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Witty, Anne E.

"CORNSHUCKERS" AND "SANDSNIPES": THE OYSTERING SCHOONERS OF DELAWARE BAY

University of Delaware (Winterthur Program) M.A. 1984

University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

Copyright 1984

by Witty, Anne E. All Rights Reserved

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "CORNSHUCKERS" AND "SANDSNIPES":

THE OYSTERING SCHOONERS OF DELAWARE BAY

by

Anne E. Witty

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture.

August 1984

Copyright 1984 Anne E. Witty All Rights Reserved

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "CORNSHUCKERS" AND "SANDSNIPES":

THE OYSTERING SCHOONERS OF DELAWARE BAY

by

Anne E. W itty

Approved: Bernard L. Herman, Ph.D. Professor in charge of thesis

Approved: p i . Qr.v ______StephanLe\G. Wolf, Ph• D^ Director of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture

Approved: ______R. B. M urray, Ph.D . University Coordinator for Graduate Studies

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As is true for any study based on fieldwork, my debts

are numerous. My thanks go, first and foremost, to the people

in South Jersey who shared their knowledge of the area and its

maritime traditions. In particular, warm thanks to Clyde Phillips,

Clem Sutton, Mildred Sutton, Bob Morgan, David Robbins, and Ed

Farley (of Bozman, Maryland), all of whom facilitated my work

with their generosity and hospitality. Also, the New Jersey

Department of Shellfisheries office at Bivalve; the Rutgers Univer­

sity Shellfish Research Lab, also at Bivalve, and its staff, in

particular Don Kunkle, Dan O'Conner, and Clyde Phillips; and Pat

Heyng of the National Marine Fisheries Service office at Cape

May, all of whom helped me track down the Jersey-built

schooners. A thanks also to all those unnamed here, with whom

conversations along the way proved informative; I hope I have not

misconstrued any of the information relayed.

For past fieldwork, a nod to the University of Delaware

students of American Studies 367 in 1979 who, under the direction

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv

of Professor Bernard L. Herman, left a valuable tape archive

recording some of the oral history of Delaware Bay oystering.

For sharing current fieldwork approaches and many insights, my

thanks go to Rita Moonsammy, David Cohen, Larry Taylor, Susan

D'Ottavio, Bonnie McCay, and Paula Johnson.

This study has been helped along by several museum

people, whose help with collections, archives, and fieldwork has

been invaluable. For their assistance, thanks to Ben Fuller of

Mystic Seaport Museum; Alan Frazer of the New Jersey Historical

Society; Sandra Buchman and Richard Dodds of the Chesapeake

Bay Maritime Museum; Mary Ellen Hayward of the Radcliffe

Maritime Museum; Roger Allen and Jane Allen of the Philadelphia

Maritime Museum; and James Knowles of the National Museum of

American History. Thanks also to Stephen DelSordo and Dean

Nelson of the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural

Affairs, to James Valle of Dover State College, and to the staff

of the Cumberland County Historical Society, Greenwich, New

Jersey.

For encouragement, guidance, and insight, I would like

to express my appreciation to several of my professors in the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Winterthur Program and at the University of Delaware, especially

Robert St. George, Robert Bethke, and my thesis advisor,

Bernard Herman. A final thanks to all those who understand the

joys (and pitfalls) of "messing around in boats 11 and have helped

me, in countless ways, to accomplish this project, most

especially Patricia Lisk of the Publications Office at Winterthur,

who saw it through production, and my fellow students.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Notes 20

Chapter 1 The Nature of the Vessel as Artifact 22

Notes 38

Chapter 2 The Development and Building of the Jersey Schooner 40

Notes 70

Chapter 3 The Schooners as Index to Change in the Oyster Fishery 74

Notes 104

Conclusion 106

Bibliography 110

Appendix A Catalogue of Jersey Schooners 118

vi

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION

The broad, winding expanses of South Jersey's Maurice

River are bordered by thousands of acres of marshlands. The

riverbanks, peppered with the remains of wharves and pilings,

reveal here and there the skeleton of a wooden boat poking its

ribs up through the mud at low water. Waterfowl add animation

to the quiet river with its swift-flowing current.

Around the riverside towns of Port Norris, Mauricetown,

and Dorchester, wharves and pilings still stand in good repair

(fig. 1). Here, the river harbors the boats of the oystering fleet,

and fast land at water's edge supports a few packing houses,

boat sheds, and shipyards where repair and maintenance are per­

formed (fig. 2). So much has been erased by time and the river

that it is difficult to imagine that within living memory both sides

of the river were lined with the buildings and vessels of a thriving

enterprise centered around the oyster. But old-timers assure you

it was so. "Looks like a woods, all those masts," said George

Hinson of nearby Dividing Creek, looking at a photograph of

1

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CUM BERlBNiD GO

MnuRicrrow/\i \

Eftsr poii

D EL A W A R E B A Y Fig. 1. Map of oystering and shipbuilding towns in South Jersey and southern Delaware. Drawing after Road Map of Southern New Tersey (Doylestown, Pa.: Alfred B. Patton, 1982). Fig. 2. Maurice River waterfront at Port Norris, N.J., with oyster dredgeboats at dock, 1983.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4

Bivalve in the early twentieth century. The oysterman's son went

on, "[now it] . . . looks like one of those Wild West ghost

tow ns." 1

Since the early nineteenth century, the Maurice River has

been the hub of the Delaware Bay oyster fishery. Today, it

remains the site of an enterprise whose significance lies not so

much in its volume of business or economic importance, as in the

historical continuity and depth of meaning it represents to the

people of bayside communities. Much of this sense of continuity

and significance is embodied in the primary artifacts of the

oystering industry—the boats. The hundred or so vessels

currently licensed for oystering are the remnants of a fleet that 9 once numbered almost six hundred. The vessels still work

according to season, dredging the oyster beds of Delaware Bay

and returning upriver in the afternoons to unship oysters at the

shucking houses along the Maurice River waterfront.

Many of the vessels are the motorized hulls of two-

masted oyster schooners, hundreds of which were built in ship­

yards along the Maurice and nearby Cohansey rivers from the

early nineteenth century through the 1920s. These schooners are

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a remarkable resource for the study of material and maritime cul­

ture. They can be read as primary statements of the rich con­

figuration of the works and ways of a historically significant

industry and the pattern of life woven around it. They are, in

short, key elements to our understanding of local maritime

culture. In addition, the Jersey oyster schooners are an

important material resource for the study of the schooner, a

vessel type that played a crucial role in virtually every maritime

enterprise from the eighteenth through the mid twentieth centuries.

The following essay explores several aspects of the

maritime and material culture of South Jersey oystering commu­

nities, using the primary artifacts—the schooners—as an index to

changes in the work society surrounding the shellfishery, from

about 1850 to the present. While the focus is on South Jersey,

this work also refers to oystering from the Delaware side of the

bay (fig. 3). The epithets cornshuckers and sandsnipes, used in

the title, recall the viewpoints of both Jersey and Delaware

oystermen. The Jerseymen called Delaware oystermen corn­

shuckers , a reference to the mixed agricultural economy of lower

Delaware, while the Delawareans dubbed their Jersey counterparts

sandsnipes, after the common beach and marsh bird. Both groups

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c o u A M se rr iv e r

PLANTE* BOS

[ILL DELAWARE BA'X

DE. sm

Fig. 3. Map of Delaware Bay region showing southwestern New Jersey, southeastern Delaware, and the natural and planted oyster grounds. Drawing after Don Maurer and Glen Aprill, Feasibility Study of Raft Culture of Oysters in the Delaware Bay Area (Lewes: College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware, 1973), p. 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7

followed the water, engaged in a common livelihood; their mutual

perceptions, as expressed in this nicknaming, were colored by

the combination of cooperation and rivalry necessitated by oyster­

ing on the same bay. But despite some differences in outlook

and in the details of marketing their product, they oystered in

the same manner. More to the point of this essay, they used

the same vessels—Jersey-built schooners—and the same dredging

equipment. Any of the vessels studied in South Jersey might at

one time have been found in the Delaware-based fleet, of which

a handful of boats remain in ports such as Leipsic, Little Creek,

and Port Mahon, Delaware (see fig. 1).

The schooner is a vessel built to carry gaff-headed,

fore-and-aft-rigged sails on two or more masts (fig. 4). The

gaffs, which extend the top of the sail out from the mast, give

the sails a four-sided rather than a triangular shape; smaller,

triangular sails, called jibs or headsails, are carried forward of

the first mast, or foremast. Because this rig was relatively

easy to handle, the schooner quickly gained currency after its

initial development in early eighteenth-century America from

English and European prototypes. Small schooners could be run

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u p p e r STEM FoREMtsr FDRESML DPMft5T

MflUVMftST TOPSAIL /vA /N S fllL TRANSOM oom Fig. 4. Profile view of 65' "old-style" schooner Jeremiah N. Ogden, built at Greenwich, N .J., 1901, indicating terminology. Drawing after W. J. Walker, Works Progress Administration (Historic Ameri­ can Merchant Marine Survey, no. 4-12, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D .C.). B

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9

by a crew of two or three; the craft was particularly well-suited

to working along coastlines, although schooners were also

designed for longer oceangoing voyages as well as coastwise

freighting and fishing trips. ^

Numerous local variations of the schooner form—hull and

rig—began to appear in the eighteenth century and were further

refined and developed during the nineteenth and twentieth cen­

turies. Local hull types, such as the Jersey oyster schooner,

were designed to meet prevailing conditions of tide, depth of

water, weather, and wind as well as the demands of a particular

service. The vessel developed in South Jersey was a regional,

or local, expression of the national schooner type. It was a

beamy, heavy, centerboard vessel suited to the strong tides and

shoal waters of Delaware Bay. The Jersey schooners were built

as oystering vessels from before the mid nineteenth century

through the 1920s. They ranged in size from about 60 feet long

to over 100 feet on the keel. Over the decades, the design and

dimensions were altered slightly, but the basic hull characteris­

tics remained the same.

New oyster schooners were built in South Jersey

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shipyards through 1930. Fifteen years later, what was left of

the huge sailing fleet of the turn of the century was motorized.

It is these converted schooner hulls that form the backbone of

the current Delaware Bay oystering fleet. Many of the boats are

more than seventy-five years old; several have passed their

hundred-year mark, and one—the schooner Cashier, built in 1849

in Bridgeton, New Jersey—may well be the oldest working vessel

in the country.

Of the hundred vessels in the working fleet, almost a

third are Jersey-built schooners. (There are other examples

working in the surf-clam fisheries of New Jersey's Atlantic

Coast, as "windjammers" in the New England coastal cruising

trade, and possibly elsewhere. Thus the largest single group

of Jersey schooners remains, fittingly, in the service and area

for which they were built. Berthed along the Maurice River, they

provide a significant sample of material for analysis, retaining

their integrity as primary artifacts in the area's oystering industry

and furnishing an important link to the era of America's sail

fish e rie s.

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An examination of the surviving schooners brings up a

series of questions. Some of these are historical and material in

nature: How did the schooner come to be developed and adapted

for oystering? How were the Jersey schooners, as a regional

expression of a national type, built in the local shipyards? How

have they been altered with the demands of normal maintenance

and with the switch to power? None of these questions,

although tied to the material evidence provided by the schooners,

is solely material or historical in its broader scope. Each also

involves a realm of issues often referred to as "cognitive"—the

questions of mind that underlie the study of objects. In studying

the building and development of the schooner, we are led to

questions of design, innovation, and adaptation on the part of

the creators of the vessels. In examining alteration, we are led

to ask how changes in the organization of work aboard the

schooners either reflected or embodied the material changes, or

vice versa.

The continual interplay of physical and cognitive changes

visible in the schooners today is indicative of a similar dialectic

at work throughout the history of these objects. In order to

understand this interplay, we must read the available documents

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with an eye for uncovering it. The primary documents available

are the vessels themselves; as in any research process, they

carry us to other sorts of documents. These include the

memories and recollections of people involved in oystering,

shipbuilding, or any of the area's maritime-related activities;

collections of old photographs, documenting some of the physical

changes in the vessels and along the waterfront; and, of course,

the written record: local histories, published reminiscences, and

fisheries statistics. Other artifacts associated with the oyster­

ing fleet—lines drawings, or plans, of the vessels under sail,

models, flags, wheels, masthead figures, and the like—complete

the roster of sources consulted.

My approach has been shaped primarily by the existence

of the remarkable resource formed by the vessels themselves.

There is at present no thorough study of the Jersey oyster

schooner. The numerous technical and historical studies of other

types of American watercraft and fisheries have not dealt

adequately with the Jersey schooner; several do, however, provide

excellent models for further research. ® What resources do exist

have been linked using a variety of approaches and techniques

suggested by several disciplines. These include maritime history,

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folklore, historic preservation, and the broad field of material

culture studies with its interdisciplinary bases. Techniques used

include survey, sampling, photography, oral history, and back­

ground research in printed and artifactual resources. The

methodology devised to study the schooners is described briefly

below; results of the field survey, notes on the conventions of

vessel description, and details may be found in the catalogue of

schooners (see Appendix).

A field survey provided the primary data: Jersey-built

schooners were located and surveyed for construction, alteration,

and stylistic details over a period of several months during 1983.

Conversations with baymen, shipwrights, and others associated

with the oystering fleet were an integral part of the fieldwork.

Earlier oral history interviews and published sources provided

supplementary information on oystering both under sail and under

power. Background research was aided by the availability of

extensive photographic collections of the fleet under sail, some g of them published and others in archives and private collections.

Other resources include archives of hull and sail plans in the 7 form of lines drawings by naval architects, and models, paint­

ings, and other artifacts of the fleet, some in museums and some

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O in private hands. This brief list by no means exhausts the

possible resources. While the current study relies principally on

fieldwork, using the other sources as supplementary material, the

availability of such a wealth of resources should prompt further

inquiry into all aspects of the oystering industry of Delaware

Bay, as well as its schooners.

The underlying axiom in referring to these non written

sources (aside from the published material) as "documents" is

that objects are expressive. An indispensable corollary for a

study of this type is that altered objects are potentially as

eloquent as objects in their original state. (Indeed, an unaltered

Jersey oyster schooner would today be an anachronism, perhaps

a museum object, and would indicate more about the people who

rescued it from countinued use—and alteration into a power

vessel—than about the people who relied on it as a means of

livelihood and who continually sought improvement and efficiency

in that livelihood.) Despite seemingly drastic changes in the

ways in which they are propelled and used, the oyster schooners

retain their integrity in the core of their beings—the hulls. Even

when renewed bit by bit, with new wood replacing old, a vessel,

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though she change her entire "skin," is still the same vessel as

when first built. The continual alteration, improvement, and

replacement performed on vessels makes an interpretation of them

a challenge—a challenge rewarded by the knowledge that such an

object is not a static reminder of the past, but a living document

of ongoing cultural process. A converted schooner hull raises the

question of just how modification in artifacts reflects or antici­

pates changes in the organization of a work society; it is around

this question that the following essay is based.

The nature of the seagoing vessel as an artifact sets it

apart from most other objects of material culture studies. One

aspect of this nature is the underlying belief, common to most

maritime cultures the world over, that vessels are animate, or at

least quasi-animate. It is difficult, if not impossible, to

separate the vessel from the web of related beliefs, customs,

traditions, and rituals that have arisen from this basic belief;

thus, the vessel becomes a particularly rich source for observa­

tion of the interplay of work and culture. A second aspect of

the nature of the vessel as artifact has been touched on above:

the cycle of alteration, repair, and rebuilding. Because of the

amount of capital in them, the manner in which they are built,

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and the ways in which they are used, wooden vessels constantly

undergo processes of renewal. We must thus examine the

expressive nature of these evolving objects in light of their life

as utilitarian, quasi-animate, life-preserving foundations. These

issues are explored in the first chapter of this work, preliminary

to the analysis of the Jersey schooners. The central question of

just how changes in artifacts anticipate or reflect changes in a

work society might, perhaps, be better approached using

anthropological method; my intention, however, is not to address

broad social or anthropological issues (as has recently been done

for a maritime community by Lawrence Taylor^), but to suggest,

by example, some ways in which the study of material culture

can inform the understanding of human culture in a particular

community.

In chapter 2, the development and morphology of the

Jersey schooners is examined in light of questions of design,

construction, and change in style over the years represented by

the surviving boats, approximately 1850—1930. This is set into

the context of the schooner as a national type historically

important in many forms of American maritime enterprise. Again,

the material analysis cannot be separated from issues of mind;

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the chapter includes some thoughts on what the schooners

represent, within the immediate community as well as to a larger

community of maritime scholars, not only as regional expressions

of the national schooner type but also as carriers of community

memory and as bearers of aesthetic concerns peculiar to the

lo c a le .

