JAMES BANAGAN

TRANSCRIPT

December 10, 2003

Interviewed by Anna Leong and Victoria Jones

St. Mary's College of Maryland St. Mary's City, Maryland

00:41

Q: This is Friday, the 21st of November, and we are interviewing Jim Banagan in his house on the St. Clement's Bay, and the interviewers are Anna Leong and Victoria Jones.

A: I'm Jim Banagan. I live at Abell on St. Clement's Bay in the Seventh District. I have worked around the river most of my life, the first ten years, as a boy living while I was going to school to make a few dollars. Crabbing in the summer, oystering in the winter from the time about ten to twenty, then I ... First, when I was ten years old, I used to go out in the river with my father. He was a waterman. My grandfather was a waterman, and his father was a waterman. I used to go out and help him cull oysters. And as I grew a little older, I started having a skiff and a boat of my own, and I tonged oysters then, they were plentiful and you could catch 'em right around the shores. What they called nippering, you had a boat with a little set of tongs, nippers they called 'em. You could catch one oyster at a time when the water was clear, and I used to do that to get money for to buy treats, have a few dollars to spend at school. And high school, I had money to buy clothes and go out, because watermen were having a rough time back in the forties and although the oysters were plentiful, they weren't bringing nothing but a dollar a bushel. A dollar went a long ways in those days. And then as I got older, I went in the seafood business after I got out of high school for about a year. I had a little truck and I caught hard crabs in the summer, and sometimes dredged oysters in the summer if somebody wanted 'em real bad. There weren't too many policemen then. And then I oystered one season and it was real cold and after that I went to work in the store for a while, and then I went in the Coast Guard for three years, came out, and went to work for the telephone company for twenty years. And then I went in business for myself, it was janitorial lawn maintenance business, for ten more years. And after that I retired. During the time, I still oystered when I worked for the telephone company. I oystered on Saturdays. And I worked in the janitorial lawn maintenance business, I still oystered; in fact, I still oyster. I go out and catch a mess of oysters, but now it takes about three hours to catch a bushel where I used to catch a bushel in about fifteen, twenty minutes.

04:37

A: Right where I live on St. Clement's Bay there were several oyster bars, now there's none. The closest place where you can really catch a few oysters is the Wicomico, which is about ten miles from here. Only about half a mile from the Potomac River, that also is all the oysters are dead from MX and Dermo [oyster parasites, MX is also referred to as MSX]. I have some planting ground in St. Patrick's Creek but that, they closed the creek up for pollution, so that's no good anymore. I don't know what's going to happen to the oyster business. It looks like we're going to have to go the way of Louisiana, Texas, and Washington state, and turn it over to private beds. I know the watermen don't like it that way, but it doesn't seem like the state's gonna give us enough money to build on their own. They just give us a few million dollars and they seem like they plant those, and they don't last very long. Dermo gets 'em, and I think they're just gonna have to come out with the Asian oyster, which they say is disease-free. Aquaculture root, where you have floats and things like that, that seems to be working but I don't think anybody'll get rich, maybe you'll survive off of it unless you're a big company, a very big company.

06:17

A: Right now I think, I read the paper the other day, we have five watermen oystering in this area, and it used to probably be about five hundred. Every creek, every house on this creek, they were all watermen. Now there may be two watermen on each creek, St. Patrick's, Canoe-neck Creek, White's Neck Creek ... You can look out here on the bay today, it's oyster season now ... and you don't see a boat.

06:48

Q: What did it used to be like? Can you describe it?

A: It used to be at daybreak the oyster boats were going out in the creeks. Usually, they'd have a captain and two people to tong, and to cull the oysters. Usually two tong and one cull the oysters. The oysters have to be three inches, and they have to be clean of mussels. And they would go out in the morning, oyster 'til about two o'clock. Then they had market all over. They had local oyster houses, plus they had oyster barges that came from Crisfield came over and bought the oysters. Each one would raise it a quarter or lower it a quarter or whatever the market was. Then they ... they made a fair living, after the war. But it's pretty rough, you have to work in the ice and the cold ... But it's a good way of living, you know, you're not tied down to somebody on your back telling you to do this and telling you to do that. You're sort of free ... But it was a hard life. Many of them wouldn't give it up. I know my grandfather did it all his life, and my father did it. He tried different jobs but he came back to the river.

08:31

A: They eventually got other jobs as the oysters died away, faded away. It started I guess about ten, fifteen years ago, maybe, when Dermo and MX ... It seems the salinity, the water control, if the water's real salty this Dermo and MX thrive. And it just kills the oyster. And then we had hurricanes which came through, and that's sort of too much fresh water, that kills some of them. The clam industry was the same way, that's completely gone. The only thing we have left now is a few crabs, few fish ...

09:27

Q: What do you remember most about oystering ...

