A goodbye party with over 300 children and 160 adults in attendance was held by Henry in Wayne for Misty when she left for Chincoteague. Īfter being purchased by Marguerite Henry as a weanling in November 1946, and spending her early life at Henry's Wayne, Illinois home, she was moved back to the Beebe Ranch in Chincoteague in 1957. Her hoof prints are impressed in the cement of the sidewalk outside the Roxy Movie Theatre in Chincoteague.

Misty was a palomino pinto, whose coloration and markings included a large patch of white on her side shaped much like the United States. Although these horses also were domesticated in real life, they too provided inspiration to Henry for the wild ponies portrayed in the novel. As in the book, however, she was in fact sired by a chestnut pinto stallion named Pied Piper, from a smokey-black pinto dam called Phantom.

The actual Misty was foaled in domesticity in 1946, on Chincoteague, at the Beebe Ranch, not in the wild on Assateague Island as told in Henry's novel. Misty was inspired by a real-life Chincoteague Pony of the same name. Misty remains behind with Paul and Maureen. Paul releases Phantom, and she gallops to join Pied Piper and the herd as they return to freedom on their ancestral island. Phantom wins, but the next day becomes distressed when she sees the herd she once belonged to, led by a stallion called Pied Piper, being released to swim back to Assateague. Paul and Maureen eventually break the Phantom to ride, and the next year Paul races her on Pony Penning Day. Paul and Maureen are distressed, but they end up being able to buy Phantom and Misty because the original buyer's son won a colt in the yearly raffle and then decided he didn't need another pony, and chose the colt from the raffle. However, a man from the mainland buys the pair of ponies for his son before Paul and Maureen can give their money to the fire chief. Paul and Maureen save enough to buy Phantom, and Paul is able to capture her on the roundup because she is slowed down by her new foal, Misty. Paul and Maureen work to earn money to buy a Chincoteague Pony mare named the Phantom, who has escaped the roundup men on Pony Penning Day for the past two years. The book then tells the story of two children, Paul and Maureen Beebe, who live with their grandparents on Chincoteague Island.

The ponies in the hold of the galleon swim to Assateague Island and become feral as the years and eventually the centuries pass. Misty of Chincoteague begins with an account of the wreck of a Spanish galleon off the coast of Virginia.

Misty of chincoteague 1947