The issue of the schooners as index to change in the

organization of the work society based around oystering is

examined in chapter 3. Here, information from a visual survey of

the current fleet is linked with evidence from other sources to

provide a history of the change from a shipbuilding tradition to a

tradition of maintenance and repair. Again, the questions of

design, construction, and use are related to the evolution of the

vessels in terms of their style and use. The result of the

changing organization of work has been a new emphasis on

rebuilding, maintenance, and preservation of the old hulls, with

a concomitant shift in aesthetic values. Throughout these

changes, a certain continuity remains central to the life of the

artifacts within the local communities. They are still the crucial

factors in both the production end of the oystering industry and

the physical survival of those who make their living at it.

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While these functions could be—and are—performed by any other

type of vessel, the uniqueness of the Jersey schooners lies in

their embodiment of the changes, over the decades, that

have helped the industry survive. No other vessel type in use

in South Jersey provides so complete a record.

Finally, the dialectic of continuity and change embodied

in the schooners can be seen to result in a new mental configu­

ration. While the schooners persist as primary objects, the

industry is now much smaller in scale than it was when most of

them were built. There has been a fundamental reorganization of

space aboard the boats, and a visible change in aesthetic con­

siderations surrounding them. These changes represent issues of

mind; they are indicative of the potent nature of the vessel as

artifact—its representation of the elemental, crucial, and fragile

relationship between terrestrial human beings and the marine

environment. It is, in part, the dynamic quality of this link

that has contributed to a pervasive nostalgia among the people

of the local bayside communities, for the days of the great sail­

ing oyster fleet. The schooners serve not only as a means of

livelihood in the present but also as a reminder of the past.

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Within this sense of present linked to past we may find a clue

to the study of other objects, perhaps those whose context is

more distant in time.

*

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES

* Frank Hinson and George Hinson to Gunter Schaffer and Pat Condell, personal interview, Dividing Creek, N .J., November 1979 (American Studies Program, University of Delaware, collection of Bernard L. Herman).

2 Hinson and Hinson to Schaffer and Condell. The figure of about 600 sailing dredgeboats at the height of the fleet's numbers, cited by Capt. Frank Hinson, corresponds with that given by Donald H. Rolfs, Under Sail; The Sailing Dredgeboats of Delaware Bay, a Pictorial and Maritime History (Millville, N.J.: Wheaton Historical Association, 1971).

^ The development of the schooner in America is dis­ cussed more fully in chapter 2.

^ Other examples of Jersey oyster schooners may be working in shellfisheries or offshore fisheries elsewhere on the East Coast. Local knowledge places several in the Caribbean, where they were sold for use in the conch fishery and other ser­ vices in the late 1950s, when Delaware Bay oystering was severely affected by the mysterious oyster disease MSX.

^ Watercraft monographs include such model studies as Howard I. Chapelle, The American Sailing Schooners, 1825-1935 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973); and Peter J. Guthom, The Sea Bright Skiff and Other Shore Boats (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971), to name but two. Chapelle's work treats the Gloucester fishing schooners, while Guthom's topic is the small shore boats of the Jersey coast. Works on the oyster­ ing industry include a comprehensive government report published in 1887, George Brown Goode, ed., The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing O ffice, 188 7); a dissertation, Mary Emily M iller, "The Delaware Oyster Industry, Past and Present" (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 19 62); and a recent work on the northern industry,

20

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John Kochiss, Oystering from New York to Boston (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1974). Miller's work, while informative, concentrates on oystering on the Delaware side of the bay. Several works mention the Jersey schooners and Delaware Bay oystering. In addition to Rolfs, Under Sail, see David Budlong Tyler, The Bay and River Delaware: A Pictorial Maritime History (Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1955); David Stephen Cohen, The Folklore and Folklife of New Jersey (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983); and James Valle, "The Kent County Oyster Schooners" (Paper pre­ sented at the Delaware State House Symposium on Delaware History and Culture, Dover, April 1980). Also on Delaware oystering, see Stephen G. DelSordo, "White Gold: Some Economic Aspects of the Delaware Oyster Industry, 1870—1930" (Paper presented at the Delaware State House Symposium on Delaware History and Culture, Dover, April 1980).

® Rolfs, Under Sail. 7 The Historic American Merchant Marine Survey at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and the Wayne B. Yamall Collection at the New Jersey Historical Society, Newark. O The DuBois Collection at the Pirate House, Cumber­ land County Historical Society, Greenwich, N.J., and the Marion V. Brewington Collection at the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, as well as the Yamall Collection, all include artifacts associated with the Delaware Bay oystering fleet. q Lawrence Taylor, Dutchmen on the Bay: The Ethno- history of a Contractual Community (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). Taylor has recently conducted anthropological fieldwork in Port Norris, N.J., under the auspices of Sea Grant on a project conducted by Bonnie McCay of Cook College, Rutgers University, investigating anthropological, his­ torical, and natural aspects of the state's fisheries.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1

THE NATURE OF THE VESSEL AS ARTIFACT

An examination of the nature of the vessel as artifact

reveals underlying issues which make the study of vessels

different from the study of other objects of material culture. The

waterborne vessel, which can be seen at its most elemental as

an "artificial land environment, " extending human activity from

its natural terrestrial sphere to that of an alien element, is first

and foremost a means of survival. Beyond that, it is a means of

production. * That production can be defined as exploration,

transportation, fishing, or carrying land-produced goods and

produce—all functions carried on by seafaring vessels throughout

history. These two primary functions of the vessel make it a

crucial object: it literally stands at the crux of life and death

on the waters, as well as at the economic crux of any sea-

oriented livelihood. Its crucial nature has inspired a rich variety

of beliefs, customs, and rituals surrounding the building and use

of the vessel; these both reflect its importance and imbue it with

additional significance. This web of beliefs stems from the

22

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central concept of animism, a property with which all waterborne

vessels have always been endowed.

Beyond its status as an animate or quasi-animate object,

the vessel as artifact demands an interpretation of the continual

processes of alteration and change which are necessary for its

continued utilitarian life. Wooden vessels—ships and boats—

have been built in essentially the same manner for hundreds of

years in Atlantic seafaring communities. The expertise, capital,

material, time, and labor that go into the creation of a wooden

craft of any size demand a good deal of subsequent maintenance

and repair. Vessels are thus artifacts in constant physical

fluctuation. The material state of a given schooner may change

within a week; bit by rotten bit, it can be rebuilt as necessary,

because of the way in which the parts are fitted together. But

the vessel retains the same identity she had when originally built,

as long as her keel remains the same. This tradition of altera­

tion and replacement is an integral part of the life of a wooden

vessel. In its very nature, relying on process, it is a valuable

document.

This chapter examines the nature of the vessel as

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artifact in light of these issues: the animism attributed to

vessels, with the resulting variety of belief and custom; and the

changing physical nature of the artifact, which makes it a rich

document for study. A third, related issue is the way in which

the Delaware Bay schooners have been used to "farm" the oyster O beds. The oystering cycle is analogous to dry-land farming; it

also represents the extension of control over an unseen element,

as do the animism-associated customs and the continual alteration

of vessels in the interest of preservation of self and the means

of production.

In South Jersey, the oyster schooners are spoken of

with familiarity and affection. Each has a life cycle: from

birth, or building and launching, with its attendant christening,

through aging and periodic renewals, to being "put in a coffin"

(having the tired wooden hull sheathed with metal to gain an

additional year or two of service). The cycle concludes with

death and burial. A boat is "run up on the bank to die" (fig. 5).

Her remains are not simply pieces of wood (a vessel is said to "go

to pieces" much as a person might), but a "dead boat," even if

only fragments remain. Areas where many vessels have been run

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* 'I'**'1 ’ - W j & |5 W r

“ t - ■■ * w * .- .1 ^ j*1 & *ur*iV.Ti,*v \p

Fig. 5. Oyster boats "run up on the bank," Port Norris, N.J., 1983.

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up on the bank to die are often known as ships' graveyards. The

parallel here with the human life cycle is not made lightly; it

indicates the depth of meaning these objects hold for their owners

and captains.

In addition to having a life cycle described in biological

terms, the vessel has a spirit, which is to be cultivated and pro­

tected. Frequently the captain identifies so closely with his

vessel that the two are spoken of with the same name. Capt.

Fenton Anderson, skipper of the schooner Martha Meerwald,

remarked that "Years ago, they didn't talk about hauling [out] a

boat, but hauling a captain."^ In addition, captains develop

intimate knowledge of a boat's capabilities, handling characteris­

tics, and hull. Sometimes these are spoken of using essentially

anthropomorphic terms; other times the animism is merely implied.

For example, the late Capt. Frank Hinson of Dividing Creek,

New Jersey, had this to say about a bugeye—a two-masted

vessel developed in the Chesapeake—he once owned:

I used to have a bugeye, and I hated the darned thing. They don't have any bearing, and any wind, they'd fall right over. Well I mean I never cared for a bugeye. Another thing, when they put power in, you'd be all right, two or three hours in the morning, right moderate, but if it breezed up, your propellor'd jump right out of the water. Ah, land, they were miserable darned things.

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Hinson's comments imply that the bugeye had a mind of its own,

an impression enforced by his subsequent telling of the story of

"Old Pusey and the Runaway Bugeye," in which the boat literally

sails off alone while her captain runs along the bottom of the

bay trying to catch her. ^ Hinson eventually replaced the bugeye,

a type he felt was unsuited to the conditions of Delaware Bay,

with a locally built "new-style" schooner with which he oystered

for more than fifty years.

In his classic study Folklore and the Sea, Horace Beck

pointed out that

Until the advent of the computer, a ship was the most nearly animate [as well as the largest] object that man could create. It rolled, wiggled, pitched, and had its own peculiarities that could never be duplicated even in a sister ship.

As a conversation with any waterman or a glance through seafar­

ing literature reveals, a vessel is always referred to as "she."

She has a character, a personality; she acts, performs, commu­

nicates. She has her quirks and troubles, good points and bad.

She is called a "good" vessel or a "bad" one. Schooner captain

Fenton Anderson put it this way: "A wooden boat creaks and

groans, y'know, the way people do." This use of language

reflects the belief in animism: as Beck phrased it, "because of

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the peculiarities of a ship, her movement, her internal noises,

and her vagaries in handling, seamen believed her to be animate

or at least quasi-animate. " ®

The beliefs arising from the concept of animism are many

and varied. They lend to maritime folklore a depth and richness

expressive of the fundamental relationship between human beings

and the sea, ever changing and always complex. Human beings

are essentially alienated from the sea, and dependent on their

vessels for survival upon it. Over millenia, vessels have been

saturated with meaning and surrounded with belief, extending the

practical level of survival into a metaphorical level that seeks to

protect the being of the vessel—and thus the lives and liveli­

hoods of its users—during its building, launching, and working.

In his discussion of the folklore of shipbuilding, Beck cites

several widespread customs in which animism is the motivating

belief. Some are practical, others supernatural in their intention.

By various means, evil spirits or "anything unusual" are kept

away from the building site, to protect the "unborn" vessel.

Each plank and timber is given a name, as is each method of

construction; this nomenclature, while specific to shipbuilding,

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often varies from area to area and is anatomical in its degree of

detail. This serves a practical function, allowing precise com­

munication among shipwrights, but it also reflects the respect

accorded vessels as animate objects. Features such as figure­

heads, decorative carvings (some of which serve as replacements

for full figureheads) and occuli (the eyes painted in the bows of £ a boat) contribute protective qualities.

The most important events in the life of a wooden vessel

are her naming and launching—christening and birth. There are

specific local manifestations of these customs in South Jersey;

these link the traditions of building, maintenance, and repair of

the Jersey oyster schooners to a much larger context of maritime

folklore. Launching customs will be discussed in the context of

local shipbuilding practices (chap. 2), but naming (apart from the

christening ceremony) may be considered here as one of the more

evident traditions among the schooner fleet.

Two of the persistent customs among the motorized oyster­

ing schooners are those of carrying horseshoes for good luck and

naming vessels after family members. The horseshoe, mounted

on the wheelhouse, forward hatch, or samson post, with the

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U-shape up to "keep the luck from running out" is a widespread

good-luck device in both maritime and land-bound communities in

America and Europe. It was widely employed aboard schooners

in America; in South Jersey, it was also displayed above door- g ways or elsewhere in the dooryard to keep away evil spirits.

As can be seen in figure 6, some motorized oyster schooners

continue to employ this device.

The Jersey schooners were often named after relatives of the

original owners or captains (see Appendix). While the magic of

naming vessels has diminished in potency over the centuries, the

use of relatives' names continues on the Jersey schooners today.

For example, when a boat is sold her name may be changed to

that of a relative of the new owner. The custom may be seen as

an instance of naming for emotional content.^ Other local

schooner names are generic, implying that the vessel has a

desirable characteristic: examples of these are Alert, Contender,

and Excel. Here naming is a protective or anticipatory device,

meant to ensure economic good fortune. But naming can some­

times be deceptive, as in the case of the schooner Cashier:

this schooner's name, given to her in 1849, is not an expression

of desire on the part of her owners to become rich, but a

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Fig. 6. Wheelhouse of 50' oyster schooner Maggie Myers, built at Bridgeton, N.J., 1893, photographed at Port Mahon, Del., 1983. Note the horseshoe mounted upside down on the wheelhouse.

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corruption of a local family name, Cosier or Cozier.

The close identification of captains with their schooners

supports the operation of a "vision of animism" in South

Jersey, as does the use of the life-cycle metaphor. In this

analogy, the "heart" of the vessel is the keel; when the vessel

is rebuilt or renewed through maintenance and replacement of

parts, it is the other parts of the vessel, not her heart, that are

changed. To extend the biological metaphor even further, we

might liken the process to the human body shedding and replacing

cells, but remaining the same person. As an artifact of human

creation, the vessel is in a state of continual flux. The animism

that imbues waterborne vessels with a life of their own makes the

biological metaphor a fitting one, given the context of ongoing

alteration and preservation that extends the life of wooden

vessels. Vessels must, then, be seen in contrast with other

objects that provide us with evidence of history, but that are

also described using "conventional" biological metaphors.

In George Kubler's formulation, these conventional

metaphors, while universal, are not the most appropriate way in

which objects can be described. He wrote,

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Although inanimate things remain our most tangible evidence that the old human past really existed, . . . we speak without hesitation of the "birth of an art," of the "life of a style," and the "death of a school," of "flowering," "maturity," and "fading" when we describe the powers of an artist.

Kubler suggests that for the majority of objects, a series of

metaphors drawn from the physical sciences might be more appro-

priate. 12 However, as we have seen, vessels form an exception;

the vision of animism expressed in the emic use of "life-cycle"

descriptions is strong enough to justify the use of the biological

metaphor in an analysis of the artifacts.

As artifacts, then, the schooners are imbued with a life

beyond their utilitarian function as "artificial land environments"

for the work activities of oystering. This life is protected, from

its inception, by customs such as setting coins under the mast-

heels when the spars are raised, adding salt to the open spaces

within the hull to keep the hull sweet and prevent rot, and

fastening a horseshoe, a masthead figure, or carved trailboards on

the boat. The life of the vessel is periodically renewed through

regular maintenance, restoration, and rebuilding when necessary.

With these measures, several of the schooners have passed their

hundred-year mark, a remarkable record of longevity for objects in

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continuous hard use. Indeed, as early as 1880 some observers—

for example, Henry Hall—remarked on the longevity of South

Jersey vessels, exclaiming that some were over thirty years old.

Hall linked their survival to good materials—native white oak and

pine—as well as to solid construction. ^

The processes of maintenance and replacement of parts

are intended to prolong the utility of the schooner and to main­

tain its safety as a working platform. As discussed by John

Poggie and Carl Gersuny in their analysis of fisherman folklore,

this is one aspect of the attempt to reduce the enormous risk

inherent in human activity in the marine environment, itself full

of hazards, and to ensure a certainty in economic return as well:

Although it can be argued that man has brought ingenuity and technological competence to the task of overcoming the hazards of venturing out into the open ocean, we know that fishermen do lose their lives and do receive injury at a high rate because of their occupation. In contrast to a day with a poor catch, there is no second chance in losing one's life or in sustaining permanent injury. Thus there is great risk involved in man's going out onto the water . . . more risk to his personal self than to his economic self.

The maintenance of vessels is a way to sustain some level of

personal safety or certainty. The way in which oystering is

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carried out on Delaware Bay is also meant to ensure a certain

level of economic certainty, although these attempts are fre­

quently baffled by natural conditions. Controls are exerted over

the fishery through legislative and customary means of management.