A: Well, I'd come home from school about three o'clock, and then I'd get in the skiff. And this was a lot later, after I stopped oystering with my father. And I would go in the planting ground, that was my grandfather's, and he said I could take 'em up so I was pretty lucky there. And I would probably catch ten bushels in an evening, on Saturday we could work all day. It wasn't too bad, I was doing ... When I went to school I had as much money as anybody else [laughs]. We were all farmers and watermen in those days, 'til the base [Patuxent River naval base] moved down here in '41.

10:15

Q: Do you think that was a good change?

A: Yeah, 'cause after that, people started getting jobs on the base. They wanted people to work too because most of the good able-bodied youngsters were drafted in the service. Then after that... I guess I ended up going in the service during the Korean War. I got a chance to travel, I went in the Coast ... I was in the National Guard, then into the Coast Guard. Then I went to California, boot camp, and to [unintelligible] Connecticut to school and then I got on a ship and traveled allover the North Atlantic on patrols. I ended up the last eight months on [unintelligible]. So I was lucky there, and then out to Norfolk and took care of the Potomac River and I was almost at home on the weekend. And then after that, I went to work for the telephone company for twenty years. Then I found out that the janitors were making more money than I was, so I went to work for ... started my own business. Ended up with about two hundred fifty people, we worked in southern Maryland, around D.C. and Virginia. It was very successful, we traveled all around the world, my wife and I have. We really enjoyed it.

11:57

Q: You mentioned that your family did its oystering on rented grounds or private grounds. What are the differences between those and common grounds?

A: The only difference is, well you own the ground, the private ground and then what they ... Well, most of the better watermen had -- well, can't say 'better' but the ones who were a little, guess they had a few more dollars, they had their own private ground and when you went out and caught oysters, sometimes the market was very slow. Certain times of year, if it was too hot or it got too ... a lot of oysters, and then they would go oystering and they'd bring 'em horn the natural bars and you could put them on your private ground, and you could take 'em up in the winter later on when the market went up and sell 'em. Or you could go, we used to go down to St. Mary's City, and right in the St. Mary's River they have this good place for what they call oyster strike. And they would be, the oysters would strike on the shells and there would be little oysters maybe an inch long. You could buy a boatload and put it on your planting ground, part of it, and then two years, three years later you had, the oysters were about four inches and you made money that way. But today there's no seed oysters, half of the private grounds, nobody's been working them lately so you need shells and stuff to keep the oysters from settling down in the mud. I feel most of them are just gone, you have to get a lot of shell and things to put 'em back on. Unless you've got one on the sandy bottom or something, but on the creek, it's mostly mud. Just been sitting three for years with no use, just going down.

14:04

Q: Do you remember any names in particular of the watermen that used to be in the area, that used to oyster around here?

A: Well, there were ... I guess I can start ... There were Arnolds. There were Banagans. B-A-N-A-G-A-N. Our name was changed right before the Civil War, we were Branagans, and my aunt didn't like the name, so she changed it to Banagan. Then there were Browns, there were Fonces, [unintelligible], Weitzels ... Russells ... This is just around the Seventh District, the Seventh is just about all the water, they say we're sort of clannish here. We like to ... St. George's Island, they say they were, you know, back in the sticks or ... talk like the old English or no English, or whatever you might want to say. But there were hundreds of them, I just can't think of all the names.

15:25

A: Well, we, everybody they say you know used to have to get a permit to come in the Seventh District. They were rough, fighting, this and that, you know, and they didn't want anybody, you know ... We were watermen, we liked to -- we didn't want the Eastern Shore guys to come on our oyster bars and so on and so forth. We didn't own 'em but we, we didn't ... And Virginia men, Virginia men used to come over and work our areas. Nomini Bay is right across the way ...

16:06

Q: Did you have any trouble with them?

A: Yeah, that's how the Oyster Wars started.

16:13

Q: Can you tell us about them?

A: Well, the Virginia men would come over at night and drudge [local pronunciation of dredge] all the oyster bars and stuff like that. This side didn't do it, they only kind of ... they would ... The policemen mostly were -- most of the policemen were from this side but most of the Virginia men came over at night. They shot at each other and some of our guys shot back at theirs. Then the policemen would chase 'em, you know, and then some of our guys started dredging oysters then too. I heard one guy say that he had a dredge line shot right out of his hand by a policeman. And then the Maryland policemen killed, shot and killed a Virginia man up in Colonial Beach. It was just bad times, it really was. They had seemed like, I don't know why, they had, I guess they had more money, I think. Mostly companies would furnish, the oyster companies would have big fast boats, two motors in them and bigger dredges, and they could come at night, get more so than just the little guy over here with his tongs. And they didn't have the money that the Virginia men had. And I think most of the big oyster companies put a lot of those up. So that was the Oyster Wars, they went on for years.

