Written history of the area dates back to the earliest colonial times, when refuge uplands were farmed and wetlands and waters were hunted and fished.  In the early 1600's, Captain John Smith described the area that is the refuge as: "...a faire Bay compassed but for the mouth with fruitful and delightsome land... Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation." 

Military Presence

The strategic location at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay encouraged military uses of the area in the years before the refuge was established.  At the beginning of World War II, much of the land which is now refuge was acquired by the federal government and named Fort John Custis, after a prominent eighteenth century resident of Northampton County.  During the war, large bunkers housed 16-inch guns designed to protect naval bases and shipyards in Virginia Beach and Norfolk.  In 1950, the U.S. Air Force acquired Fort John Custis, renaming it the Cape Charles Air Force Station.  Radar towers and additional buildings were built by the Air Force, which occupied the area until 1981.

WWII gun used at Fort John Custis

Aerial view of WWII gun battery

Radar towers used by the Air Force

As a barrier island, Fisherman Island has a much different history than Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge.  The earliest documentation of an island in the vicinity of Fisherman Island is from an 1815 navigational chart of the Chesapeake Bay.  Two small islands, named the Bird Islands are shown on the chart just south of Cape Charles.  Maps prior to 1815 show only shoals in the area and it is probable that Fisherman Island did not become permanently exposed until around this time.  

The first accurate map of Fisherman Island and the Isaacs Islands to the east is from a Coast Survey of 1852, which shows Fisherman to be about 25 acres.  While all of Virginia's other barrier islands are shrinking in size and giving way to the constant battering of the sea, Fisherman Island continues to grow, reaching over 1850 acres at the present.  

Human history is almost as long as the existence of the island itself.  Early residents used Fisherman as a hunting and fishing spot.  Later in history it was used as a quarantine station for European immigrants heading to Baltimore and a military installation for harbor defense during World War I and II.  Now, it is a National Wildlife Refuge for protection of coastal species such as brown pelicans and American oystercatchers. 

Hunt shack on Fisherman Island

Military compound on Fisherman Island