The key to an understanding of oystering on Delaware Bay

is to be found in the local baymen's speech. They talk of

"planting" "seed oysters," which are dredged up from natural beds

during a limited period in the spring. These oysters are trans­

ferred to beds, or "plantations," leased by individual or corporate

"planters" from the state. Each bay-bottom holding is "fenced"

by stakes marking its comers. In the fall and winter, once the

oysters have grown to marketable size, the dredgeboats go out to

"harvest" the beds. They dredge up and keep the large oysters,

while leaving the empty shells and small oysters back on the

beds to "seed" the next year's crop. The process of culling, or

sorting, is analogous to threshing. The farming metaphors used

to describe oystering are indicative of an effort to exert control

over the marine environment, to ensure some certainty in the

harvest or crop of oysters. ^

This system of leased-bed planting has long been in

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operation in Delaware Bay; its current configuration is the result

of decades of legislation, experiment, success, and failure.

It has evolved, with the decline of oystering in the area, into

what might be likened to a "bespoke" or custom enterprise.

Many boats work only when they have orders from a shucking

(packing) house, or when demand is great enough in remote

markets to ship oysters directly; for example, at Thanksgiving

and Christmas when there is a large demand for oysters in the

Midwest. In other words, the boats harvest according to market

demand. Some make only two or three trips a week, for a day

at a time. This practice speaks of a great measure of control

over the economic aspects of making a living from the water.

In summary, the schooners of South Jersey embody

several characteristics which affect an analysis of them as an

index to change. These are their significance as life-preserving

objects, with the web of beliefs related to animism; their nature

as fluctuating artifacts in the physical sense; and the way in

which their use indicates an extension of control over the uncer­

tainties—economic and personal—of oystering on the bay. The

constant renewal of the vessel makes it a challenge for

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artifactual interpretation. Its ongoing life within the community

allows us access to fundamental issues of mind, as revealed in

the "vision of animism," customs, beliefs, community memory,

and nostalgia. These issues will be further explored in the

analysis of the schooner as index to change.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES

John J. Poggie, Jr., and Carl Gersuny, "Risk and Ritual: An Interpretation of Fishermen's Folklore in a New England Community," Tournal of American Folklore 85, no. 335 (January—March 1972): 71—72.

^ Lawrence Taylor, among others, has observed this in his anthropological investigation of South Jersey's oystering com­ munities. See Michael Norman, "Stalking the Oysterman's America," New York Times (January 21, 1984), pp. 23—24.

^ Capt. Fenton Anderson in Schooners on the Bay, film (Trenton: New Jersey Network and the New Jersey Historical Commission, 1984).

^ Frank Hinson and George Hinson to Gunter Schaffer and Pat Condell, personal interview, Dividing Creek, N.J., November 19 79 (American Studies Program, University of Delaware, collection of Bernard L. Herman).

5 Horace Beck, Folklore and the Sea (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 19 73), pp. 21—22; Anderson in Schooners on the Bay; Beck, Folklore and the Sea, p. 16.

® Beck, Folklore and the Sea, pp. 5—18.

7 Herluf Andersen, "Art for Everyday Use," American Neptune 24 (July 1964), observes the custom in the Mediterranean. It is also followed in the Chesapeake region: see Randall Peffer, Watermen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979); and George Carey, Maryland Folklore and Folklife (Cambridge, Md.: Tidewater Publishers, 1970). It has been reported among fisher­ men of the Texas Gulf Coast by Patrick B. Mullen, I Heard the Old Fishermen Say: Folklore of the Texas Gulf Coast (Austin: University of Texas Press, 19 78).

3 Howard I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships (New York: W. W. Norton, 1935), p. 272; David Stephen Cohen, The Folklore and Folklife of New Tersey (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983), p. 46.

38

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^ For ship naming, see Margaret Baker, Folklore of the Sea (North Pomfret, Vt.: David & Charles, 1979), p. 23. Baker's discussion is succinct but wide ranging in its temporal and geographical scope. For a more thorough discussion, see Don H. Kennedy, Ship Names: Origins and Usages during 45 Centuries (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia for the Mariners Museum, 1974). The author identifies four reasons for ship names: religious, sentimental, politico-economic, and identification. Naming for emotional content is a "sentimental" reason and

may involve a person . . . or a personification . . . a sentiment about nature . . . a memory . . . achievements religious experience, or a response to music or literature or war—in short, whatever has left its mark upon an individual [p. 3],

Kennedy traces the custom of using family names for vessels to the time when surnames became common in English, in about the fifteenth century (p. 75).

^According to local knowledge. 1 1 Phrase from Baker, Folklore of the Sea, p. 18.

1 O George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 5, 9.

^ Henry Hall, "Report on the Ship-Building Industry of the United States," in Tenth Census of the United States, vol. 8 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1884), pt. 4, p. 122.

^ Poggie and Gersuny, "Risk and Ritual," p. 71.

15 This analysis is based on ideas drawn from Poggie and Gersuny, "Risk and Ritual." Several scholars, including Lawrence Taylor, David Cohen, and folklorist Rita Moonsammy, have noted the use of farming terminology in oystering.

16 For a discussion, see Mary Emily Miller, "The Delaware Oyster Industry, Past and Present" (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1962); and chap. 3 below.

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THE DEVELOPMENT AND BUILDING OF THE JERSEY SCHOONER

The existence of thirty-five to forty Jersey-built oyster

schooners in the working fleet provides a generous basis from

which to examine the genesis, history, and building of the type

as well as the conditions surrounding its survival into the late

twentieth century. Little stylistic examination of the type has

been done to date. Noted maritime historian Howard I. Chapelle

bypassed the oyster schooners in his landmark 1935 work The

History of American Sailing Ships with the regretful remark that

"the type has not as yet been fully studied." Unfortunately, his

assessment remains true almost fifty years later, although the

material for a thorough study is certainly available. Model

maritime monographs set high standards for technical, stylistic,

and historical discussions of other vessel types. * Although it is

not the purpose of this chapter to provide a definitive history and

typology of the Jersey oyster schooner, it will address the genesis

of the schooner in America, its stylistic development in South

Jersey, and local shipbuilding practices as a background for the

40

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subsequent modification of the schooners in response to changes

in the oystering industry.

By any measure, the schooner was the most important

class of American mercantile sailing craft. Its form, derived from

northern European prototypes, suited a multitude of tasks impor­

tant to maritime enterprises and was diffused and developed

throughout North America and beyond. The schooner type appeared

in the early eighteenth century; by the 1730s, the hull prototype,

the "sharp" schooner, had been developed in southern waters, at

first as a sloop-rigged (single-masted) boat. With the adoption

of the handy schooner, or two-masted, rig, the type spread; the

fast "Virginia model" of the Chesapeake was well known and

copied in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,

Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas as early as 1760. The process

of diffusion was, of course, gradual, but it was aided by the 2 very mobility of the objects.

The eighteenth-century "Virginia model" spawned two

related classes of schooners: the pilot-boat family, first used

around the Virginia capes, and the larger schooners. The latter

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were used as merchantmen, smugglers, slavers, revenue cutters,

and naval vessels, culminating with the "extreme" design of the

Baltimore Clipper in the era just after the War of 1812. The

Baltimore Clipper was a national, not a local, type; its fast and

seaworthy design influenced all classes of merchant vessels

including ships, brigs, and sloops; naval men-of-war; fishermen;

pilot boats; coasters, and yachts. Some of its features were

adopted by British, Dutch, and other European shipbuilders, thus

spreading its influence to all corners of the earth. The Baltimore

Clipper also left its mark on the design of several local

Chesapeake types, such as the pungy, skipjack, and sailing log

can o e.

Although the Baltimore Clipper model was out of favor by

the 1850s, it had already had an impact on all facets of ship­

building in America. Both hull features and the two-masted, fore-

and-aft schooner rig were adopted from the sharp schooner. Like

the hull, the schooner rig enjoyed a remarkable and rapid spread

in popularity, so that by about 1790, "if not earlier, the schooner

was the national rig of both the United States and Canada."

From a local type, the schooner—hull and rig—also spread across

the ocean to Europe, to Central and South America, and into the

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Pacific and Far East. Conditions of maritime trade favored the

use of Baltimore Clipper features. Constant skirmishes on the

high seas, in wartime and in peace, had made speed a funda­

mental goal of American ship design, and the sheer speed of the

sharp schooner made its hull characteristics desirable for almost 4 every class of vessel.

The genesis of the Jersey schooner was the result of a

regional expression of the national idea. It must also be seen

in the light of its immediate prototype, the Chesapeake schooner,

developed in the early nineteenth century. From the first

recorded schooner in Chesapeake waters, circa 1716, one of the

principal developments was, as we have seen, the oceangoing

schooner, culminating in the Baltimore Clipper type. Another

development was the pungy, a type built in the Chesapeake

through about 1885. The third was a type known as a "clump-

schooner," a keel schooner which later became known as simply

a schooner or Bay schooner. The addition of a centerboard to

replace the keel was made in the 1820s. ® The centerboard

schooner (see fig. 4) would come to dominate the oyster fisheries

of both the Chesapeake and the Delaware bays, although on

the Chesapeake the work was shared by pungys and bugeyes and

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later by sloop-rigged skipjacks, all of which were indigenous to

that region.

The centerboard schooner type that developed from the

1820s through the 1850s was a "fine" type,

somewhat like the schooner-yachts of the 1860s and '70s [of which the schooner-yacht America of Cup fame is the best-known example] but with more displacement, flatter bottoms, and harder bilges. . . . The early Chesapeake schooners had round stems, as did some of the earlier Norfolk pilot-boats, but these were gradually replaced by the handsome clipper-bow.

The type spread along the coast; it was built along Delaware Bay,

specifically for oystering from at least the mid nineteenth century.

Other areas where similar oyster schooners were built and used

were Essex, Massachusetts; Connecticut; and New Orleans,

Louisiana. ®

The essential impetus behind improvements in design is

comparison among the owners and builders of sailing craft—those

who best understand the skills required to build and sail such

craft. The actual mechanics of transmission can be simple: an

experienced shipwright or captain may see a new or aesthetically

pleasing feature, such as a sharp bow or a "fine" entrance, may

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discuss the vessel's sailing qualities with her captain or crew,

may perhaps only hear about a vessel's record-breaking speed.

The information is put to work in a new "mental template," to be

used in the next vessel; a process of trial-and-error ensues.

A model may be altered at any stage in the process of

design, depending on how that design is made manifest in local

shipbuilding practices. A half-hull model, two-dimensional naval

drafts, or an image in the mind of the master shipwright are all

ways in which vessels are designed. Changes may be made in

the material templates or, if the vessel is being built "by rack

of eye," during the process of construction, when it may be

fiddled with until it "looks right." The test of any such design

alteration is how well the vessel responds when in use, but it is

not a simple task. As Chapelle wrote,

The degree of "rightness" depends on the intelligence, experience, and observation of the designer. This statement is proven today by the fact that all designers of sailing craft cannot turn out fast vessels and even the most talented have occasional failures in spite of the accumulated knowledge and the "science" of modem naval architecture. ®

Once a basic model, such as the Chesapeake schooner,

emerges, its design can be transmitted through the movement of

boats and people—as mental or material templates—or through the

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circulation of formal plans or hull models (a way in which

American designs were emulated in Europe). The goals of design

improvement on a model are to suit the vessel as closely as

possible to the local environmental conditions, the ways in which

it is to be used, and the needs of the owners. For example, the

adaptation of the schooner rig on the Chesapeake fulfilled several

needs, thus ensuring the popularity of the type: the schooner rig

was not only faster than the one-masted sloop rig, because of its

increased sail area, but also more easily handled, by fewer

people, and more easily adjusted to suit wind and weather.

Beyond these considerations of suitability to environment and use,

there was an element of fashion in operation. As discussed

above, the early Chesapeake schooners had round stems; this

fashion was soon replaced by the clipper-like bow, which per­

sists in the Chesapeake and was used in the "old-style" Jersey

schooners such as the Teremlah N. Ogden of 1901 (see fig. 4).

The Jersey-built schooners later readopted the round stem as a

fashionable feature in the 1920s. This stylistic development

distinguished them from their Chesapeake sisters, although, for a

long time during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the

two are not easily distinguished in old photographs or surviving

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hulls. ^ The "new-style" Jersey schooners built during the 1920s

returned to a round stem and a shorter, "spike" bowsprit (fig. 7).

The hull lines of the new-style boats show an increase in free­

board, a long, sweeping, graceful sheer, and fine lines aft where

the sheer runs into the transom. The transom sterns on the new-

style boats were much smaller, often heart-shaped with elliptical

tops. Although many of these shapely transoms were created "by

rack of eye," with their shape taken off the natural curve of the

hull, they were a natural solution to the challenge of tucking the

schooner's stern up out of the water. ^ The result was a grace­

ful hull whose lines are still the cause for much admiration along

the Maurice River waterfront, where both old-style and new-style

schooners survive in the oystering fleet.

Although the shipyards of South Jersey are no longer

building wooden sailing schooners for the oystering industry—the

last sailing dredgeboat came off the ways in 1930—the community

memory of shipbuilding is strong, enhanced by the thriving main­

tenance and repair tradition that keeps the old schooners "alive."

As the primary artifacts of the oystering industry, the schooners

remain a source of local pride. Baymen are aware of the origins

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 7. Profile view of 89' "new-style" schooner Nordic. built at Greenwich, N .J., 1926. Note spoon bow, nameboard mounted on hull, and spike bowsprit. Under sail, rigged with a "gloriana" rig. Now a surf-clam boat at Cape May, N.J. Drawing after George L. Messick, Works Progress Administration (Historic American Merchant Marine Survey, no. 4-42, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D .C.). 49

of the vessels they use, and of their place in the historical

continuum of oystering on Delaware Bay. Former shipbuilders

retain and use their skills to maintain and restore the schooners.

The oral history of shipbuilding is supplemented by occasional

local histories, state and federal reports, facts, and figures, and

by the artifacts themselves. Local shipbuilding practices provide

a foundation for the discussion of subsequent alterations to the

schooners in chapter 3.

In his wide-ranging "Report on the Ship-Building Industry

of the United States," published in 1884 as part of the Tenth

Census, Henry Hall surveyed shipbuilding activity all over the

country. Of the Maurice River area, he wrote that the majority of

vessels were for oystering and fishing, although captains also

owned shares in larger oceangoing schooners and trading barken-

tines. Shipbuilding, primarily at Mauricetown and Leesburg, had

at that time been active for fifty years; there was also activity at

Dennisville, Millville, Dorchester, Port Norris, and Salem.

Building was also taking place on the Cohansey River, at Bridge­

ton and Greenwich, in the years before 1930 (see fig. 1). ^

Hall's account provides information on materials and

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costs of building in South Jersey yards in the later nineteenth

century. By 1880, according to Hall,

The wood used was formerly native pine and oak; but the home supply is now nearly exhausted, and the accessible large trees are gone. The frames, knees, and planking [of vessels] are wrought out from white oak; the rest of the vessel is yellow pine; and the outfit and top gear [sails and rigging] are usually bought in Philadelphia. The cost of building here is about $52 or $55 a ton. . . . Dorchester is the principal place for repairing river vessels, and two [marine] railways, worked by hand or horse-power, exist there. The nearness of this river to the southern timber supply and the vicinity of the iron regions, with Philadelphia near at hand to supply outfits, are points of advantage to builders.

By way of comparison, what few wooden schooners were still be

being built at Philadelphia after the Civil War cost about $60 per

register ton; Hall remarked that "Captains can do better by going

to Maine. It is unclear whether Hall's economic observations

apply specifically to the oyster schooners. Because they were

built according to immediate demand in an area where timber—

local or southern—was available, the oyster schooners may not

have been as costly as the vessels discussed by Hall.

Around the Maurice River a stand of white oak was still

available in the 1880s; this, along with southern yellow pine and

white pine, was one of the most important timbers for shipbuilding

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on the Atlantic coast. White oak and native Jersey pine, closely

related to the southern yellow pine, continued to produce sturdy

oystering vessels despite the depletion of the timber supply else­

where in the state. Hall wrote that

A large part of New Jersey was originally covered with the finest white oak, but the clearing of land for cultivation and the use of oak in the general arts has nearly removed the timber from the sta te . For a long period . . . [it] flourished in the south­ ern part of the state, but the railroads have made it accessible, and it is disappearing at a rapid rate. There are only a few places left where oak timber of any size may be cut . . . in the vicinity of the Maurice river where for the past thirty-five years a considerable number of fishing and coasting vessels have been built every year; but practically the white oak is so nearly extinct that, except on the Maurice River, builders do not depend on it for the frames of their vessels.

