(Editor’s Note: The following is the latest installment of an ongoing series on the history of Assateague to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of the barrier’s island designation as a National Seashore as part of the National Park System in 1965. Park officials and their allied partners are holding a series of events throughout the year to celebrate the anniversary.)
ASSATEAGUE — The arrival and passage of President’s Day last month provided an opportunity to look back at Assateague Island’s history of visits from the nation’s chief executives.
Assateague this year is marking the 50th anniversary of its official designation as a National Seashore in 1965. Prior to 1965, the barrier island for over a century was considered ripe for development similar to Ocean City to the north. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating the Assateague Island National Seashore and preserving it and protecting it from future development.
Johnson’s action was the first by a sitting president on behalf of Assateague, but it was certainly not the last. In the decades since, other presidents have visited Assateague, some on business and others for pleasure. The following is a look at some of the historic presidential visits to the barrier island.
Richard Nixon 1972
President Richard Nixon visited Assateague in August of 1972, just months before his re-election. According to historical accounts, Nixon arrived on Assateague as the guest of Thomas McCabe, the chairman of the board of the Scott Paper Company at his lavish former residence on the barrier island.
Called Camp Genezar, the 30-room summer home was nestled among the 10-foot dunes along the Atlantic Ocean in the Maryland side of the island. According to newspaper articles from the day, Nixon spent a weekend at the lavish summer home and strolled the beaches away from the summer crowds and considered the estate as a potential presidential seaside retreat.
According to a New York Times article about the presidential visit, “President Nixon took a leisurely two-mile stroll along the beach today. Mr. Nixon took advantage of warm, sunny weather to walk in the beach with three friends who came with him on Friday to an isolated beach house on this narrow, sandy island.”
McCabe owned the estate until 1979 at which point it became the property of the National Park Service. The NPS utilized the extravagant former summer home until it met its demise during a storm in 1992 that closed the island for three weeks.
Bill Clinton 2000
While Nixon’s visit was merely a pleasurable retreat, President William Jefferson Clinton arrived on Assateague on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend in 2000 for a different purpose.
Clinton arrived on the island with a host of national, state and local politicians and dignitaries, hordes of media and, of course, a bevy of Secret Service agents on the ground and in the air. Clinton chose Assateague as a pristine location to announce two new executive orders aimed at protecting the country’s oceans and coral reefs.
From a sun-swept impromptu stage on Assateague, Clinton directed the Departments of Commerce and the Interior to create a national mission for “managing pristine beaches and every kind of marine habitat.”
The announcements were part of a larger Clinton initiative to establish a Marine Protected Area Center through NOAA. In addition, Clinton from Assateague directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make efforts to reduce pollution of beaches, coasts, and oceans by strengthening water quality protections for marine waters, which, in part, provided the basis for the Clean Water Act.
After Clinton announced his initiatives for stronger protections for beaches and oceans, he shook hands with local elected officials and other dignitaries before being swept away by helicopter. He was the last sitting president to visit the barrier island.
Presidential Yacht “Despatch”
While the Nixon and Clinton visits were the only documented presidential visits to Assateague, roughly a century before, the presidential yacht “Despatch,” which was the official yacht of five different presidents near the end of the 19th century, foundered off the coast of Assateague and sunk in about 20 feet of water within sight of the shore.
The “Despatch” was the official presidential yacht of five presidents including Rutherford Hayes, James
A presidential yacht called the “Despatch” was traveling from New York to Washington in 1891 when it reportedly sunk during a storm off Assateague. Submitted Photo
Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. The “Despatch” carried President Cleveland to the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in New York in October 1886, but would last only another five years.
The “Despatch” was traveling from New York to Washington via the Potomac River in October 1891 when it ran into a sudden squall off the coast of Assateague. The “Despatch” was returning to Washington with only its captain and crew aboard in order to take President Harrison and the Secretary of the Navy on a tour of the defenses along the Potomac, but failed to show up.
The yacht, built in 1874, was 174 feet long and over 25 feet wide, but it was no match for the sudden storm off the coast of Assateague on October 10, 1891. According to historical accounts, the crew on the “Despatch” mistakenly took the light from the Assateague Island Lighthouse as the Winter Shoals Lightship and ran aground on a sandbar about 75 yards off the beach of the barrier island. The ship immediately began to break up in the heavy surf and sank in about 20 feet of water.
The crew of about 80 survived and made it to shore, but the presidential yacht could not be saved. By early the next morning, the ship’s stern was under water and debris was washing up on the shore. Curiosity seekers gathered boxes of cigars, canned hams, candles along with pieces of the historic vessel as their closest brush with presidents over a century before Nixon visited the island in 1972.