Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Onancock, VA

Onancock (pronounced oh-NAN-kok) is an incorporated town in Accomack County on Virginia's Eastern Shore, the strip of Virginia separated from the rest of the state by the Chesapeake Bay.

According to its Virginia highway marker, Onancock was founded in 1680, making it one of the oldest continuously settled towns on the Eastern Shore.

Onancock had a population of 1,169 at the 2020 census, down 7.4% from 1,263 in 2010, within a town area of about 1.05 square miles at an elevation of just 16 feet on Onancock Creek.

The 2000 census counted 656 households in Onancock, when the town's population stood at 1,525.

In November 1782, thirteen months after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Commodore Zedechiah Whaley sailed up Onancock Creek and recruited 25 local men under Lt. Colonel John Cropper for his campaign against British war barges.

The resulting fight, the Battle of Kedges Strait on November 30, 1782, ended with Whaley's surrender and is remembered as the last naval action of the American Revolution — fought on the very day the preliminary Treaty of Paris was drafted.

In the mid-19th century Onancock was a stop on the stagecoach route between Wilmington, Delaware, and Eastville, Virginia.

Four Onancock properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Onancock Historic District, Cokesbury Church, the Hopkins and Brother Store, and Ker Place, the latter now the headquarters and museum of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society.

Nearby stands Onley, the home of Virginia governor Henry A. Wise, who served from 1856 to 1860.

STAR Transit provides public bus service linking Onancock with Onley and other communities across Accomack and Northampton counties on the Eastern Shore.