17:45

Q: In your story you mentioned that someone got a line shot out of his hand ...

A: Well, one policeman I think that shot the guy, I think he retired, but ... They tried to keep them straight but they didn't ... What happened to 'em? Well, they were around, but the biggest squabble was between the watermen themselves. I can remember hearing 'em dredging at night, they sounded like a bunch of bees humming out there. And some more were wounded and all, but I don't know the stories of all of 'em. Part of it was during my time but I still don't remember too much about it. I wasn't out there.

18:48

Q: Can you describe oyster planting to us, the seeding the oysters in private areas or whatever ...

A: Well, that's ... what they did ... Do you mean planting the oysters, the small oysters? As they had, like I say, St. Mary's River was a seeding area for the Potomac River just about. Seemed like every river -- the Rappahannock -- each one had a certain area where the oysters would seed. They would spawn. And then they would, the oysters they had a lot of small shells and all, and the spawn would stick to the shell. And then after the spat got about, like I say, a half an inch to an inch, you could have probably fifty or sixty spat on a shell. And as they grow, some of them would die because they were too thick, but then you had maybe seven or eight oysters on a shell. When they was small, you put 'em on your planting ground and they just multiplied. And say for, for ... those oysters were called a tub then, just a little bit larger than a bushel. One tub of spat would probably equal five or six tubs of oysters in three years. If you left it there four years, they'd be larger yet. But most of the oysters, you could catch them after three inches so, they caught 'em usually when they got three inches. But if you left them in the planting grounds, you could leave them in as long as you wanted, so sometimes they'd be four, five inches. If you didn't have a good market and they stayed that year, then you kept them another year, then you just had large oysters like that.

21:00

Q: What are some of the more famous oyster bars that used to be, the ones that were the most productive?

A: Probably, the most famous would be Heron Island Bar which is two bars out in the middle of the Potomac. You can see 'em from here. It's just a shell bar, comes out of the middle of the river. And then between St. Clement's Island and Colton's Point, there was a place called the Swash, and that was very good, for some of the better oysters. Place right over across the Canoe-Neck Creek right here is Bluff Woods, and that was a very good bar. Another one's called Old Wreck you can see from here this way, was a good bar. There was an old boat wreck there one time, so they called it Old Wreck. And up in the narrows, which is Canoe-Neck Creek, was very good. And there was Sheep's Head, and Bluff Woods, I named that one. I'll have to get the map and call some of them off to you later, I can't remember them all.

22:30

Q: Vikki told me you collect oyster memorabilia, what kind of things do you collect?

A: Well, I started collecting about twenty years ago, anything nautical. Tongs, what they call nippers, culling hammers, oyster knives, and oyster cans which have been in for the last ten, fifteen years. After they stopped making cans, they went in the plastic, then it seemed like everyone wanted to start collecting cans. And I've probably got about eight hundred different ones. Pints, quarts, they packed them in bottles and things like that. So I've got them from New Zealand, Scotland, Australia, Canada, Nova Scotia -- that's Canada -- all the states along the East Coast, West Coast, Louisiana, Texas and those areas. It's a lot of fun. There's quite a few, in fact last week we went to the decoy show in Easton. There were probably about a hundred hunters there and they were trading and selling decoys and the oyster tins, they sorta go together. Or crab tins too, but ... It's a lot of fun.

24:11

Q: Vikki also told me that your father owns an oyster shucking house?

A: My father-in-law. He's passed away now, and his nephew is running it. He's just doing it part time because you know, there's very few local oysters. So they have to buy it from Louisiana and Texas. Now, Virginia has a lot of big planting grounds. Some of the creeks over there are completely owned by one oyster packer. So, they do quite well. There used to be, in St. Mary's County, probably about twenty or thirty oyster packers and now there's probably about two or three, and they probably only have two or three shuckers. So, I don't think they're gonna survive much longer.

25:13

Q: How do you feel about that, everything disappearing?

A: It's sad, but I guess it's the time. I think there's a lot pollution, and storms have done it, over-oyster, you know, they've over-fished the grounds. I don't know, like it's gonna be, like in Louisiana, they just have big private companies, so, taking care of them. They hire the local oystermen to take 'em up. Far as I know, it's Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, up in around New York. Long Island Sound, they have quite a few up there. And Washington State.

26:17

Q: When you think about oysters, what do you think, what is the mental picture that you have?

A: Right now, they're very good to eat [laughs]. I love oysters on the half- shell. I love oysters any way they prepare them. You mean by the future of the oysters, or what I think of oysters?

26:44

Q: Past, present -- what your recollections are of oysters and what they mean to you.