Hall remarked on the longevity of some Jersey-built vessels—

coasting schooners built around Bamegat—noting that "there are

many in existence from 18 to 30 years o l d ." AO1 ^ H all's a s s e s s ­

ment that these were "good and lasting vessels" was quite

accurate: a number of the oyster dredge boats have now been in

use for more than seventy-five years.

The building of a wooden ship proceeded in time-honored

ways, requiring skills and tools used by shipwrights for hundreds

of years. This persistence of craft method makes a general

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account of the trade, as described by those who practiced it in

the twentieth century, a reliable account of local shipbuilding

practices before that time. So slowly has change occurred in

wooden shipbuilding—with the exception of the introduction of

power tools—that the tools illustrated in a late seventeenth-

century Swedish treatise on shipbuilding could correctly be identi­

fied by a New England boatbuilder in 1950, when he was

sixty-four years old. A depiction of a shipyard in the same

tre a tise , Ake C lasson R&lamb's Skeps Byggerij (published in

Stockholm in 1691), is similar to the setup used in traditional

yards into the mid twentieth century. ^

Sites for shipbuilding were scattered throughout South

Jersey, since relatively small vessels like the oyster schooners

and sloops could be built on any stretch of firm ground adjacent

to a body of water that was deep enough for launching and that

provided access to a larger river or the bay. Schooners were

built, according to local accounts, in towns such as Dividing

Creek and Fairton, at sites where such an undertaking would be

impossible today due to the silting up of many estuaries and

creeks. Under some conditions, launching space was so limited

that a new vessel had to be launched sideways to fit into the

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creek. Some building was "backyard," or on temporary sites;

there were also established shipyards, such as the one at

Dorchester (fig. 8), some of which are still in business.

Once a building site was selected, materials were

gathered and a design began to take form. Almost all the Jersey

schooners were built from half-hull models, or "by whittlin'."

Only two of the wooden boats, both built during the twentieth

century, were designed by naval architects; one of these, the

Ethelinda Blackman, was, at 104 feet, the largest oyster schooner

ever built in the area. All others relied on the design skill of

the master shipwright to carve a half-hull model (fig. 9) from

several layers of wood glued together, incorporating the desired

characteristics; this model served as a guide to the dimensions of

the full-size boat.

The technique of using a half-hull model had been a

feature of design processes in some provincial shipyards in

England, Denmark, Sweden, and Scotland (although the naval, or

admiralty, yards of those countries had tried to perfect the tech­

niques of drafting, relying on lines drawings or plans rather than

a material model); the technique was grasped in American

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Fig. 8. Shipyard at Dorchester, N .J., with oyster dredgeboat hauled out on marine railway, 1983.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55

Fig. 9. Plan of 72' keel schooner, built ca. 1840, indicating appearance of half-model used by shipbuilders. Drawing after Howard I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships (New York: W. W. Norton, 1935), p. 244,

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shipyards in the early nineteenth century. Soon it was regarded

as an essentially American approach to design problems; while

this conception was not historically accurate, as it disregarded

European precedents in the use of the builder's half-model, it

was, as Daniel Calhoun has pointed out, indicative of an

American attitude that sought to bolster emergent feelings of

national importance by transferring this feature of provincial life

"into the center of public thought."-^7

While the use of the half-model may have symbolized

something American about the approach to the intellectual chal­

lenge, more concretely it remained the first step toward the

construction of a vessel. From the builder's half-model, measure­

ments were taken which were then enlarged to full size on the

large, open floor of the shipyard mold loft. Numerical points or

a shape taken off the whittled model were plotted on the smooth,

painted surface, and "faired" with battens run between them, to

produce smoothly curving lines. These lines then served as

patterns for templates or molds of light pieces of wood. The

patterns were traced full size onto the timbers to be used for the

vessel's framing and planking members. This process, known as

lofting, was also used when lines drawings, or drafts, were the

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initial design medium. It continues to be used today for steel­

hulled boats (such as the new oyster boat launched in late 1983

from the Dorchester shipyard), with some modifications dictated

by the use of steel as a medium.

Outside, on the building site, the square timber blocks

for the keel were set up perpendicular to the shore, at a slight

downward slope. A long, thick, square-hewn timber—the keel—

was laid on these blocks; the construction of the vessel then

proceeded in stages. In the South Jersey shipyards, such as the

one at Greenwich, shipyard gangs were organized around these

stages of construction. Teams of men worked at lofting (taking

the design from the half-model to the templates); getting out

(hewing) the curved timbers; framing, or setting up the backbone

and ribs of the vessel; planking; and finishing the vessel by

installing decks, cabins, and furnishings. When the vessel was

planked and the decks were laid, everyone was expected to help

with the caulking—driving strands of oakum (unraveled hemp) into

the gaps between the planks and sealing these with a compound

in order to make the vessel watertight. The schooners, as

relatively small vessels, were often rigged before they were

launched; that is, their masts were set into steps on the keel

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and "set up" with wire or rope rigging. Their hulls were painted.

Finally, launching and final fitting out involved the entire com­

munity in celebration and in providing auxiliary services such as

rigging, sailmaking, shipsmithing, and stocking the goods needed

for life aboard.

With work in the shipyard organized by tasks, the master

shipwright gained his position by becoming skilled in all stages

of the work. He also directed the gangs and coordinated the

work schedule, as well as consulting with the owner. Master

shipwright and shipyard worker alike learned their trades by work- ? n ing as apprentices with the various gangs. u Starting with the

simpler tasks, the apprentice eventually assisted at all jobs;

lofting, the most complicated task, required both building exper­

ience and a certain amount of mathematical skill and was among

the last skills mastered.

Once templates for the framing of the vessel were made,

their shapes were traced onto suitable pieces of timber. Rather

than chalk or pencil, an instrument known as a trace or "race"

knife was used. This short, sharp tool had a hooked blade

which marked lines that would not wash off timber stored outdoors.

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Once so marked, the large hull timbers were shaped by ship­

wrights wielding broadaxes, adzes, axes, and saws to produce

the massive keel (rabbeted on the long edges to receive the

garboard, or bottom-most, planks), the stem, and the stem post.

These principal members—the backbone—were set up on the

building ways. Frames—the "ribs," or U-shaped structural

members that support the sides and deck of the hull—were

generally sawn and were erected from the stern forward, one at a

time, at right angles to the keel vertically, square to the center-

line of the keel. The ribs were held in place temporarily with

battens, shores, or ribbands. Depending on their position in the

vessel, the frames would have "floors" (connecting the frames on

either side of the keel) or would be "canted" (fastened into the

deadwood, or filler pieces, laid on the keel where the hull

narrows fore and aft).^1

When the frames were in place., the floors and deadwood

were covered with a fore-and-aft member, the keelson, which

further reinforced the "spine" of the vessel, preventing "hogging"

or bending at the ends. To the stern was added a vertical

rudderpost, with a space left through the keel for the hanging of

the rudder stock. The casing, or trunk, for the centerboard

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provided an additional lengthwise structural component. ^ The

vessel was now ready for planking.

The frames were dubbed down, or "faired," with adzes to

provide a smooth plane for attaching the planking, and plank lines

were marked directly on the frames. Planks were sawn, and

their edges beveled to ensure a gap for subsequent sealing with

oakum and pitch; this beveling was done by band saw, powered

by hand, often by an apprentice. 2 ° 2 Planks used at the ends of

the vessel were narrower than those used amidships. For areas

where there was a great deal of curvature, such as the stern of

the vessel, steaming was required to make the wood more pliable;

this was done just prior to laying the plank on the frames and

fastening it into the hull. Augers were used to drill holes

through both plank and frame; the planks were positioned and

fastened down with wooden treenails (pegs) wedged tight and

driven home with beetles or mauls, or with iron spikes. Planking

proceeded from the keel upward and from the sheer line down,

until the gap was closed with a final plank fitted at the turn of

the bilge. At the same time, a complementary process, known as

ceiling, covered the inside of the frames with planking, with a

plank left out just beneath the deck level to ensure ventilation

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between the two layers of sheathing.

Once the vessel was planked, strengthening elements

were added to the top of the ceiling underneath the deck:

clamps, which tie the frames together lengthwise and replace the

temporary ribbands, also supported the deck beams, or crosswise

members supporting the deck. The deck beams were braced at

their ends by knees, and additional bracing was added at certain

points on deck. Hatches, coaming, and cabins were framed in at

deck level, and deck planking was laid. Mast partners were

added on deck to brace the lower end of the masts. On the

Jersey schooners, waterways, or long timbers running atop the

ends of the deck beams, provided additional strength to the sides

of the vessel and the deck. Finally, the decks and sides of the

hull were caulked, bulwarks, rails, and other deck details were

added, and the vessel was ready for finishing. ^

Final joinery and carpenter work provided the new hull

with a cabin, often finished in hardwoods such as oak, ash, and

buttonwood, and a forepeak for crew's quarters, finished in

commoner woods such as white pine. Deck details—bitts,

platforms for the dredge winders, steering box, rails—were added;

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the steering gear was hooked up to the rudder post and stock.

Riggers set in the masts, often of Oregon pine; when these were

stepped, the custom of placing a coin under the mast-heel insured

fair winds and good fortune. ^

Before launching, the boat was painted following certain

traditions. White was a favored and customary color for the

oyster boats. Beading was added at several places on the hull

and was decorated with paint, particularly on the new-style

schooners, which sported two or three bands of beading on the

hull as well as around the transom. These were painted in

different combinations of red, blue, and yellow; the sheer strake

was often painted green. The beading around the curves of the

heart-shaped transom was painted a dark color—black or green;

the transom displayed the boat's name, either painted directly

onto it or on a painted or carved nameboard. On the old-style

schooners, which had less beading to decorate, the clipper-like

longhead or cutwater offered other possibilities for decoration;

trailboards, with the vessel's name incised and painted in blue,

red, gold, and other colors, surrounded by scrollwork, could be

mounted on the longhead (fig. 10). Nameboards were used on the

hull itself, especially if the boat had a round stem or spoon bow

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 10. Bow detail of "old-style" schooner Liz 2ie T. Robbins, built at Mauricetown, N.J 1885, showing clipper bow with longhead and decorative trailboards. Drawing after W. J. Walker, Works Progress Administration (Historic American Merchant Marine Survey, no. 4-3 Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.). 64

that did not carry a longhead beneath the bowsprit (see fig. 7). 2 fi

In cases where a vessel was not painted white, it was,

according to some local sources, because the owner consciously

wanted to be "different." The schooner T & E Rlggin, for example,

had a green hull at a time when most schooners were white; this

was "different," but it was not a violation of taboo as it might

have been in another area. Blue and green, the colors of the

sea, were taboo for fishing boats in Maine and in the

Chesapeake. 2 7 In South Jersey, white was preferred apparently

for practical and customary reasons, rather than belief-related

ones. In recent years, dark green has become a second preferred

color; it does not show aging and hard use as easily as does

w h ite.

One of the practical reasons offered for the custom of

painting the oyster schooners white was that it was easier to

maintain the vessels: white reflects the sun and does not cause as

much wood shrinkage as dark paints, which blister and were 28 notoriously hard to maintain. With the development of modem

wood preservatives, paint color is far less of a factor in vessel

maintenance, but, clearly, preservation and ease of maintenance

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were priorities among the owners and builders of sailing

dredgeboats.

Another measure taken to prolong the vessel's life was

the addition of salt to the area between planking and ceiling and

through "salt holes" in the transom. This, it was believed,

would keep wood from rotting; the custom is said to have arisen

from the observation that vessels carrying loads of salt fish

showed very little rot. (The belief that salt helps keep a hull

"sweet" was current among seafaring folk elsewhere as well.)

Adding salt did aid somewhat in keeping rot out of enclosed areas

of the schooner's hull; however, salt also speeded up the

deterioration of metal fastenings within the hull, thus defeating

its own purpose when the vessel had to be refastened. Replen­

ishing the salt supply is no longer part of the schooners' periodic

overhauls. ^

When the schooner was painted, her masts set up, salt

added to her hull, and the launchways prepared, she was ready

for launching. A yawlboat for pushing or towing was provided for

each schooner. These small, sturdy boats were built either in

the shipyard or by an independent builder specializing in

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yawlboats (fig. 11).^® Sails were made by area sailmakers, or,

as reported by Henry Hall in 1884, the schooner might have been

outfitted in Philadelphia. By the twentieth century, it seems that

this was seldom the case for oyster schooners, as there were a

number of flourishing enterprises auxiliary to shipbuilding in the

Maurice River vicinity. In preparation for launching, the schooner

was decked out in bunting and banners and poised to slide down

into the water as soon as the launching ways (prepared atop the

building ways) were let go.

The time, the tide, and the day were carefully chosen,

and the entire community was invited to witness the launching

and help celebrate the birth of a new schooner. The actual

launching was preceded by ceremonials including speeches,

benedictions, and music. Meanwhile, the ways were greased

with hot wax and heavy slush, or grease. When the moment of

high tide grew near, the vessel was christened and the ways

released to send her into the water, with a full deckload of

passengers, amid much cheering.

Christening often involved breaking a bottle of spirits

over the bow and naming the new vessel, but occasionally other

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. f t A Fig. 11. Plan of 12' garvey, or yawlboat, from schooner Laura M. Buckson. Top; profile; (Historic American Merchant Marine Survey, no. 4-34, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D .C.). bottom: plan view. Such garveys were carried over the stern on davits and were lowered when needed to push or tow the schooner. Drawing after John Clayton, Works Progress Administration

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means were devised when alcohol was deemed inappropriate. The

schooner Neil Tohnson was launched in 1907, all flags and bunting

flying; the American flag, furled at her gaff-head, was released as

she started to slide, and a shower of sweet-pea blossoms sailed

down to christen her hull. The schooner Nordic (see fig. 7),

whose owners, the Johnson family, were "temperance people,"

was christened with a bottle of water from the Dead Sea. The

bottle, inside its crocheted cover, is still preserved within the

community as a memento of that 1926 occasion. 31

The launching, like the building, was carefully prepared

and intensely watched. It was a time of community participation,

of celebration, the culmination of months of work at the shipyard.

It was also a time of great portent: everyone watched intently

to see how the new vessel would take the water. Injuries or

deaths connected with the launching were bad omens, the sign of

an unlucky vessel. But if all went well, the party went on for a

long time, with the owner providing food and drink for all

com ers. 32

Finishing touches continued after the schooner was

launched, at whatever pace suited the owner. Stoves, mattresses

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for bunks, oyster dredges, winders, and winder engines were

added to prepare the vessel for the oystering season. The

schooner then entered into her working life, as well prepared as

human hands could make her.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES

Howard I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships (New York: W. W. Norton, 1935), p. 258. In addition to Howard I. C hapelle's American Sailing Schooners. 1825 — 1935 (New York: W . W. Norton, 19 73) and Peter J. Guthorn's Sea Bright Skiff and Other Shore Boats (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971), a list of "model" works on vessel types should include, among others, the works of Marion V. Brewington, particularly Chesapeake Bay Log Canoes and Bugeyes (Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1963); Robert H. Burgess, Chesapeake Sailing Craft, Part 1 (Cambridge, Md.: Tidewater Publishers, 1975); Howard I. Chapelle, American Small Sailing Craft (New York: W. W. Norton, 1951); and Basil Greenhill, Archaeology of the Boat: A New Introductory Study (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1976). For a fine consider­ ation of boats and boatbuilding in the cultural context, see David A. Taylor, Boatbuilding in Wlnterton. Trinity Bay. Newfoundland (Ottawa: National Museum of Man/Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies, 1982).

^Chapelle, History of Ships, pp. 219, 221—22. Chapelle's measures of the overall importance of the schooner type include the aggregate amount of cargo carried, in proportion to that carried in other vessel types; the economic and historic importance of the cargoes carried; the historic incidents with which the schooner has been involved; and the technical judg­ ments of how well it has suited its purpose.

^ Chapelle, History of Ships, pp. 219—46.

4 Chapelle, History of Ships, pp. 225, 221, 238. See also Howard I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed under Sail. 1700-1855 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967).

70

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5 William A. Baker, "The Preservation of Chesapeake Bay Watercraft" (Paper presented at the Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposium, Annapolis, Md., January 1977), p. 45.

6 Chapelle, History of Ships, p. 258. 7 Chapelle, History of Ships, p. 1. For suggesting the phrase "mental template," I am indebted to Bernard L. Herman.

® Chapelle, History of Ships, p. 132.

9 For example, the schooner David Robbins, built at Baltimore in 1885 (see Appendix), is virtually indistinguishable from her Jersey-built contemporaries with her straight, raking stem and large, flat, raking transom.

Robert Morgan to Anne Witty, personal interview, Dorchester Industries Shipyard, Dorchester, N .J., October 1983.

