Nearly 400 years ago, an Englishman, Capt. John Smith, stepped on the sand here—maybe this very spot—the first stop on his remarkable exploration voyage up the Rappahannock from the fledgling colony of Jamestown. What happened here is not lost on locals, and people like Bob Lynch, pastor of Zoar Baptist Church in nearby Deltaville. Lynch had just finished a message on the weekend after July 4, that harkened back to Smith’s legacy and the very first moments of the land that has become America. Zoar church has had interdenominational beach services for 26 years now. Especially after the events of Sept. 11, “You think about what we’re doing here. How the country was founded and how it has evolved. You think about the history of this place,” Lynch said. “You take these houses down, you take everything away, and it’s the same water, sand, beach, trees. We are probably very much a part of the beginning of this nation. Boy, when you think about that. ”
 GOING ASHORE
Stingray Point, or simply Stingray as the locals call it, is the southern tip of land at the mouth of the Rappahannock. On nautical charts, a black dot marks the spot, about half a mile offshore, where the old Stingray lighthouse once stood. It’s a laid-back place of bungalows, marinas and summer homes all linked by a small ribbon of highways and a sense of community; the soul of the place resides in the water and pungent sulfur smell of the marshes that snake back in from dozens of tiny bays. In late-summer mornings, the brown tandem wings of skates and stingrays slice through the water just offshore.
Smith’s stop at Stingray Point is described in his journal, “The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles.” Smith and his party—six soldiers, five gentlemen and a doctor—probably had trouble getting all the way to shore because the water then—as now—was shallow even at high tide. Their barge—a wooden vessel of maybe 30 feet with a single sail and outfitted with oars—would have been heavy and hard to drag up toward the beach. The water was teeming with fish, and Smith quickly figured out the easiest way to catch them: skewering them with his sword. Smith, according to one of his men, stabbed a stingray and was taking it off the blade when the sharp tail barb struck his arm. No blood nor wound was seen, but a little blue spot. The torment was instantly so extreme that in four hours had so swollen his hand, arm and shoulder we all with much sorrow [anticipated] his funeral and prepared his grave.” Luckily for Smith, the ship’s doctor, Walter Russell, applied an ointment and by evening, Smith was feeling so much better that he ate the offending creature for supper. Smith, no doubt happy to leave, dubbed the place Stingray Isle, and the name stuck. There’s a historical marker on State Route 33 in Deltaville commemorating the incident.
SOUL OF THE WATER Penny Hoar’s family has lived on Stingray Point for two generations. Her parents built a house, and like a migratory creature with an irresistible urge to find her way back home, she followed. “I’ve been coming here ever since I was 6 years old. I’d come down and spend all summer,” said Hoar, who owns several lots now and is building a garden on a plot of ground where a hotel—the Old Red Barn—used to stand. “As a kid, this is all I thought about. I love the peace and quiet, to go out and walk the beaches.”
“It’s a small community, and a lot of people are related to everybody else,” she said, adding with a smile, “Everybody knows everybody else’s business.” On summer weekends, Deltaville swells with tourists and weekenders who come down to stay at their cottages, or head to one of several marinas to play on their boats. Hoar prowls her neighborhood in a golf cart to politely check on anyone who doesn’t look familiar. She and Brenda Hudgins, a Deltaville native and friend from childhood, often go out to sit on a large rectangular chunk of concrete on her garden plot overlooking the water. The block is a remnant of the porch of the hotel which burned decades ago. “If you don’t look behind, you can pretend you’re still on the porch,” Hoar said. Iva Yates, 97, reckons she’s the oldest person in town. She lives on the main drag, a couple miles from the water, just a few doors down from the house where she was born. She still lives on her own, with help from a multitude of family and friends, and grabs a cane to show visitors around her white frame house nestled into a grove of blue hydrangeas. On a recent Sunday morning, she was having lunch—pancakes and blackstrap molasses. “I remember when there was nothing down there” on the point,” said Yates, whose father was a fisherman and a farmer. As a girl, she’d ride down to the water in a horse-drawn wagon. All that was there was the occasional farmhouse and orchards. The pine groves and thick marsh that sheltered native Americans and greeted Smith have largely succumbed to erosion and development. Her uncle Billy was the lighthouse keeper. As a young woman, she worked at another hotel—the Samoor, named after town businessman Sammy Moore—along the shore. Later, she worked as a nurse for many years. “Now all of that’s gone.” As a girl in grade school, she learned the three R’s and a little history. She knows the John Smith story well. Of the stingray story: “That’s one of the first things I learned. They sting you, and you know it.” She laughed, “But, of course, I wasn’t there then.”
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