A: Well, it's been very good from way back; in fact, right where you're sitting at now was an Indian reservation, and you go out and you dig down about two inches under the soil and you find nothing but oyster shells, so they really enjoyed them. They say back in those times oysters were ... so many oysters they were coming out of the water on low tide. I just ... Right now, as a collector of oyster memorabilia, I like that, I like to eat them. And it was good for the economy at one time. And I would like to see it come back ... It may be, with new, this Asian oyster will work out. It's supposed to be disease-free, grows about three or four inches in a year. And maybe that's the future, I don't know. But the local oyster doesn't look very good at all, they were catching a few up around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge last year, and now this year they're catching very few. Like I say, the Potomac River is just about gone. But I'd like to see it come back.

28:05

Q: How do you think that could happen?

A: Ah, I guess the best way is the Lord will send a good strike of oysters, you know. When they spawn, they have a million oysters at a time, each oyster. So it could come back you know, if there were enough shells out there for them to strike on. If not, maybe the scientists and the aquaculture might be a way. And these Asian oysters to me look like the best way.

28:48

Q: You mentioned the Aquaculture Commission, you actually told me on the phone that you've done some work with them?

A: Yes, I was on the original aqua-culture, state aquaculture commission. We did mostly on fish and catfish, on ponds and stuff like that, but we did some on oysters. We have one down at Ridge, it's been pretty successful, Circle-C, and they seem to be doing fairly good, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of patience. But the oysters are very good. They grow 'em on top of the water where most of the feed is located. They put 'em in floats but you have to get the spat. Then you, after they get about a quarter of an inch, you, then you have to change them, put them in another, separate them. Then they grow another half inch and you change them again, and then they grow about an inch and you change them again. Then that's about it, they're about three inches. But they will grow probably three inches in a year and a half or less, but they are on top of the water and that's where most of the oysters-feed for the oysters are.

30:15

Q: And those oysters affected by the disease?

A: Yeah. They're affected too. They had a good brand at St. George's Island, up St. George's Creek, probably about ten years ago. And they had, and they were doing very well, they got about an inch and a half and the disease ... The water, we didn't have much rain that year and the salinity of the water was real salty and this Dermo and MX killed 'em all.

30:48

Q: So what is the goal of the Aqua-Culture Commission?

A: It's to improve ways of raising oysters and to ... I guess some of the watermen didn't think too much of it because farmers were having all these ponds and stuff dug, and they were raising catfish, and striped bass, and hybrid bass, and tilapia and all that, so. So there's a little bit of competition there but I don't see how it could hurt either one, nobody's gonna hurt each other, but ... Down in Mississippi and Alabama, those places, those're catfish farms are doing very well ... We went down to see them, oh, I guess ten years ago. And the catfish, you know they grow 'em a certain size and most of the time want them for restaurants, they want maybe eight inches of fish, and then they can harvest them when they want them. And they taste good, they don't even have a fishy taste, they're very good. Have you tried 'em? Catfish? So ...

[end of first side of tape]

00:03

Q: So what's your strongest memory of oysters?

A: I guess it goes back to working with my father in the fall. The first year I went out with him that I can remember, in October, the days were warm and the geese were flying over. Lot of oyster boats and everyone telling different stories to each other, because on the oyster bar you, sometimes you're ten foot apart, just about, or used to be. And it was easy ... It was easy but it was hard, I guess I better get to that too, 'cause actually working the tongs were hard, when you're culling oysters, gotta little slot on your culling board about three inches. And that's what you put in there to cull the oysters, and that's pretty easy. The tonging is hard to, to do but the culling is ... the tonger throws the oysters on the culling board, and then the culler, the culling guy has to just go over and sort the small oysters from the large oysters, and then the shell or the mussels that stick to the shell. Most of the oysters have to be knocked off, but it's not too hard to do. And just being out with a bunch of men, just enjoying nature and things. Wild ducks come in October and things like that. I used to like to hunt the ducks and the geese and all but now, after all, I just like to sit back and watch 'em. I don't even like to eat them any more. So.

02:00

Q: Did you used to eat a lot of oysters?

A: Yeah, uh huh. All kinds of seafood. So ... Back then they used to have all kinds of sea food and it was really cooked nice, fresh vegetables and biscuits and all. I can remember going to school, and I hated to take biscuits because all the other kids had loaf bread, which wasn't half as good as biscuits, but ... The food was really good, you had plenty to eat. Not much money, but we had a lot to eat.

02:52

Q: Must have been interesting when Hurricane Isabel came around.

A: Yeah, you can see that sandy part in the yard, that's where it came up. And the end of my pier is gone, and ...

03:08

Q: Did you stay here while it was happening?

A: Mm hmm. Yeah.

03:22

Q: Around what time did you think the oyster population started to decline?

A: I'd say probably about fifteen, twenty years ago.

03:45

Q: When did they start leasing oyster beds?