11 Henry Hall, "Report on the Ship-Building Industry of the United States," in Tenth Census of the United States, vol. 8 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1884), pt. 4, pp. 122—23; Frank Hinson and George Hinson to Gunter Schaffer and Pat Condell, personal interview, Dividing Creek, N.J., November 19 79 (American Studies Program, University of Delaware, collection of Bernard L. Herman); retired shipwright Clem Sutton to Anne Witty, personal interview, Greenwich, N .J., November 1983. Vessel registers indicate place of building for the schooners, as do the 1930s records of the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.).

l^ Hall, "Report on the Industry," pp. 122, 123.

12 Hall, "Report on the Industry," pp. 246, 244, 122,

14 Chapelle, American Craft, pp. 10—11. The treatise discussed is Ake Classon RSlamb, Skeps Byggerij eller Adelig Ofnings Tionde Tom (1691; reprint ed., Stockholm: Statens Sjohistoriska Museet, n.d.).

1^ Clyde Phillips to Anne Witty, personal interview, Bivalve, N .J., August 1983.

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Morgan to Witty.

^ Daniel Calhoun, The Intelligence of a People (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 241.

18 Sutton to Witty, January 1984.

Willits D. Ansel, "The Building of a Wooden Ship" (19 76), manuscript (Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Conn.), p. 2; Sutton’, to Witty. Auxiliary industries are depicted in David Budlong Tyler, The Bay and River Delaware (Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1955), with photographs of local black­ smith Frank Lore and sailmaker Edward B. Cobb. A number of details on local maritime enterprises related to shipbuilding and oystering is provided in Margaret Louise Mints, The Great Wilderness (Millville, N.J.: Wheaton Historical Association, 19 68).

Sutton to Witty.

^1 Sutton to Witty; Ansel, "Building of a Wooden Ship," pp. 3 -4 .

^ Ansel, "Building of a Wooden Ship," pp. 3—5.

Sutton remembers this experience from the 1920s, when he was an apprentice shipwright in the Greenwich yard (Sutton to Witty).

^ This simplified account is adopted from Ansel, "Building of a Wooden Ship," pp. 5—9; and from the reminis­ cences of shipwright Clem Sutton of Greenwich (Sutton to Witty). For a good general account., see Joseph Goldenberg, "With Saw and Axe and Auger: Three Centuries of American Shipbuilding," in Material Culture of the Wooden Age, ed. Brooke Hindle (Tarrytown, N.Y.: Sleepy Hollow Press, 1981).

^ Sutton to Witty, November 1983, January 1984; see also Horace Beck, Folklore and the Sea (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 19 73). The custom of placing a coin under the mast-heel is widespread and relates to the custom of "buying the wind."

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26 Sutton to Witty. Sutton's paintings of the fleet under sail illustrate the colorful use of decorative beading.

2^ Beck, Folklore and the Sea, p. 16; Randall Peffer, Watermen (Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 173-76.

2® Sutton to Witty, November 1983; Beck, Folklore and the Sea, p. 16.

2^ Beck, Folklore and the Sea, p. 12; Sutton to Witty. qn Sutton to Witty; David Robbins to Anne Witty, personal interview, Port Norris, N.J., November 1979.

31 Sutton to Witty. In Sutton's scrapbook is a newspaper clipping describing the launching.

33 Beck, Folklore and the Sea. pp. 22—29. Some of these customs were observed at the November 1983 launching of a steel oyster boat, the first new boat built in South Jersey for the oyster industry since 1930. Speeches, blessings, recorded band music, and christening with a bottle of champagne preceded the high-tide launch; a party in the shipyard followed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 3

THE SCHOONERS AS INDEX TO CHANGE IN THE OYSTER FISHERY

The Jersey schooners provide, as we have seen, a basis

from which to explore the development and building of a local

type of American schooner for the oyster fishery of Delaware Bay.

The presence of other vessel types in the oystering fleet shows

that nonlocal boats can also be adapted to the demands of a par­

ticular area. But in the conglomeration of boats now oystering in

South Jersey, it is the schooners that carry aspects of community

memory and pride. This is revealed in the abundance of local

knowledge of the wooden shipbuilding industry that has been

nearly inactive for more than fifty years, in the excitement

engendered by the building of a new boat for the oyster fleet,

and in the appreciation shown by those who follow the water for

the aesthetic and handling characteristics of the old schooner

hulls. The schooners remain primary artifacts, although the way

they are used, maintained, and regarded has changed over the

years since their conversion to power. Two issues are important

to an examination of the ways in which the schooners embody

74

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changes within the oyster fishery and related enterprises: the

emergence of a repair and maintenance tradition to take the place

of shipbuilding, and the emergence of a new aesthetic surrounding

the schooners. It is these issues that are the focus of this

chapter.

Both the maintenance and repair tradition—which involves

additions and alterations to the hulls—and the emergence of new

aesthetic concerns have occurred within the context of economic,

legislative, and technological changes in South Jersey's oyster

fishery. Without a comprehensive history of the fishery available,

it is difficult to gather details of all the changes that have

prompted alterations in the boats. However, most of the major

influences are visible in the vessels themselves, while others

emerge in the testimonials of area watermen and in old photo­

graphs. Neither the ascendancy of a maintenance and repair

tradition nor the emergence of a new aesthetic exists in isolation;

both grow out of (although they also provide some contrast to) the

building tradition and the aesthetic operative in the building,

painting, and decoration of the sailing schooners, as described

in chapter 2.

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Maintenance is a constant responsibility for the owner of

any wooden vessel. Preservation measures were taken before a

schooner was even launched: painting, "sweetening" the hull

with salt (a practice that persisted through the launching of the

last sailing schooner in 1930 )} and laying protective sheathing on

the hull and decks. Regular maintenance procedures were

scheduled according to the seasonal demands of the oyster

fishery. Usually, "spring cleaning" took place after the spring

planting season, which followed the winter harvest season. This

was one of two yearly haul-outs (more, if repairs were necessary).

It involved much on-board work, and the entire crew was enlisted

to help. Spring cleanup saw the boat being hauled out on a

marine railway to scrape and repaint the bottom with antifouling

compound and to check the hull for structural damage or weak

points. The crew fitted new deck planking, laid loosely over the

structural deck planking to protect the deck from the sharp-edged

oyster shells; "slushed down" the masts with grease to preserve

the wood and allow the wooden mast hoops to slide more easily;

painted the tops of the masts above the slush to keep the mast

from splitting; tarred the standing rigging and the foredeck, where

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the dredges were hauled in and the deck received hard wear; and

threw out old mattresses and other "tagalong" equipment. New

gear was ordered for whatever needed replacing. Over the summer

months, when no oystering was done, sails might be stowed

ashore and odd jobs of maintenance, improvement, or repair per­

formed. The schooners were hauled again before fall dredging

began, to remove the summer's growth from the bottom and insure

maximum speed while sailing in with the catch.

Summer lay-up was slack time, but often there might be

other business for the schooners. Some of the Delaware

schooners, according to Captains Harry and William Haggarty of

Little Creek, hauled farm produce or went surf-clamming in the

summer, as did Jersey-based boats. Other schooners were used

for expeditions or larks during the summer or early autumn; a

local account of a two-week trip through the Chesapeake and

Delaware Canal and down to Jamestown on the schooner Annie C.

Tohnson around the turn of the century paints a vivid picture of

O such recreations.

After about 1938, when a New Jersey law was passed

allowing power dredging on owners' grounds (where the oysters

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planted in the spring would be harvested in the fall), the

seasonal round of maintenance took on another dimension. Small,

25-horsepower engines were installed along with temporary pilot­

houses in most of the schooners (fig. 12); the sail rig was

retained, but reduced. The engines were used during the calms

of the winter season, but before spring planting season the boats

were hauled, the propellers removed, and a box built around the

propeller shaft to seal it. This prevented "cheating" by using

both sail and power at the same time. It was a conservation

measure as well, protecting the spat, or seed oysters, from

engine oil and the destructive effects of too much power behind

the dredges. The wheelhouse was also temporarily removed to

provide more deck space and better clearance for the boom. If

the rig had been reduced, a full rig was restored. The propeller

and the wheelhouse were replaced during the spring maintenance

haul-out, or in the fall, before dredging began.

The installation of temporary pilothouses and small

engines was, of course, a precursor of the final motorization of

the schooners, but it also grew out of a long-standing tradition of

changing around the sail rigs. The size, shape, and placement

of sails afforded numerous possibilities for experimentation;

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. showing cabin and installation of temporary auxiliary engine before 1936. Drawing after James 4-19, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.). Fig. 12. Partial inboardH. profile W. of Riding, schooner Works Anna M . Progress Frome. Administration built (Historic at American Greenwich, Merchant Marine N .J., Survey, no. 1904,

reproduction prohibited without permission. 80

different rigs were popular at various times among the oystering

fleet from the early nineteenth century on. Speed and economy

were the guiding factors. For these reasons, the schooner rig,

consisting of two fore-and-aft gaff-rigged sails on two masts,

with a varying number of topsails and headsails, won out over

the previously preferred sloop, with its single large mainsail.

The schooner rig was not only faster but also easier to handle

with fewer crew members and more quickly adaptable to changes

in weather. There were also a greater number of sail

combinations possible with the schooner rig, and at different

times different rigs were popular. As some of these changes

required the services of a rigger or sailmaker, the tradition of

experimentation in rig can be seen as an integral part of the

maintenance of the sailing dredgeboats.

The "old-style" dredgeboats—those built before World

War I—were clipper-bowed with a long bowsprit capable of carry­

ing one large or two smaller jibs or headsails (see fig. 4).

They also carried a main topmast and topsail; while generally

only one topsail was "flown," there were a few Delaware Bay

boats that carried both fore and main topsails. With their long

(and treacherous) bowsprits, the old-style schooners sported

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longheads with carved and painted trailboards (see fig. 10).

Overall, these schooners averaged between 60 and 70 feet in

length.

The 1920s heralded the arrival of several innovations in

the design of the Jersey schooners. The hull shapes were

changed: the transoms were made smaller, more raking, and were

lifted well out of the water, while the bows were changed from

the clipper-like, hollow old-style bow to the "spoon bow," a

curving stem shape (see fig. 7). Many believe this bow shape

to have been copied from the fast Gloucester fishing schooners,

but it had much earlier design precedents: the first Chesapeake

schooners were built with spoon bows in the early nineteenth

century. Certainly the popularity and success of the Gloucester

schooner design was a factor in the reintroduction of the spoon

bow among Jersey builders, but there were also practical and

» more immediate considerations. The spoon bow enabled a shorter,

"spike" bowsprit to be rigged, eliminating some of the length that

was so hazardous to seamen setting sails along the bowsprit.

This spike bowsprit and curved stem shape also eliminated the

longhead, with its trailboards and decorations, prompting the use

of nameboards mounted directly on the schooner's hull at the

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bows. The sail rig of the new-style schooners also did without

the topsail(s), which required additional manpower to handle and

could be awkward in case of a sudden blow. The large sails,

fore and main, were increased in size by extending the length of

the masts and by increasing the angle of the gaff, particularly on

the mainsail, so that a greater area of sail could be stretched in 4 what was known as a "gloriana" peak.

The speed, economy, and weatherliness of the "new"

schooners, the first of which was launched in 1923, soon

prompted changes in the sail rigs of the older boats, which

imitated new-style design by shortening their bowsprits, rerigging

their headsails closer in, and taking down topmasts and topsails.

Fewer crew were needed to handle such an arrangement of sail,

and the changes resulted in some additional speed, keeping the

old-style boats competitive with the newcomers. Changes in rig

alone could not compensate for the speed advantage the new

schooners possessed by virtue of their hull design. The old-style

schooners with the new "bald-headed" (meaning without topmasts)

rig were sometimes called "Polish rig" or "Pole rig" boats.

Although this term is somewhat obscure in both meaning and origin,

it probably relates to the term pole-masted, meaning a vessel

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with spars of one section.^

The alterations in rig that were carried out in a constant

search for improved speed and efficiency were part of the ongoing

secondary tradition of maintenance in the days when shipbuilding

was still an active tradition. One of the major factors helping

maintenance become a primary tradition was the motorization of

the fleet, about fifteen years after the last sailing dredgeboat was

launched.

The 1920s were a time of prosperity for oystermen in

South Jersey. Orders for new boats, which required a great deal

of capital outlay, kept the Dorchester and Greenwich shipyards

busy building for the oystering fleet between 1923 and 1930.

But shipbuilding, always sensitive to economic conditions, took a

downward turn after the crash of 1929, and no new schooners

were built after 1930. The oystering industry was not so hard

hit: fisheries could be a relatively steady source of livelihood

even in the worst of times for those who already owned their

boats and equipment. As Capt. Frank Hinson put it, "it was

hard, but we 'merged through." Still, there was sufficient

pressure to promote the passage of a state law (soon followed in

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Delaware) in 1938 to permit dredging under power on the owners'

grounds. Seven years later, after World War II and economic

upheaval had led to a labor shortage within the fisheries, the

boats were allowed to go over to power completely. None

hesitated to do so after 1945. Masts were cut down or taken

out; some boats retained the stump of a foremast, or even of

both masts, and some have continued to use these as loading

booms or even to suspend dredges. The bowsprit, along with

longhead and trailboards if these were still retained on an old-

style boat, were removed, the sails stowed away ashore, large

engines installed, and permanent pilothouses built (fig. 13).

These changes, which completely altered the appearance and

ways of working of the oystering fleet, came about as material

responses to legislation designed to ease the effects of the man­

power shortage and to the opportunities afforded by improved

marine engineering.

The engines installed in the schooners in the late 1940s

were diesel marine engines of from 40 to 300 horsepower with

single propellers, or what are known in Coast Guard terminology

as "oil screw" rigs. Many of the first ones were installed by

the Caterpillar Engine Company, which built a promotion campaign

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Fig. 13. Powered dredgeboat L. H. Robbins. S r.. built as a "new-style" schooner at Greenwich, N .J., 1923. Note the spoon bow, reinforced with a steel cap, and the low transom stem. Oystering gear includes "barrel tumblers" mounted in the bow. Photographed at Mauricetown, N .J., 1983.

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7 around the motorization of the South Jersey fleet. The engines

were installed in the main hold just forward of the cabin (see fig.

12); what had been the main hatch providing access to the hold

became the engine-room hatch. Parenthetically, it was the advent

of shucking houses in the early 1920s that freed up this vessel

space for the engine. When oysters were destined for a shucking

house, it was no longer necessary to protect them from freezing

as it was when they were to be shipped in the shell. Captains

took to carrying their loads of oysters on deck instead of below,

in the main hold, as this eased the demands of handling and the

boat could be unloaded with fewer hands.

When engines were installed in the schooners, reper­

cussions echoed throughout the maritime community. With sails

stowed ashore, gradually falling victim to time, rot, and mice,

the services of sailmakers and riggers were no longer required.

In addition to providing new suits of sails, sailmakers had been

called on for major alterations (some necessitated by the experi­

ments in rig) as well as repairs; now their skills were not needed

at all. The sail lofts were occasionally taken over for other

uses before being abandoned completely. For example, the

Joseph B. Low sail loft at Greenwich was used for community

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dances after the sailmaker had closed up shop: the long,

unobstructed floor had been polished to a shine by years of

canvaswork and was ideal for dancing. It was later torn down,

as were all other buildings associated with the maritime industries

in Greenwich.® Chandlers continued to provide some goods, but

it was also increasingly common for crews to supply themselves

from local grocery stores. With the exception of dredgemaking,

some smithing, and the furnishing of machinery for the increas­

ingly mechanized oyster boats, the demand for auxiliary services

dropped off almost as completely as had shipbuilding in South

Jersey. But the need for skilled shipwrights to perform repairs

and alterations on the schooner hulls, while it may have lessened

somewhat over the years, has not yet disappeared. It is this

aspect of the configuration of oystering under sail—the mainten­

ance and repair tradition—that has persisted and thrives to this

day.

In addition to regular maintenance procedures, certain

alterations were necessitated by the switch to power. In many

schooners, the centerboards—necessary for turning and keeping

on course when under sail—were either removed or pinned up

into the hull, and the centerboard wells (forming an integral

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strengthening part of the vessel's skeleton) planked over. There

were a few schooners, however, that required their centerboards

even under power. One such was the Timothy Bateman, a

Leesburg-built "new-style" schooner, whose former captain has

said that she was so "unhandy" under power that he had to drop

her centerboard in order to turn her. This was, he believed,

because the winders were placed too far aft to act as pivots when

Q the dredges were down. Any prudent captain would not hurry to

remove the centerboard (just as some did not hurry to remove the

masts) until his boat had proved its handling abilities under

power as well as under sail.

