Little is left of the Beebe family ranch — at least as most people know it.
The once-sprawling property was memorialized in the beloved 1947 children’s book “Misty of Chincoteague,” which tells the story of wild ponies that roamed the sandy terrain. Since then, much of the site has been replaced by vacation homes and a trailer park, and just a few horses are left in a crumbling stable.
The end seemed inevitable this year when its owners started receiving six-figure offers to sell the last piece of the fabled ranch on an island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore. They simply could no longer afford to take care of the remaining 10 acres, they said.
But then, a tiny local museum on Chincoteague Island came up with an improbable plan: It would match the first purchasing bid itself, raising $625,000 in five months to save the property from being paved over.
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“We really decided we can’t afford not to buy it,” said the museum’s director, Cindy Faith. “We just have to put this out there to the world and hope that people will follow through on what they say — they really love this story and that [author] Marguerite Henry and ‘Misty’ really mean something.”
Late last month, her wild plan for this island of wild ponies became reality. The Museum of Chincoteague Island closed its deal with two elderly Beebe siblings on June 30, promising to restore what is left of the ranch to the property that inspired Henry during her visit.
“People who want to think about Chincoteague from bygone times, and that nostalgic feeling of ponies from first coming here 50 or 60 years ago, will be able to remember that,” Faith said. “For this little museum to raise that kind of money in that short a time is miraculous.”
The story of ‘Misty’
There is little question that the Beebe family ranch, as it is known by locals, has seen better days.
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When Henry, the author, visited Chincoteague Island in 1946, the property took up 100 acres that stretched across the southern end of the island, tended to by the multigenerational family that she wrote into her book. Misty herself was a real pony on the ranch, as was her foal, Stormy.
The novel’s “Grandpa and Grandma” — better known in real life as Clarence and Ida Beebe — made room for 150 wild ponies to roam and graze on the pasture. Although Clarence Beebe officially owned them and branded them with his initials, they were just as wild as parts of the herd that roamed other areas along the shore.
“You couldn’t go up and pet them. They would bite you and kick you and they were very shy,” said Billy Beebe, one of the couple’s grandchildren. “It was very interesting to see all those wild ponies come up when I was little.”
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The island’s pony culture became the heart of Henry’s classic novel, which tells of two children, Paul and Maureen Beebe — named after Billy’s cousins — who captured a wild pony and her foal, Misty, on a neighboring island.
The novel boomed in popularity, sparking a series of follow-up books and even a movie. But as a real estate boom turned the quiet fishing village into a busy seaside getaway, the real-life sequel to “Misty” became “a sad story of progress, commercialization and decay,” as one 1989 Washington Post article called it.
When Ida Beebe died in the 1960s, her will divvied up the property among nearly a dozen children, many of whom sold off their pieces after moving away.
Big chunks became a mobile home park. Billy Beebe’s widowed mother, unable to pay mounting property taxes with her Social Security benefits and salary as a 70-year-old high school cook, sold off another 13 acres, The Post reported in 1989.
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The whole thing shrank into a makeshift tourist attraction that offered biweekly tours. After Misty died, she was taxidermied and stuffed, and four years ago, the barn that she once lived in went down in flames.
Saving the ranch
In January, Billy Beebe and his sister decided enough was enough. They were getting too old to take care of what was left of the increasingly expensive property, and — with plenty of grandchildren of their own — it was time for the family ranch to take care of them.
As word spread around Chincoteague, they got an enticing offer from a developer to buy their combined land for $625,000. (Billy Beebe declined to identify the prospective buyer, though his wife said that person was likely to erect houses or perhaps a motel on much of the land.)
Faith, the museum director, decided she had to act. It seemed all too likely, she said, that this historic piece of the island could end up being paved over entirely.
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“There’s no promise they would save the house. Land is very coveted here in Chincoteague,” said Faith, who moved to the island at age 7 and has lived here on and off ever since. “There’s very limited places you can build, and people are snapping up houses everywhere.”
(Home sale prices on the island, which is about 40 square miles, shot up from an average of about $195,000 in 2018 to $318,000 this year.)
And so together with the Beebes, she looked for money anywhere and everywhere she could — with seemingly the whole island rallying behind her.
“If we can raise the funds in what can only be called a colossal, grassroots effort,” she wrote on a GoFundMe page, “we can preserve the ranch for future generations, keep a treasured part of Chincoteague intact and support the mission of the museum to protect our history.”
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The effort was indeed colossal: The museum, which counts only two full-time staff members and another two dozen volunteers, pushed to race toward the finish line in a matter of months. Its annual earnings from ticket sales often equal just as much as the home price they were chasing, according to tax records.
A few local girls painted shells and sold them in Chincoteague’s tiny downtown, donating their proceeds to the cause. One wealthy island resident offered a $100,000 matching challenge. Letters poured in from near and far to the museum, sometimes with only a few dollars tucked in the envelope.
“I grew up as a horse-obsessed little girl who read every horse book I could get my hands on,” one handwritten letter said. “I am honored to be able to give to support your efforts to preserve and share the property with all.”
Perhaps most notable was a fundraiser that involved some of the wild ponies themselves.
Every year, the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company organizes a “pony swim” in which the horses go from Assateague to Chincoteague islands along the Maryland and Virginia shore and some are auctioned off. One foal sold as a fundraiser for the museum went for $40,500, breaking records.
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Now the property will be run by the museum — and the next generation, Faith noted, will be able to see firsthand the place described in a book read around the world.
Billy Beebe, who is moving to a duplex up the street, said he took solace in knowing he will be able to show off the restored site to his grandchildren.
“It’s going to be fantastic,” said Beebe, a 69-year-old retired shipyard worker. “This is going to be preserved for them in the future, and they can come see where I grew up when I was little.”
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