A: Ah, I don't know. I remember my father and grandfather had them, and that goes back probably eighty years. My father lived to be eighty-four, and he oystered 'til, and worked the river until he was eighty. And after that he set crab-pots on the pier and things like that, so. He had beds, and my grandfather had oyster beds, also. So ... I would say probably a hundred years or more, I don't know.

04:30

Q: Do you remember any stories about what it was like before private oyster beds?

A: No, ... It used to be a rough way, from what I can understand. The boats, a lot of them used to come out of Baltimore and they would have sailing ships, and they would catch the guys around the piers, and uh ... To get a full crew of about five, six men, they would just get 'em drunk and put 'em on the boat, and bring 'em down in Potomac and Chesapeake oystering. And sat the end of the season they would let the boom swing around and knock the guy overboard and just keep on sailing, so it was pretty rough back in there, back around I'd say ... 1860s to about 1920, something like that. They say things were really rough then, but I guess the captain of the skipjack made money, a lot of money, and like they would have to, it was all profit. Half the crew they knocked overboard. That's just stories I've heard. And I've read about it too. But the private grounds have been around as long as I've been around. Very small, some of them about half an acre to probably ten, fifteen acres, something like that. I don't know of anybody using them right now.

06:18

Q: Is that because of the disease?

A: Because of the disease. Yeah, you have to buy the spat from the state. And you don't have to pay 'em much, I guess fifty cents a bushel or something like that, but you bring 'em all up and you plant 'em overboard and ... thousand bushels of oyster that five hundred dollars, fifty cents a bushel, so ... They're just ... It's a lot of work you know, taking them up, bringing them up, and planting them, and then they all die on you. So they just stopped over here. I understand Virginia has quite a few, but not here. And they had trouble too. Last year I heard some of them lost maybe four, five hundred bushels. So, they are having some trouble. The farther up the creeks you go, the more you got fresh water and you don't have as much disease, but. These creeks here all have problems on the Maryland side.

07:31

Q: What was the punishment for illegal dredging? If they catch them, what did the police used to do, did they get fined?

A: For illegal dredging? They could take your boat and fine 'em, put 'em in jail sometimes. But sometimes it was hard to catch 'em because they were dredging and then they would just cut the line, and the dredge would, they couldn't find the dredge they were dredging with. But most times there was somebody on watch, you know you could see the policemen coming from a long distance, they would just go and it was hard to catch' em. But they did catch 'em at times.

08:21

Q: Did you work more with dredging or tonging?

A: Tonging.

08:30

Q: Why did you prefer tonging to dredging?

A: Well, dredging was always against the law so you always working under pressure. Now you could dredge your planting grounds, your private grounds, but in the river you always the chance that you could get caught and then lose your boat and everything.

09:02

Q: Have you ever oystered anywhere else?

A: No.

09:15

Q: Do you remember in particular, a best year of oystering, or a best day of oystering? What that would have been like?

A: Mm. I would say best years for me was probably about '47, '48, '49, '50, something like that. But I can't remember. The best days, but ... Those days you could catch twenty-five, thirty bushels, something like that, but best days ... I don't know.

09:54

Q: Can you describe an ideal oystering day? What the weather was like, what time you'd leave?

A: Beautiful day like today. Temperature probably about sixty, and calm. The tide runs real strong like in the place, name of the Swash, if it's a strong tides running, your tongs, it's hard to work it, you know if you get the ebb tides, you're all right when it's slackwater. But when the tides run strong, the tongs, it's hard to keep 'em on the bottom. But, with the, with the average bar you didn't have a problem. But a sixty degree day, no wind, not a whole lot of tide running. [rumbling noise as a jet goes by overhead]

10:55

Q: When would you go out in the morning?

A: They would go out from sun-up 'til -- I think nowadays you probably have ... you can't start 'til sun-up now. And they'd probably have to quit by two o'clock. At one time you could go oyster all day if you wanted to, but you usually had to stop around two to get your oysters in to sell them, get ready for the next day.

11:30

Q: When you say sell them -- where did they sell them again? What was that like?

A: They sold 'em at local oyster houses or they used to have oyster buy boats or a barge, and it was a boat about twice as big as the kind that was oystering. And everyone went to him, and had to hoist the oysters out and dump 'em in there. Most of the time they took 'em to Crisfield. In fact, they say Crisfield was built on oysters. You know, they shucked so many oysters, they just built a town on top of it. Now, I don't think they do very much over there either.

12:14

Q: You ever been to Crisfield?

A: Mm [nods].

Q: What's it look like?

A: It looks like a waterman's town. They got a big marina there, and they've got three or four restaurants, and they got a drug store, grocery store. They got a motel there. The biggest is the marina there, and they used to have probably twenty-five or thirty oyster houses, but now there's probably two left. It's just like a main street comes through the town. Two shops, two restaurants.