Alterations and refurbishing, even occasional complete

rebuilding, took place in area shipyards, which after the decline

of building for the oyster fleet depended on repairs, haulage, and

the building of other types for their Income. At present, the

yard at Dorchester and a smaller yard between Dorchester and

Leesburg handle most of the maintenance and repair work for the

entire Delaware Bay oyster fleet, including the Delaware-based

boats. Many vessels from New York and New England also resort

to the South Jersey yards for some types of outfitting and repair­

ing. A small steel business, run at Leesburg just downriver from

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the shipyards, furnishes steel top timbers, conveyor supports,

and culling gear for the fleet, as well as outfitting some boats

from farther afield. In short, alterations and repairs are nearly

constant and keep the shipwright's hand in.

For the most part, engines installed on the schooners in

the 1940s are still in use, although some of the Caterpillar

engines, according to one young captain, "blew up" and had to

be replaced. Many of the boats' captains and crews perform

their own engine maintenance, but all are deeply involved in any

repair work that goes on. They supervise and often participate

in work done on their boats at the shipyard. Under power as

well as under sail, captains develop the familiarity with their

own boats and others in the fleet that prompted Henry Hall's

remark, in his 1884 report on shipbuilding, that "every fisherman

is half a shipwright by the nature of his calling." More recently,

Capt. Fenton Anderson expressed the close identification of

captains with their boats when he described how area skippers

convey information about current shipyard activities: "Jimmy

Jones is hauled today," referring to the boat by its skipper's

name. Anderson put it this way: "A boat and a captain are

probably one thing.

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Both before and after the motorization of the boats, the

equipment aboard them underwent considerable mechanization.

When oyster dredges were introduced into the fishery, they were

hauled in hand over hand—an arduous task requiring five or six

men per line. Later, cranks were added to the drums on which

the lines were wound to make winches, called "winders"; this

invention, according to local historian M. L. Mints, came about

through the innovation of Joseph Turner, who had a blacksmith

shop at Bivalve. From these hand-cranked winders, or winding

drums, it was a simple step to power winders; the schooners

carried small engines to power the winders long before they

abandoned sail. Again according to Mints, one Capt. Walter

Riggins was not only the first man to use power winders aboard a

Maurice River boat but also the first to install an auxiliary engine

in a sailboat in that area.*3. As in experimentation with hull

design and rig, mechanical innovations aimed for speed and

efficiency.

Power winders greatly reduced the amount of labor needed

to haul the dredges in, but once the dredges were aboard a con­

siderable amount of manpower was needed to sort, or cull, the

oysters as well as to handle sail. The crew numbered ten or

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twelve men, of whom all except the helmsman and possibly the

cook were on deck culling oysters when the dredges came over

the sides. Gradually, machinery was introduced to cut the num­

ber of crew needed; today there is only one boat on the river,

Capt. Fenton Anderson's schooner, Martha Meerwald, which

sticks to the hand-culling method. The other schooners have

adopted one of two principal methods of automatic culling—

culling by barrel tumbler and "finger-picking.” When the dredges

come over the side, they are dumped—either by hand or by

dumper doors which, when they hit the side of the hopper, tip

their load—into hoppers located at either rail. From these bins

the oysters are carried forward into the bows on two conveyor

belts and are let into the sides of open-grillwork barrels (see

fig. 13). These tumble the oysters around, allowing undersized

oysters, empty shells, and other "trash" to fall through the bars

onto the deck. The culled load is then dumped into a central

hopper, from which an overhead' conveyor takes the oysters aft

and dumps them through a hooplike apparatus onto the deck just

forward of the wheelhouse. This is the barrel-tumbler method.

If the finger-picking system is used, the oysters are moved

forward into a central hopper at the bows and then onto conveyor

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belts which are fitted with upright spikes. The spikes, or

"fingers," rake through the oysters as they carry them; the good-

sized oysters are retained until they reach the end of the belt,

where they are dropped into a pile on deck.

These methods have reduced the need for labor to a bare

minimum: an oyster schooner can now be run with a two-man

crew. Indeed, the incentive for their development in the 19 60s

was in part the shortage of available labor. But the pileup of

machinery on the decks has brought with it other problems, as

have the culling methods themselves. Barrel-tumbling tends to

chip the shells, which may result in shell chips making their way

into cans of shucked oysters or, if the oysters are shipped in

the shell, may result in spoilage. Finger-pickers let many good

oysters slip by. In both cases, the detritus is shoveled over­

board while the boat is still over the oyster beds, as the shells

and young oysters returned to the beds aid future harvests.

Periodic inspections by the shellfisheries police will reveal if a

boat has too high a percentage of shells and undersized oysters

in her load; if so, the entire pile is perforce left on the beds.

This is more likely with the automated culling methods. Of all

the methods, hand culling provides the best "cull," but it is

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least viable economically. The slightly higher price hand-culled

oysters command does not offset the cost of hiring additional

crew.

Another result of the mechanization of dredging and

culling gear has been the need for ever-taller pilothouses. When

the boats were first motorized, permanent wheelhouses were

installed, in most cases directly atop the trunk cabin roofs (see

fig. 6). These "houses" stand 10 to 12 feet off the deck and

are reached by steps either built up from the deck or added to

the sides of the trunk cabin. The wheelhouse provides a vantage

point for the skipper, but it can be difficult to see beyond the

mass of conveyors and other gear, much of it at the skipper's

eye level. A few boat owners have sought a solution by having

large new pilothouses built in place of the old ones atop the

trunk cabin. These are somewhat derisively called "condo" boats

(fig. 14), for the resemblance of the superstructures, with their

smoked glass and bright-colored trim, to some modern condo-

1 9 miniums. While they represent a practical solution to the

problems of visibility, they are not quite accepted; they do not

fit into the aesthetic set up by the graceful lines of the schooner

hulls or the finish-work style of local ship joiners. They seem

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Fig. 14. Two so-called condo boats—oyster dredgeboats with built-up pilothouses—berthed at Bivalve, N.J., 1983.

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to violate community expectations for the appearance of a con­

verted schooner, an aesthetic that itself has evolved away from

that pertaining to the boats under sail.

In the reaction to the ultimately practical, if aesthetically

jarring, solution seen in the condo boats, the operation of the

second factor to be considered in this chapter—a new aesthetic—

can be seen. While the condo boat is "inappropriate," other

solutions to the problem of the pilothouse operate successfully

within the vocabulary of local building for the oystering fleet.

Pilothouses were added at the local shipyards when the

schooners were converted to power. This lends a certain unity to

the appearance of the fleet of converted schooners; while the

wheelhouses show variation in shape and proportion, each is

relatively harmonious with the hull and other features of the

schooner onto which it was added. For example, many of the

wheelhouses are finished on the exterior with the same vertical,

beaded-edged paneling that is found in the finish work of the

main cabin and forepeak below. This unity was not diminished

by the necessity of converting to power; wheelhouses were made

to match the original joinery. South Jersey oystermen have thus

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retained a particular pride in the fine finish work on their

schooners.

The manner of painting the schooners has also reflected,

to a certain extent, the emergence of a new aesthetic. When the

sailing dredgeboats were being built and launched—that is,

through 1930—white was almost exclusively used for both hulls

and sails. There were a few exceptions on the part of "boat-

proud" owners who wanted their boats to stand out. Now, more

practical considerations have taken over. Many of the schooners

are still white, although without the decorative beading and

striping of their sailing days, but a large number have been

painted dark green (fig. 15). This color shows dirt and wear less

readily and better hides the rust stains that bleed through paint

from the iron fastenings of the vessel.

On a practical level the use of dark green hides a

* multitude of sins. On an aesthetic level it has also become a

mark of distinction. The group of schooners belonging to

Wheaton Industries and berthed at the Dorchester Industries Ship­

yard are all painted dark green. When, in November 1983, a

new steel oyster boat was launched to join the fleet, her hull,

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Fig. 15. Powered dredgeboats belonging to the "Green Fleet." These boats are painted dark green on the hull, with black bul­ warks and black, white, and gray trim. Photographed at Dorchester, N .J., 1983.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98

too, was painted dark green, with the company's logo in bright

red on her white pilothouse. The company has achieved a certain

uniformity and recognition with a paint scheme that features dark-

green hulls, black bulwarks, and names painted in white on a

black ground at bows and transom (see fig. 15): members of "The

Green Fleet" are recognized from afar.

Another group of boats is distinctive for its use of white

without any decoration at all. Robbins Brothers of Port Norris,

a dredging-cum-packing-house concern, runs a fleet of schooners

painted bright, stark white, with no name, license number, or

trim to identify the boats (see fig. 13). These boats, while

perhaps less distinctive to the outsider's eye than those of the

Green Fleet, are equally well-recognized within the community.

Appreciation and recognition are based more on the intrinsic

qualities of the hull than on the ways in which the hull is

decorated—thus one aspect of the new aesthetic can be seen to

have its roots in the appreciation shown for vessels under sail.

The plain-finished Robbins boats are appreciated for their lines—

the ways in which the hulls take the water, their overall shape.

Despite the addition of pilothouses, canopies over the afterdeck,

and piles of automated dredging and culling gear, the boat

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remains, intrinsically, a hull shape to be admired or belittled on

its own merits.

Other matters of aesthetic values can be seen in some of

the changes that have accompanied the reorganization of working

space aboard the schooners. With motorization, the abovedecks

wheelhouse became the province of the captain. Whereas pre­

viously the finely finished main cabin had been the site of

privilege—crew members slept forward in the roughly finished

forepeak, but only the skipper, mate, cook, and perhaps one

other crew member slept in the cabin—motorization coincided with

other factors to democratize the cabin. A smaller crew (as few

as two or three men) and the change from week-long dredging

trips to day-long trips meant that the forepeak, formerly sleeping

quarters for the crew, became disused. Most are now used for

storage of extra equipment; some are dismantled, their berths

taken down and lockers emptied. Life aboard moved aft to the

main cabin, which, when the boats were first built, was the more

finely finished area of the two. Better woods and narrower

paneling were used aft than in the forepeak. Meanwhile, the

skipper's sphere of privilege moved topsides into the wheelhouse.

Because the wheel itself was no longer mounted on the small

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wheelbox on the afterdeck, exposed to the elements, it no longer

needed to be a strictly utilitarian object. Some captains took

the opportunity to have fine wheels of mahogany custom made, to

be mounted in the wheelhouse. 13 The "house" itself was

finished with vertical paneling similar to that in the main cabin;

it was furnished with an instrument bank, a heater, and a bunk

with drawers for storage underneath it. It provided the captain a

view of all goings-on on deck. The site of "privilege," or

control, stayed aft but was elevated into the self-contained

wheelhouse when the cabin's function changed.

Some practical considerations and some customary ones

went along with the shift of control to the wheelhouse. On the

schooner Cashier (see Appendix), a small, square window in the

after-end of the cabin wall marks where formerly a binnacle light

would have been placed. The binnacle, or compass, was

sheltered within this space, from which it was visible to the man

at the wheel. The binnacle light was blocked over when the

wheelhouse was built and navigation moved "up." With the

removal of the sail rig, another change was enabled which would

have been impractical under sail: the entranceways to the main

cabin, generally flat sliding hatches or "slides" on the port side

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of the trunk cabin roof, were removed and replaced with full-

length doorways. Crew members could now step into the cabin

and down two or three steps directly into the main cabin, instead

of hoisting themselves through the "slide" and then down the

steps. On some of the schooners, a small, boxlike foyer has

been appended to the cabin trunk, looking like a small enclosed

doorway. On a few—for example, the Lula Phillips (see

Appendix)—the added wheelhouse itself has the air of a true

house. Changing use of space aboard the schooners, it seems,

borrowed from the domestic sphere to a certain extent. The addi­

tions made to the schooners when they were motorized are

evidence of the operation of both a maintenance, alteration, and

repair tradition and the aesthetic concerns governing repairs and

alterations.

There are some decorative customs that transcend the

two categories we have been concerned with here and fall into

the realm of issues of mind as reflected in maritime folklore.

One is the practice of nailing a horseshoe to the forward cuddy

or hatch opening (see fig. 6). The shoe is always placed U-side

up, "to keep the luck from running out." This practice was at

one time almost universal aboard American schooners and was

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also current in New Jersey on land. Another decorative and per­

haps belief-oriented custom may still be seen on at least two of

the schooners, where the white hull finish is relieved by painting

the inside of the hawse-pipe holes in the bows a bright red.

This gives the appearance of eyes in the bows of the boat and

may relate to the ancient practice of painting eyes on the bows

of the boat, customary in many parts of the world. ^

In the building, maintenance, repair, and alteration of

the schooners can be seen the operation of many traditions and

customs. Changes in work patterns—the shortage of labor,

mechanization, and the subsequent need for fewer crew members,

and the reorganization of living and working space aboard the

boats—all made their mark on the schooners as we find them

today. Changes in the packing and marketing of oysters, with

the advent of shucking houses in the 1920s, also affected the

way space aboard the boats was used, contributing to some of

the changes. Practical and traditional considerations were

involved in the change of surface decoration—the extra beading

that was so highly decorative in the sailing dredgeboats was a

cause of rot and was removed when possible. The acceptance of

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dark green as an alternative to white paint was not only a matter

of appearance and the weakening of a belief in, or need for, the

heat-reflecting qualities of white but also a matter of the avail­

ability of marine-grade paint for wooden hulls. The persistence

of customs such as the horseshoe and the painting of "eyes" on

the bows of the boat are rooted deep in maritime folk belief and

cannot be explained solely in either practical or aesthetic terms.

But the persistence of folk belief adds a rich dimension to the

consideration of schooners as an index to changes within the

work society: it indicates that while some changes can be

correlated quite neatly with the fortunes of oystering in the twen­

tieth century, other traditions stay on precisely because the

elemental relationship between people and the sea remains the

same. Despite motorization and new navigational aids, the

schooners are still fragile in the face of the bay; human lives

depend on them every day.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTES

* The Derek Robinson, launched in Dorchester as the Sheppard W. Campbell in 1930, has evidence of salt holes in her transom; see description in Appendix.

2 Clem Sutton to Anne Witty, personal interview, Greenwich, N.J., January 1984. Harry Haggarty and William Haggarty, personal interview, Little Creek, N.J., 1979, as cited in James Valle, "The Kent County Oyster Schooners" (Paper pre­ sented at the Delaware State House Symposium on Delaware History and Culture, Dover, April 1980), p. 5; Frank Hinson and George Hinson to Gunter Schaffer and Pat Condell, personal interview, Dividing Creek,N.J., November 19 79 (American Studies Program, University of Delaware, collection of Bernard L. Herman); The Scribe, "The 'Jkntown1 Trip," South Tersey 3, no. 4 (Fall 1974): 32-39; 4, no. 1 (Winter 19 75): 35-39.

^ Sutton to Witty; Valle, "Kent County Schooners," pp. 11 — 12. Donald Rolfs, Under Sail: The Dredgeboats of Delaware Bay (Millville, N.J.: Wheaton Historical Association, 1971), p. 65, includes a photograph of the schooner Alert (see Appendix, below) with a temporary pilothouse.

^ These changes are clearly visible in most photographs of the fleet under sail. Valle, "Kent County Schooners," pp. 2-3; Rolfs, Under Sail, pp. 38—42.

® The Margaret Fowler, built at Greenwich and launched in 1923, is still considered a classic among new-style boats. She is now motorized and known as the Aim ah D. Robbins (see Appendix). "Polish rig" and "Pole rig" are used in Rolfs, Under Sail, and Valle, "Kent County Schooners," but some in South Jersey claim that these terms were not frequently used. £ Hinson and Hinson to Schaffer and Condell; Ed Farley to Anne Witty, personal interview, Bozman, Md., August 1983.

104

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^ The Robbins Brothers Company of Port Norris has several Caterpillar Company photographs and brochures advertising the conversion of the South Jersey oystering fleet. Some of the original Caterpillar engines are still in use, but others have been replaced. See Appendix for an indication of the range of horse­ power in the schooners' engines.

® Sutton to Witty.

9 Clyde Phillips to Anne Witty, personal interview, Bivalve, N .J., October 1983.

^ Henry Hall, "Report on the Ship-Building Industry of the United States," in Tenth Census of the United States, vol. 8 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1884), pt. 4, p. 4; Capt. Fenton Anderson in Schooners on the Bay, film (Trenton: New Jersey Network and New Jersey Historical Com­ mission, 1984).

Margaret Louise Mints, The Great Wilderness (Millville, N.J.: Wheaton Historical Association, 1968), pp. 127—28. Mints does not give the dates or exact sequence of these events.

^ Phillips to Witty. He used the phrase in speaking of the schooner Mary Ella Tenkins, although she is not the sole example.

