Mashoes

… community on the NE shore of the mainland of Dare County on Albemarle Sound. Legend relates that it is named for Peter Michieux or Mashows who, with his family, was shipwrecked on a nearby beach in the eighteenth century. He was washed ashore with his wife and child clinging to him. When he regained consciousness, he found both were dead. The shock of the experience shattered his reason, and 20 years later he sat with his back to a cypress tree and died. His skeleton and a board on which he had rudely carved the account of his tragic experience were discovered years later. The name, in spite of the legend, may be of Indian origin; John White's map, 1585, shows an Indian village named Mashawatoc on the E Virginia shore.