13:01

Q: So, when you think about this issue of private versus public grounds, do you think it was a good step for them to initiate leasing the oyster beds? Did it help?

A: I think so. I think it needed the both. I mean, I'd like to see more beds. Like Washington state, I understand there's nothing but private ground out there. The state doesn't do anything with it, and they're doing very well. Many of the oysters most of you eat today is Louisiana. But the Chesapeake Bay oyster was always one the best oysters there were. And then they used to catch 'em right here, and they'd take the truckloads over to Chincoteague and they'd put them in the creeks and all over there; it was real salty. And then you'd pick 'em up about a month later and you had a real salty oyster. And that was twice the price, but it was twice the work, too 'cause you had to take the oysters here over -- they have a salty taste, but nothing like Chincoteague. And a better flavor, I think.

14:19

Q: You think private property's the way to go?

A: I think yeah, I think everybody --

Q: How would they divide that up, though?

A: Well, Virginia has both. They have -- like, the guys, they might have a couple hundred acres of private ground and then they may have the other bars too, where the state controls part of them. You got the guy that's got the most money, I guess, that's got the oyster houses and the fish houses and all that they have the private ground and they buy the seed oysters and do their thing. And then the state, there's the natural ground and the small oystermen can do that. So it's good if you have both, I think, if enough oysters survive. But evidently the state hasn't put enough money into it to keep 'em going. So it looks like the future is going to be private ground.

15:37

Q: That and the Asian oyster?

A: Mm hmm.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about oystering?

A: No ... the only thing is just I'd like to see it come back like it used to be. It was a good way of life out there. Don't know where you'd find the oystermen now, 'cause most of them have better jobs and they're not out there. Like I say, a day like today is almost perfect. It's just a way of life I hate to see disappear, and it's doing it, it's disappearing fast. Like this county, the whole county probably doesn't have twenty-five or thirty people oystering. Like the farmers, they're doing away with tobacco. I know tobacco's supposed to be bad for you and all that, but if you wanna smoke a case of it, that's your hard luck. I still think it was a way of life I hate to see ... they say it's good, you know, they made medicine and things like that too. I don't know one says it's okay and the other says it isn't -- I don't wanna get in that issue, but anyway I still think it was a way of life. I was talking to a guy the other day down at the grocery store and he said, "You know, ten years ago on a day like today," that was in the fall when they were cutting tobacco --"I sold two hundred sandwiches a day. Today, I sold one." And he said, "Looking about two months, and we're gonna close up." So tobacco, it helped the guy selling tractors and fertilizers and this and that. I know we're supposed to be talking about oysters, but I hate to see oysters go and I hate to see a way of life go ... I'd like to see it come back, but I don't think it'll ever come back like it used to. So I'm glad to see you all are taking some interest in it, and the college is trying to ... at least we'll have a few memories anyway of what it was really, what it was. I wish that it had started a long time ago because like I said, all the real old timers are gone. We did get a chance to talk to some of 'em in like I said, '85, and they used to work in the skipjacks and sailboats and stuff like that, the barges. And since we did this, first started this about four year ago, I guess probably half of them have passed away. All around, a few other things as we go ...

Banagan Oyster Can Tour

Track 3

00:01 Jim Banagan takes us to an aluminum outbuilding on his property, which houses his oyster can collection. Outside, he shows us a dredge.

00:45 He leads us through the first floor of the building, pointing out oystering paraphernalia like a set of tongs and an antique oyster basket he recently purchased at a market on the Eastern Shore.

01:50 Banagan describes a set of tongs to us, and tells how the teeth had to be replaced by a blacksmith every year or so.

02:20 We follow him up to the second floor, where he has a massive collection of oyster cans is all sizes, shapes, and colors.

02:48 He talk about the importance of distinctive graphics, and points out a few examples of such graphics.

03:32 Banagan mentions the value of some of the cans, a few of which reach into the thousands.

04:02 He talks about local oyster companies and show us the cans.

04:40 He mentions a Virginia company which started around George Washington's time. The man who owned the company also had a grocery store and made "oyster money" to give out to customers.

05:14 He points out cans and tells us where they come from.

05:54 He talks about the value of cans featuring Indians (Native Americans on the label).

06:46 He points our more local places and their cans.

06:54 Banagan shows us an antique oyster knife.

06:57 He talks about old rectangular cans which were embossed and soldered around the top, a process which is probably quite dangerous.

07:29 Banagan points out his favorites, some rare and some with great graphics, as well as some local cans.

08:02 He shows us "stock cans," which came from companies who could not afford labels. Instead, they got generic cans and simply stamped the name on the can.

08:23 Banagan points out 5-gallon, 3-galllon, and 1-gallon cans, as well as the buckets that shuckers would fill with oysters.