*3 For example, the schooner Alert (see Appendix), whose original galvanized-iron wheel is now in use aboard the Chesa­ peake Bay skipjack Stanley Norman, owned by Ed Farley of Bozman, Md. Alert now sports an inlaid mahogany wheel in her pilothouse.

^ For a discussion of these customs, see chap. 1. The schooners with red hawse-holes are the Tohn C. Peterson and the C. T. Peterson, both owned by a family of Scandinavian descent; the custom of painting occuli on the bows was current in many parts of Scandinavia.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONCLUSION

This essay has explored the question of how modification

in artifacts reflects or anticipates changes in the organization of

a work society. Through examining the material ways in which

Jersey-built oyster schooners have been altered to better perform

their work as dredgeboats, we have been led to fundamental

issues of mind; that is, what do the schooners mean to those

who rely on them not only for their livelihoods but also for their

very survival on the water? This question has been answered

only in part; some of these answers are specific to South Jersey

oystering communities, others suggest that broader patterns of

folk belief have a particular manifestation in the locale under

study.

We began by examining the nature of the vessel as arti­

fact, a discussion intended to inform the reader rather than to

prejudice the results of a study of the fleet. Indeed, it was

only in the field that the many customs described in this essay

were evident; these were later linked to similar themes in the

106

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literature of folklore of the sea. The occurrence of such a large

number of beliefs, and particularly the strong vision of animism,

implies that these objects have a deep significance. Their human

context, beyond their metaphorical existence as "animate" objects,

must inform a study of them as objects of material culture. The

schooners, although undeniably material, stand at the junction of

work and culture. They are mediating forces. This takes their

being out of the purely material context and makes them reliable

indicators of changes in societal organization as it has been

shaped by the oyster fishery.

The discussion of the development and building of the

Jersey schooner type, and the subsequent alterations made to it,

illustrate that the work enterprise—oystering—and its tools—

schooners—are inextricably linked. The vessels both reflect the

organization of the industry—indeed, are central to it—and

anticipate changes within it. The interplay of technology, in the

form of motorization and mechanization, with human work organi­

zation has created a semiautomated fishery. Much of the

uncertainty has been controlled, although the ultimate uncertainty

can never be tamed; the risk aboard the schooners has been

reduced, but it can never be eliminated.

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The nature of the vessel as artifact challenges our inter­

pretation but leaves us with a powerful link to the ways in which

these vessels are thought of—to their meaning within the commu­

nities where they were created and are used. Baymen are

intensely aware of their vessels—their origins, history, handling

characteristics, and characters. They are conscious of them as a

material link to a way of life that has changed. They are also

conscious of the fate of their vessels, so many of which have

been "run up on the bank to die" over the years. But despite

the overall decline of the oystering industry since its heyday in

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the schooners

remain potent stimulants to community memory. A certain

nostalgia creeps into the talk of baymen who have seen the

changes. To us, today, the schooners tell a story of declining

catches, dwindling crews, and shortened dredging days and

seasons. But to the baymen, the schooners continue an active

life. Not only are they a means of livelihood in the present,

but they are also active reminders of the past. They trigger

reminiscence of a time when there were plenty of oysters, and

plenty of "sport" to be had in catching them. A time when

captains had reason to be boat-proud, to decorate their vessels.

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A time when so many schooners were dredging that danger of

collision was constant—"but you never did," as Capt. Frank

Hinson said. A time, the baymen will say, when the bay was

white with sails.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books, articles, manuscripts

Andersen, Herluf. "Art for Everyday Use." American Neptune 24 (July 1964): 183-85.

Ansel, Willits Dyer. "The Building of a Wooden Ship." Manu­ script, 1976. Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Conn.

Baker, Margaret. Folklore of the Sea. North Pomfret, Vt.: David & Charles, 1979.

Baker, William A. "The Preservation of Chesapeake Bay Water­ craft." Paper presented at the Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposium, Annapolis, Md., January 1977.

Barnett, H. G. Innovation: The Basis of Cultural Change. New York: M cGraw-Hill, 1953.

Beck, Henry Charlton. Tersey Genesis: The Story of the Mullica River. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1945.

Beck, Horace P. Folklore and the Sea. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 19 73.

Bray, Maynard. Watercraft. Mystic, Conn.: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1979.

Brewington, Marion V. Chesapeake Bay Log Canoes and Bugeyes. Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 19 63.

Brown, Ruth Cook. Early Shipbuilding Particularly in South Tersev. Greenwich, N.J.: Cumberland County Historical Society, 1962.

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Burgess, Robert H. Chesapeake Circle. Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 19 65.

- . Chesapeake Sailing Craft. Part 1. Cambridge, Md.: Tidewater Publishers, 1975.

- . This Was Chesapeake Bay. Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1963.

Calhoun, Daniel. The Intelligence of a People. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973.

Carey, George. Maryland Folklore and Folkllfe. Cambridge, Md.: Tidewater Publishers, 19 70.

Catalogue of Ships Drawings and Photographs of the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey. Smithsonian Institution, U. S. National Museum. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1937.

Chapelle, Howard I. The American Fishing Schooners. 1825- 1935. New York: W. W. Norton, 1973.

------. American Small Sailing Craft. New York: W. W. Norton, 1951.

------. The History of American Sailing Ships. New York: W. W. Norton, 1935.

------. The Search for Speed under Sail. 1700—1855. New York: W. W. Norton, 19 67.

Cohen, David Stephen. The Folklore and Folklife of New Tersey. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983.

DeGast, Robert. The Oystermen of the Chesapeake. Camden, Maine: International Marine Publishing, 1970.

Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs. "Historic Resources of Leipsic and Little Creek, Delaware." Manu­ script, National Register Multiple Resources Nomination, 1980. Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Dover.

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DelSordo, Stephen G. "White Gold: Some Economic Aspects of the Delaware Oyster Industry, 1870-1930." Paper presented at the Delaware State House Symposium on Delaware History and Culture, Dover, April 1980.

D'Ottavio, Susan. "Capt. Fenton Anderson. " Manuscript, n.d. Cumberland County Library, Bridgeton, N.J.

------. "Capt. John DuBois." Manuscript, n.d. Cumberland County Library, Bridgeton, N.J.

Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration. Stories of New Tersev. New York: M. Barrows, 1938.

Frazer, Alan D., and Wayne B. Yarnall. "New Jersey under Sail." Reprint from New Tersey History. Newark: New Jersey Historical Society, 1982.

Gillmer, Thomas C. Working Watercraft: A Survey of the Surviving Local Boats of America and Europe. Camden, Maine: International Marine Publishing, 1972.

Glassie, Henry. Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl­ vania Press, 1968.

Goldenberg, Joseph. "With Saw and Axe and Auger: Three Centuries of American Shipbuilding." In Material Culture of the Wooden Age, edited by Brooke Hindle. Tarrytown, N.Y.: Sleepy Hollow Press, 1981.

Goldstein, Kenneth. A Guide for Field Workers in Folklore. Hatboro, Pa.: Folklore Associates, 1964.

Goode, George Brown, ed. The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1887.

Greenhill, Basil. Archaeology of the Boat: A New Introductory Study. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1976.

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Guthorn, Peter J. The Sea Bright Skiff and Other Tersev Shore Boats. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971.

Hall, Henry. "Report on the Ship-Building Industry of the United States." In Tenth Census of the United States. Vol. 8, pt. 4, pp. 1—276. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1884.

Horn, James G. "The History of the Commercial Fishing Industry in Delaware." Senior thesis, University of Delaware, 1957.

Ives, Edward G. The Tape-Recorded Interview: A Manual for Field Workers in Folklore and Oral History. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980.

Jamison, Susan, ed. "A Tricentennial View of Leipsic, Delaware, 1683 — 1983." Pamphlet, 1983. Dover Public Library, Dover, Del.

Kemp, Peter, ed. The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. London: Oxford University Press, 1976.

Kennedy, Don H. Ship Names: Origins and Usages during 45 Centuries. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia for the Mariners' Museum, 1974.

Kochiss, John M. Oystering from New York to Boston. M iddle­ town, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1974.

Kubler, George. The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 19 62 .

Lang, Varley. Follow the Water. Winston-Salem, N.C.: John F. Blair, 1961.

LoBiondo, Maria. "Oysterman Keeps Traditions Alive." Millville (N.J.) Daily News, n.d.

------. "Study Compares Cultures Behind Oyster Industry." Vineland (N.J.) Times Toumal. August 11, 1983.

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McCarthy, Eugene D. "The Oyster Market during 1922." Fishing Gazette Annual Review (1923): 73-74.

McCay, Bonnie J. "Nature, Culture, and the Law in New Jersey Shellfisheries. " Paper presented to the American Anthropolog­ ical Association, Washington, D .C., December 1982.

------. "The Pirates of Piscary: Ethnohistory of Illegal Fishing in New Jersey." Ethnohistory (in press).

------. "Sea Tenure and the Culture of the Commoners." Paper presented at XI International Congress on Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Quebec City, August 1983.

Maurer, Don, and Glenn Aprill. Feasibility Study of Raft Culture of Oysters in the Delaware Bay Area. Lewes: College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware, 19 73.

Miller, Mary Emily. "The Delaware Oyster Industry, Past and Present." Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1962.

Mints, Margaret Louise. The Great Wilderness. Millville, N.J.: Wheaton Historical Association, 19 68.

Moonsammy, Rita. "Occupational Folklife of New Jersey Har­ vesters." In Festival of American Folklife Program Book, pp. 21—23. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1983.

Mullen, Patrick B. "The Function of Folk Belief among Negro Fishermen of the Texas Coast." Southern Folklore Quarterly 33 (June 1969): 80-91.

------. I Heard the Old Fishermen Say: Folklore of the Texas Gulf Coast. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978.

Norman, Michael. "Stalking the Oysterman's America." New York Times. January 21, 1984, pp. 23—24.

Peffer, Randall. Watermen. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 19 79.

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Poggie, John J., Jr., and Carl Gersuny. "Risk and Ritual: An Interpretation of Fishermen's Folklore in a New England Community." Toumal of American Folklore 85 (January—March 1972): 66-72.

Robbins, Levi C. "Primes, 'Cullins,1 and 'Cullintines.'" South Tersey 3 (Spring 1973): 13—15.

Rolfs, Donald H. Under Sail: The Dredgeboats of Delaware Bay, a Pictorial and Maritime History. Millville, N.J.: Wheaton Historical Association, 1971,

Salaman, R. A. "Tools of the Shipwright, 1650—1925." Folk Life 5 (1967): 19-55.

Scribe, The. "The 'Jimtown' Trip." 2 pts. South Tersey 3 (Fall 1974): 32-39; 4 (Winter 1975): 35-39.

Sim, Robert J. Pages from the Past of Rural New Tersey. 1949. Reprint. Trenton: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1975.

Snider, C. J. H. "The Evolution of the Deep-Sea Fishing Schooner." Fishing Gazette Annual Review (1923): 47—53.

Southern New Tersey Road Map. Doylestown, Pa.: Alfred B. Patton, 1982.

Taylor, David A. Boatbuilding in Winterton, Trinity Bay, New­ foundland . Ottawa: National Museum of Man/Canadian Centre for Folk Cultural Studies, 1982.

"The Tradition Is Progress: A Visit to the Plant of Robbins Bros, at Port Norris, N.J." Reprint from Fishing Gazette (September 1950).

Tyler, David Budlong. The Bay and River Delaware: A Pictorial Maritime History. Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1955.

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U. S. Department of Commerce. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service. Fisheries of the United States. 1982. Current Fishery Statistics no. 8300. Washington, D.C.: Government Print­ ing Office, 1983.

U. S. Department of the Interior. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. Commercial Fishing Gear of the United States. Circular no. 109. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, n.d.

Valle, James E. "The Kent County Oyster Schooners." Paper presented at the Delaware State House Symposium on Delaware History and Culture, Dover, April 1980.

Wagner, Philip L., and Marvin W. Mikesell, eds. Readings in Cultural Geography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

Works Progress Administration. The Historic American Merchant Marine Survey. Archive. Department of Transportation, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Tape-recorded interviews and film

Hinson, Frank, and George Hinson. Interview by Gunter Schaffer and Pat Condell, Dividing Creek, N .J., November 1979. Tape recording, American Studies Program, University of Delaware, collection of Bernard L. Herman.

Presti, Louis J. (producer). Schooners on the Bay. Trenton: New Jersey Network and the New Jersey Historical Commis­ sion, 1984. Film.

Wright, Capt. Kenny. Interview by Betsy Bahr, Leipsic, Del., 1979. Tape recording, American Studies Program, University of Delaware, collection of Bernard L. Herman.

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Interviews by author

Farley, Ed. Bozman, M d.f August 1983.

Morgan, Robert. Dorchester Industries Shipyard, Dorchester, N .J., October 1983.

Phillips, Clyde. Bivalve, N.J., July—December 1983.

Robbins, David. Port Norris, N .J., October 1983,

Sutton, Clem. Greenwich, N .J., November 1983—January 1984.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX

A CATALOGUE OF JERSEY SCHOONERS

This catalogue contains the results of field surveys and

research on fourteen Jersey schooners, representing about half

the schooners that are still working as dredgeboats on Delaware

Bay. These were selected from the roster of the oystering fleet

kept by the New Jersey Department of Shellfisheries and from that

of all licensed fishing boats kept by the National Marine

Fisheries Service office at Cape May, New Jersey. Background

information from vessel registers kept by the United States

government and from informants in the field was used to determine

which of the licensed fishing boats were Jersey-built schooners.

Field surveys were conducted in Cumberland County, New Jersey,

between August 1983 and January 1984. Descriptive information

and details were recorded on forms designed specifically for this

project.

The information presented is intended to describe the

schooners in a way that will be easily comprehended by those

118

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who are not maritime buffs familiar with the vocabulary of naval

architecture. Nevertheless, a number of maritime terms have had

to be used. In selecting terms to describe the vessels, I have

tried, as far as possible, to use them in the sense that they are

used in South Jersey. For example, what is known as a "fore­

peak" in South Jersey may be more familiar to some as the

"fo'c'sle" of the New England fishing schooner or oceangoing

sailing vessel.

The fourteen vessels examined represent approximately 35

percent of all extant Jersey-built oyster schooners known to the

author. While some of these are active in other fisheries or

services elsewhere on the East Coast, the largest fleet remains

in South Jersey. These vessels are all registered in the nearest

customs port, Philadelphia. The location of each schooner and

the name of her owner or operating company is given as a guide

to those who may want to visit the fleet. All (with the exception

of the surf-clam boat Derek W. Robinson) are based on the

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Maurice River. * The dredging license number is another means

of identifying schooners in the field or in current photographs.

This number, issued by the state Department of Shellfisheries, is

generally displayed on the sides of the wheelhouse.

Basic information—official number, ownership, and

measurements—was compiled from the 19 79 edition of Merchant

Vessels of the United States. Published annually by the govern­

ment since the 1860s, this register records the specifications of

every vessel over five tons plying the waters (including inland

waterways) of the country. The official number of each schooner

is provided, in this catalogue, as a positive means of identifica­

tion. Although almost every aspect of a vessel—her name,

ownership, rig, dimensions, home port—may change with time,

* Other Jersey-built schooners can be seen in the oyster- ing ports of Leipsic and Port Mahon, Del.; the surf-clamming’ centers of Cape May and Atlantic City, N.J.; and the cruising ports of Camden, Maine, and Vergennes, Vt. There may be others working in the southeastern New England/New York oyster- ing industry. Local knowledge also places some in fisheries or cruising enterprises around the Caribbean islands. There are undoubtedly many that were not located for this study; an inter­ esting study in itself would be the dispersion of the South Jersey oystering fleet immediately following the first disastrous effects of the disease MSX that hit the industry in 1957.

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the official number remains the same. On the schooners, it is

usually carved into a main deck beam. Some of the particulars

of ownership have changed since the 19 79 register was published;

I have tried to ascertain the accuracy of the published information

and to update it if necessary.

Dimensions are given in decimal feet, as recorded in

the register. The vessel length, in customhouse measurement,

generally refers to the length on deck "from the fore part of the

outer planking on the side of the stem to the after part of the

main stem post of screw steamers and to the after part of the

rudder post on all other vessels." The register length of a Jersey

schooner, built as a sailing vessel, can thus be taken to mean

the length to the after part of the rudder post, rather than the

overall length. The register length, while it is not the actual

length of the schooner, does provide a useful basis of comparison

between vessels. The measurement of breadth is taken at the

broadest part of the boat's beam, usually amidships; this, too, is

an on-deck measurement. Depth is not the vessel's draft (the

amount of water she draws), but rather a measurement of the

height of the main hold from the ceiling (planking) of the hold to

the underside of the deck beams.

