hog Island is one of the Virginia Barrier Islands located southeast of Exmore in Northampton County, Virginia, and is a part of the Virginia Coast Reserve of The Nature Conservancy. The island, then known as Machipongo Island was first settled in 1672 by a group of 22 English colonists. The island was later abandoned and remained uninhabited until around the time of the American Revolution when it was resettled. In the late 1800s, at least five lavish hunting and fishing clubs that primarily catered to wealthy sportsmen from the Northeast were established on Virginia's barrier islands; one of the largest and most lavish of these clubs was in the town of Broadwater, Virginia, on Hog Island. After defeating incumbent Benjamin Harrison in the 1892 U.S. presidential election to reclaim the White House thus becoming the first person elected to two non-consecutive terms as President of the United States, Grover Cleveland accepted an invitation to visit the Broadwater Club for 10 days of waterfowl hunting on Hog Island. President Cleveland returned to the Broadwater Club the following summer to go fishing. While on the island Cleveland visited lighthouse keeper George Doughty and inspected the 1853 Hog Island Light that was by then threatened by shoreline erosion. Construction began on a new lighthouse a year later and was completed in 1895. Founded in the mid-19th century the to

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