08:50 He talks about how the war stopped the production of bales so that the metal could be redirected to the war effort.

09:11 Banagan shows us the old oyster crates in which the cans (and in some cases, crabs) were shipped.

10:05 He points out some oyster signs he has collected, and talks about the license numbers all oyster cans were required to have.

10:58 He shows us a scrapbook with oyster paraphernalia and pictures.

11:39 Banagan describes the shucking process, which differs between types of oysters.

11:57 He talks about the oyster festival, and then shows us an advertisement.

12:30 Banagan asks us about our experiences with oysters, and suggests recipes.

13:37 Banagan describes the room as a whole, revisiting sizes and graphics of cans, as well as some equipment he has.

16:09 He mentions oyster knives, and talks about the value of those made by Winchester.

17:14 Banagan talks about the viability of oysters once removed from the water.

18:29 He describes oyster shucking, and talks about possible wages for shuckers.

18:41 He mentions the fact that buckets must now be stainless steel to be used.

18:58 He talks about a Warren Denton's oyster house on Broome's Island which has recently closed.

19:50 Banagan picks out his favorite can and we take a picture of him.

20:49 He points out the Seventh District on a map.

21:28 We ask for some oyster stories, but he shies away for fear of getting people in trouble.

21:51 Banagan shows us a paper label can which features an African American and is called a "nigger head" can. He talks about the fragility of old paper labels.

22:30 He talks about black oysters, and how he doesn't like them.

23:01 He mentions his trip to Asia, and talks about the oysters over there.

24:05 More basic info on oyster cans, descriptions of labels.

25:45 Banagan discusses his start in oyster can collecting, due to his father- in-law's small collection.

27:47 He points out more oyster paraphernalia, before pointing out other, unrelated collections.

Cultural Journalism Recording Log St. Mary's County Oyster Culture Project December 10, 2003 Interviewee: James Banagan

Context: Mr. James Banagan was interviewed for the second time at his home in St. Clement's Island, Maryland, where he is a retired waterman, politician, and collector of marine paraphernalia.

Tape 1, Side A

00:07 Mr. Banagan explains he remembers how the Virginia men had powerful boats, and they were illegally dredging oysters, which started the Oyster War. Maryland watermen had less powerful boats than the Virginia watermen because Virginia was backed by the packers.

00:32 Mr. Banagan explains how this enabled the illegal dredgers to outrun the slower policemen. "And this way they could drudge, some, they could outrun water policemen, and they could run up over the shallow water where the policemen couldn't follow them, they could go up in the creeks and hide."

01:09 Mr. Banagan explains the origin of the name Mosquito Fleet. "And the boats, the outboards, everyone knows what they sound like. So many of them buzzing around, they called it the Mosquito Fleet; it was small and fast and they did very well oystering this way."

01:46 Mr. Banagan recounts a story of a oysterman being chased by police who escaped by steering his boat into and hiding in a duckblind. It was foggy and the policemen went right by.

02:24 Mr. Banagan says that he will check with some of the men if they are comfortable with talking. "Some of them don't like their names, because they think they still might be arrested."

02:45 Mr. Banagan explains what a dory boat is, and how it differed from the larger police boats.

03:11 Mr. Banagan describes the police boats. "Police had something like a yacht, probably about twenty-five to forty-five feet. Had a couple motors, and they were fast, but not half as fast as those little outboard motors."

03:28 Mr. Banagan tells how dredgers would escape detection by cutting their lines and hiding in shallow water. They would come back later to retrieve their sunken dredge and avoid the police.

03:54 Mr. Banagan says that the Oyster Wars went on for four or five years.

04:02 Mr. Bangan says the police spread out from all in the lower Potomac, from the Route 301 bridge down to Point Lookout.

04:21 Mr. Banagan lists areas that the policemen patrolled. "Right, they were in St. Clement's Bay, lot of them were out of St. Clement's Bay. They were out of Canoe Neck Creek, St. Patrick's Creek, White's Necks Creek, Cobb Island ... And they were out all the creeks that were around."

04:41 Mr. Banagan explains what he heard about the shooting of Harvey King. "I remember hearing about when he was shot, he was shot off of Swann Point. He was drudging oysters, I guess it was at night, I'm not sure. But I did know, you know, that he was shot and he had a family. His wife and children are still living over in Colonial Beach.

05:21 Mr. Banagan says he thinks it caused a big uproar and was partially responsible for slowing the Oyster Wars.

05:39 Mr. Banagan admits that he doesn't remember much about Berkeley Muse, the man who was actually killed in the Harvey King shooting.

05:54 Mr. Banagan says he doesn't think the policemen meant to kill Muse. "I don't guess they meant to kill, maybe just to shoot at him, slow him up, and ... The water policeman still lives over at St. Clement's Shores, I think. But -- that had shot at him."

