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The Treasure of Assateague Island is a blend of real life boyhood adventures and old Eastern Shore tales. There was a fishing trawler named the Rachel out of Chincoteague, Virginia. The captain (Fin) and his brother (Burl) were the crew. They went out one day and they didn't come back. The story told to me was that the Rachel sank because one of them probably went into the e... More

The Treasure of Assateague Island is a blend of real life boyhood adventures and old Eastern Shore tales. There was a fishing trawler named the Rachel out of Chincoteague, Virginia. The captain (Fin) and his brother (Burl) were the crew. They went out one day and they didn't come back. The story told to me was that the Rachel sank because one of them probably went into the engine room with a lit cigarette and she blew up.

My sister told the other tale to me. Two fishermen lived in a small fishing village on the seaside with their wives. They went out fishing one morning, but they weren't having much luck. They decided to go over to Cobb Island, one of the offshore barrier beaches to swim and to hunt for shells. They told their wives that they had found something very valuable but that they couldn't bring it back home with them. They told them not to tell anyone about it, assembled the necessary equipment, and went back the next day to recover it; but they never returned. My sister thought that they had found something so big that it took special equipment to handle it. They were returning home when a storm came up and they sank with the "treasure".

I have blended these two events with my own experiences from living a very adventurous life on Cincoteague in the late '40s and early '50s. The fictional part about Blackbeard is historically accurate. The story is told from life experiences.

The Treasure of Assateague Island is about a twelve-year-old boy named Frankie and his friend Skip and the treasure they find on Assateague Island. The treasure was buried hundreds of years ago by Blackbeard the Pirate. The story relates their attempts to recover the treasure; and the attempts of two villains (Fin and Burl) to take it from them. But, it is more than that. It is about tales that were told and a life that still exists in pockets on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland but is fading fast. It is about a strong and independent people. It is about the beauty of the place and a time not so long ago.

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