06:09 Mr. Banagan describes what the police would do when catching dredgers. "They would shoot at the boats for them to stop or something like that, and I guess that a stray bullet or something just hit the man that, he was on the wrong spot on the boat. It was quite a tragedy ..."

06:28 Mr. Banagan talks about the beginning of the Potomac River Compact, traced back to George Washington's time.

06:24 Mr. Banagan describes the beginning of tension between Virginia and Maryland watermen. "Virginia men, they used to charge people a tariff to, you know, hauling freight up the bay. And they would collect it if they were coming on up to Maryland and all. Then they decided to, so much fuss raised about it that the Marylanders, you know, didn't want to pay the fee, then they decided that they would stop the Virginia men from using the Potomac."

07:11 Mr. Banagan says that the governors met to try and work a compromise. So there was a meeting between a delegation of Virginia and Maryland.

07:40 Mr. Banagan says a commission from both states was formed, with good results. "The end result was that they picked three people to be on a commission from Virginia, and three from Maryland. And they meet over in Colonial Beach today. And after that it seemed to be a little squawking back and forth but it seemed to work together pretty good right now."

08:20 Mr. Banagan talks about tension between Maryland and Virginia today, relating to a recent Supreme Court decision to allow Virginia use of Maryland waters so Fairfax County can expand.

08:43 Mr. Banagan says there's nothing really left in the river to catch, and that it looks rough for both sides.

09:34 Mr. Banagan talks about the states that have almost solely private oyster beds. "Yeah, Texas, Louisiana, Washington State, they have big private oyster beds. Yeah, as far as I know, especially Washington State, there's no, they don't have any natural resources, patrolling; it's just that the big oyster packers control the oyster industry out here. But here you got the DNR sorta patrolling the rivers. The private beds, the watermen can't make enough money now to stock those."

10:25 Mr. Banagan concurred with Tucker Brown's opinion that private beds were getting decimated by disease.

10:37 Mr. Banagan explains that in other states, private beds can be very large, but in Maryland, the watermen only own small tracts. "But here you can only have about five, ten acres or something like that, whole out west there's other beds where like, you know, thousands of acres they could work. But here the watermen can only have, I don't know, five, ten acres or something like that."

11:00 Mr. Banagan says that the new Asian oyster is causing tension. "They don't ... on one, the left hand says "No, it's just gonna ruin, you know, the Chesapeake Bay oyster," the other one says, "Well you know, there's no Chesapeake Bay oysters left, so if we don't have something that's disease- resistant ..."

11:32 Mr. Banagan says that he believes the new Asian oyster is the only way people will survive in the oyster industry, since they are disease resistant and flavorful.

12:02 Mr. Banagan says that there used to be five to six hundred oyster men in the area and now there's only four or five. "I doubt they're making a living out of it right now. It's just gone. If it wasn't for Louisiana and Texas, we wouldn't have any oysters up here. I mean to sell."

12:42 Mr. Banagan confirmed that Mr. Tucker Brown gets his oysters from Texas.

12:46 Mr. Banagan says he used to shuck oysters.

12:58 Mr. Banagan explains that he never worked at the oyster houses, but he worked half a year full time oystering and that it was a rough life. "It was nice to be out there in the fall when it was wann, geese were flying over and things, but once it got freezing the decks were icy and things like that. I had soon had enough of it."

13:10 Mr. Banagan explains that he's oystered for pleasure all his life, but now there is barely anything to catch.

13:32 Mr. Banagan says the hardest part about oystering is dealing with the cold and the weather.

14:00 Mr. Banagan explains that it's "Like I say, a very independent life and most of the watermen, you know, they really loved working the river. And I would like it, but I didn't, you know, whenever, take off in the winter time and things like that. But you can't make a living that way."

14:19 Mr. Banagan says there are only two small oyster shucking houses left besides Brown's Oyster House.

14:36 Mr. Banagan lists the houses. "Gas Oyster House is one. Thompson Oyster House is another one. They're all within a mile of each other on St. Patrick's Creek. There's one down to, by St. Mary's River. And there's one up in Mechanicsville, Cobb Island. But that just about covers most of the whole county."

15:11 Mr. Banagan explains that Mr. Tucker takes oysters to Baltimore to sell, as well as oysters and clams to New York.

15:48 Mr. Banagan says he thinks having the Asian oyster would help a lot, due to its filtration abilities to add oxygen and clean the water. "So I think with the oysters coming back, the grass would come back and the whole bay would come back to the life, food chain. From the littlest minnow to the big rockfish."

16:39 Mr. Banagan talks about the swans destroying the grasses. "They got the grass comes up over the bill you know, and they say those imported swans can just, you know, eat about ten pounds of grass a day. So they have quite an appetite."