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Tonnage measurements are likewise more useful for com­

parative purposes than' as empirical measurements; a schooner's

tonnage makes little difference to the on-deck carrying capacity

for oysters. The customhouse unit of measurement is 100 cubic

feet to the ton. Gross tonnage expresses the capacity of the

interior of the hull and certain deck structures. From this figure

deductions are made for crew's quarters, engine room, and wheel-

O house, yielding net tonnage.

The designations of current and former rig indicate that

the vessels in the study group are all converted schooners now

powered by single-propeller diesel engines, or "oil screw"

engines. The Jersey schooner fleet was converted to power en

masse after 1945. The "state of the art" marine engine of the

time—which remains the preferred one today—was the diesel.

Horsepower ratings give an indication of the mechanical force

needed to propel the large, beamy, but efficient schooner hull

^ For the explanation of the vagaries of customhouse measurement, I am indebted to John Kochiss, whose appendix to his Oystering from New York to Boston (Middletown, C onn.: Wesleyan University Press, 19 74), pp. 187-88, provides a list of powered dredgeboats in that area as well as notes on measure­ ment conventions and tonnage.

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through the shoal waters and strong currents of Delaware Bay and

the Maurice River.

The descriptive sections of these catalogue entries follow

conventions laid out by maritime historians in descriptions of

other vessel types. Hull form and hull shape (or profile) give a

basic idea of the overall appearance and "style" of the boat.

Bulwarks are described to indicate the specific effects of main­

tenance, repair, and alteration on the schooners. Deck form is

an indication of regional building practice; the Jersey schooners

are all flush-decked, while those of other areas—the New England

fishing schooners, for example—were sometimes built with a

break (raised section aft) in the deck.

Deck structures are listed from the bows aft; compart­

ments below, from the stem forward. It will help the reader to

envision the surveyor taking a stroll from the bows aft, going

below in the main cabin, and working forward to emerge once

again on the foredeck. Unfortunately, it was not possible to go

below on all the boats surveyed; some of these sections were, of

necessity, not included.

The type of oystering gear in use on the boats is

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detailed, as there are several systems of dredging, culling, and

carrying oysters that have been adopted on the Jersey boats.

Briefly, the boats use either dredges with dumper doors or dredges

that must be tipped into the hoppers (at the forward rails) by

hand. The dredges are controlled by chains, which are either led

from the deck over rollers on the bulwarks or suspended from a

dredging mast whose two booms lead them over the side. For

culling, or sorting, the oysters, most boats now use barrel-like

tumblers which allow debris and shells to fall through their bars

before dumping the culled oysters into a central hopper from

which they are conveyed aft to the main deck. These have been

designated "barrel cullers" in the catalogue. Another system of

culling involves the use of "finger-picker" conveyors, which rake

through the oysters with set-in tines, allowing debris to fall off

the belt. Hand culling, formerly the universal system, is now

practiced on only one schooner, the Martha Meerwald.

Like the systems of culling oysters, customs of painting

and finishing the schooners have shown substantial change over

the years since the transition to power. Hull and trim color

provide some idea of the "new order" of painting customs. All

the schooners have red copper bottom paint below the waterline.

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Most of the boats also carry their names—painted or on name­

boards—on the bows and transom stem. The exceptions are the

all-white boats of the Robbins Brothers fleet, which carry no

identification of any kind (although they are readily identified by

those in the community). Boats with extremely low or angled

transoms—for example, the Cashier—may have their names painted

on the after-end of the wheelhouse where they will be more

visible than on the transom.

Finally, the descriptions following the catalogue entries

are intended to provide amplification of the inventory information

as well as a place to note unusual features of the individual

boats, past and present.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: ALERT Official no.: 224535 Built: 1925 Stowman and Sons Shipyard Dorchester, N.J. Owner: Port Norris Oyster Co. Dredging license no.: 51 Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Dorchester, N.J.

Register length: 71.2' Breadth: 21.9' Depth: 6.1' Gross tonnage: 49 Net tonnage: 25

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 165 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame, oak and cedar Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: long spoon bow; square stern with cut-down, angled heart-shaped transom; short counter

Bulwarks: short raised waist with steel top timbers amidships Deck: flush; main deck sheathed in metal; strongback visible on foredeck Deck structures: low forepeak hatch; tall box over winders; low main (engine) hatch abutting cabin trunk; wheelhouse atop cabin trunk; wheelbox, water barrel, and cooler on afterdeck Compartments: main cabin; engine hold; main hold with center­ board trunk; forepeak (dismantled)

Fishing gear: automated oyster-dredging gear: two dredges with dumper doors, barrel cullers, conveyors Finish: hull is green, waist black with white caprails; cabin trunk white with green trim and roof; wheelhouse green and white; hatch covers green on gray deck; name on bows in white; nameboard on stem

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Description

Alert has a long, low spoon bow and a raking transom stern, cut down from its original length but still heart-shaped and lifted well out of the water. The hull sits high at the bow, partially because of the shortening of the stern and the removal of the bowsprit, but the boat's lines are still cause for admira­ tion and comment among those who work the oyster boats. She is beamy and full through the bows, with little freeboard aft.

This "new-style" schooner is frame-built and carvel- planked of local woods—oak and cedar. Except for the addition of H-shaped galvanized steel top timbers to her bulwarks and the metal sheathing on her main deck, all original building and alterations have been done in wood. The hull, which retains guardrails at the sheer strake, is painted dark green; the waist is black, with white waterways, top timbers, and caprail. Inboard, the waist section is painted white. Her rails are low, solid at the stern but open along the main deck and at the dredge-points.

Although her sail rig and masts have been removed, the octagonal outline of the former foremast partners is visible as a wooden plug in the strongback on the foredeck. The boat is now powered with a 165-horsepower diesel engine, housed in the main hold.

Deck structures, from the bows aft, include a forepeak hatch, a tall box over the winders, and a main hatch surrounded by a coaming, abutting the cabin trunk. The cabin trunk is 2'8" high. Situated well aft, it measures 12'2" long by 10' wide, almost hajf the width of the boat at its maximum beam of 21 '11". There is a small wheelhouse built onto the cabin trunk, set in on three sides but flush to the after-end of the trunk. Metal rods tie the wheelhouse to the cabin trunk—possibly a survival from the days when power dredging was allowed only on owners' grounds, and the wheelhouse had to be removed for springtime dredging for seed oysters on public grounds. A full-length door­ way has been built into the after-end of the wheelhouse on the starboard side. The wheelhouse contains a mahogany wheel (replacing the utilitarian galvanized metal wheel used when the

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helm was on the afterdeck),* a full instrument panel, and a built-in berth; there are windows all around. The outside of the wheelhouse is sheathed in metal. Abaft the cabin trunk and wheelhouse, the afterdeck holds a wheelbox (now containing steering gear but no wheel), a cooler, and a water barrel. Rectangular portholes on the cabin trunk have been blocked over on the forward end; there is one on either side. The cabin trunk is white with green trim and roof; the wheelhouse is green on bottom half and white on top half, with an overhanging roof.

Belowdecks, the main cabin is finished with narrow (1 3/4") vertical wood paneling. There are four berths built along the sides and built-in cupboards across the stem, short and hanging lockers in the comers of the cabin, and a horse­ shoe locker around three sides of the cabin. There is a built-in table in the starboard after corner, and a white enamel stove.

There is a suspended bulkhead between the main cabin and the engine hold; forward of the engine hold is the main hold, a low-ceilinged area with the centerboard trunk dividing it longitudinally. The forepeak can be reached either through a partition dividing it from the main hold or from a deck hatch; it has been dismantled. Ghosts in paint on the ceiling (the inside planking of the vessel) indicate where berths and other fittings once were; the area is now used for miscellaneous storage. The foremast step on the keelson and the octagonal hole through the strongback on deck are both apparent in the forepeak.

This schooner is currently used for the spring oyster- planting season and as a backup to the "Green Fleet's" winter dredger, Contender. Gear is automated oyster-dredging gear.

* The original wheel is currently in use on a Chesapeake Bay skipjack, the Stanley Norman of Bozman, Md.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: ALMAH D. ROBBINS Official no.: 222890 ex-MARGARET FOWLER Built: 1923 Greenwich Piers Railway Co. Owner: Leon H. Robbins, Jr. Greenwich, N.J. Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Mauricetown, N.J.

Register length: 77.9' Breadth: 21.9' Depth: 7.0' Gross tonnage: 70 Net tonnage: 54

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 240 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame, probably oak, some cedar Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner, beamy and round-sided Profile: spoon bow with reinforcing metal cap on stem head; cut-down heart-shaped steeply angled transom; moderate counter

Bulwarks: new raised waist, steel top timbers; open at water­ ways Deck: flush Deck structures: outline of mast partners in foredeck; tall fore­ peak hatch with curved back; main hatch; cabin trunk with added wheelhouse; steps from deck to wheelhouse; wheelbox and storage box abutting after end of' cabin trunk; quarter bitts

Fishing gear: automated oyster-dredging gear: two dredges with dumper doors, conveyors, hoppers, and barrel cullers; surf- clam dredge towing rig Finish: all white

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Description

This schooner was the first of the "new-style" boats and has been called representative of the height of design among the Jersey schooners, with her long hull lines, spoon bow, and heart- shaped transom. The stem profile is slightly curving and long; the spike bowsprit has been removed and a reinforcing metal cap added. The transom is set at a steep angle; it is small and heart-shaped, and its formerly elliptical top has been cut down just enough to add a new rail around the stern. The stern shows fine lines and a long run aft, with a long counter. On the stem, marks of former chain plates—set horizontally into the stem about 2' above the waterline and used for setting up the bowsprit—are still visible although the metal has been removed.

The boat is frame-built and carvel-planked. After her conversion to power and the subsequent decline in the oyster fishery, she was converted for use in the surf-clam fishery. One of her most noticeable features is a high towing rig standing on four legs over the cabin trunk and wheelhouse. (An additional rig for hauling would formerly have stood on the foredeck, but this was removed with the boat's return to oystering.) The dredge towing rig, of 3" metal pipe, is used occasionally for towing other boats and supports the radio and radar equipment. The towing rig is painted white, as are the hull, deck, and all deck structures on this boat.

The sail rig has been completely removed, although the outline of former foremast partners is visible on the foredeck. The boat is now powered by a 240-horsepower oil screw engine, housed in the main hold.

Deck structures include a 4' tall forepeak hatch of ply­ wood, with a curving back and center-opening doors; this hatch measures 3'11" long by 3’4 1/2" wide and was built onto the coaming of the original flush hatch. It provides access to the crew's quarters in the forepeak via a companionway or ladder. There is a low main hatch measuring 4'8" long by 5’7" wide, covered by a steel plate bolted on. Abaft the main hatch, the cabin trunk, which is 2'2" high, is topped by a set-back wheel- house with an overhanging roof. The cabin trunk has four rectangular portholes placed symmetrically on either side; a port- 'side companionway on the after-end provides access to the main

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cabin. The wheelhouse is set back almost 2' from the forward end of the cabin trunk and set in by 9" at either side. It was built flush with the after-end of the trunk. The wheelhouse has a three-sided front with an extended roof; it is finished in vertical paneling, with sixteen surrounding windows. Access to the wheelhouse is via two porch steps leading from the afterdeck to a door on the starboard side of the wheelhouse.

The Almah D. Robbins is used during the spring oyster- planting season and for occasional towing duty. She uses an automated oyster-dredging system with tumbler-like barrel cullers. Her current stark-white finish is in contrast to her appearance under sail, when she sported decoration at transom, sheer, bend strake, and bow. She retains her graceful sailing lines, although she rides higher than when under sail. Her appearance is enhanced by the careful joinerwork that makes her added wheel- house seem an integral or original part of the boat. Another schooner built along her lines—the Helen & Lois (ex-Esther Peterson), now a surf-clammer in Cape May—was the last of the sailing schooners to be built at Greenwich, in 1929.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: CASHIER O fficial n o .: 5286 Built: 1849 Cedarville, N.J. Owner: George 0. McConnell Dredging license no.: 1 Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Port Norris, N.J.

Register length: 54.2' Breadth: 17.3' Depth: 4.2' Gross tonnage: 19 Net tonnage: 9

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 110 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame, probably oak; extensively rebuilt Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner with little free­ board Profile: straight raked stem; low angled transom, cut down; short counter

Bulwarks: solid rail at stern and bows; pipe/rope safety rail amidships Deck: flush; covered with plywood work deck Deck structures: forepeak hatch; box over winders; square cabin trunk; wheelhouse; wheelbox against stern rail Compartments: main cabin; main hold with centerboard trunk; forepeak

Fishing gear: two hand-dumped oyster dredges; finger-picker conveyors; barrels for carrying oysters on deck Finish: all white; dredging license no. (1) and name on wheel- house in black

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Description

The Cashier, although extensively rebuilt, is thought to be the oldest working vessel in the country. She carries dredging license number 1 prominently displayed on her wheelhouse along with her name.

This schooner is small, with little freeboard. She has a straight, raked stem, with bowsprit removed, and a low, angled transom stern with a plumb-set rail across the top of the transom. Her hull is somewhat angular, carvel-planked, and painted white.

The sail rig has been removed; boat is now powered with a 110-horsepower diesel engine housed in the main hold. From the bows aft, deck structures include a low forepeak hatch surrounded by a coaming; a box over the winders; and a square cabin trunk with a wheelhouse built on top of it. The cabin trunk has two rectangular portholes, one on either side. The wheelhouse has a three-sided front with a door, split into top and bottom sections, on the starboard side. It is finished in vertical paneling, narrow strips of wood set flush at the edges. Access to the main cabin is through a port-quarter companionway. On the starboard after-end of the cabin trunk, a blocked-over binnacle window is visible. This small recess in the side of the trunk survives from the days when the wheel was mounted on the afterdeck: through the binnacle window the helmsman could read the compass which was mounted in the cabin. There is a wheel­ box set on the afterdeck, against the stern rail.

For oystering, this boat carries two hand-dumped dredges, finger-picker conveyors (cullers), and a number of barrels into which the culled oysters are dumped directly from the conveyors. A plywood jig with round cut-outs holds the barrels in place and directs the oysters into them. The filled barrels are lifted dock- sides by a boom or crane and rolled into the shucking house on a large dolly. Because of this system, this boat has no solid rails amidships, but a safety rail of pipe stanchions and rope. Bulwarks are, however, solid at bows and stern.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: CONTENDER Official no.: 223667 ex-ROBERT C . MORGAN Built: 1924 ex-JOSEPH F. BRADWAY Dorchester, N.J. ex-ANNA V. NEWCOMB Dredging license no.: 40 ex-S . S. BLACKMAN Location: Port Norris, N.J. Owner: Port Norris Oyster Co. Port of registry: Philadelphia

Register length: 77' Breadth: 21.8' Depth: 6.1' Gross tonnage: 56 Net tonnage: 27

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 200 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame, oak and cedar Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner, low at stem Profile: spoon bow; steeply angled heart-shaped transom; long counter

Bulwarks: raised waist on wood and metal top timbers 2' apart Deck: flush; slopes up to meet transom Deck structures: forepeak cuddy hatch with slide; mast for oyster rig; main hatch; square cabin trunk with wheelhouse built on top; canopy over afterdeck; wheelbox; quarter bitts

Fishing gear: two hand-dumped oyster dredges; dredging mast with two booms at foredeck; barrel cullers, conveyors, and large mesh "cages" for oysters Finish: hull green with black waist, white caprail; cabin trunk white with green roof; wheelhouse green with plywood sides; canopy white with green roof; deck gray, sheathed with metal on main deck

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Description

This "new-style" schooner has her original spoon bow, with spike bowsprit removed, and steeply angled heart-shaped transom. When she was built, her first owners compained that she heeled over too far, leaving her decks awash as far inboard as the winders. Now, under power with her sail rig and center­ board removed, her captain says this is no longer a problem. The board has a graceful long counter.

She is carvel-planked, frame-built, of local oak and cedar. Her hull is painted dark green, with a black waist and white caprail. Her deck structures are green and white on a work-gray deck. The boat carries her name (recently changed with the building of the steel oyster boat Robert C. Morgan) in white on the black waist at her bows as well as on her transom.

Sail rig has been removed; boat is now powered by a 200-horsepower diesel engine. Her centerboard has also been removed, aiding her handling abilities under power. In place of the foremast, the boat now carries a dredging mast and twin booms that swing out over the sides to lower, drag, and raise the oyster dredges. The winders are located at the base of this m ast.

Deck structures from the bows aft include the original forepeak hatch, which has its original slide (or sliding cover) on a slanted, 2' high top. There is a main hatch and a square cabin trunk with a single rectangular porthole on either side. The wheelhouse, with a three-sided front, is plywood-sided and set back slightly from the front and sides of the cabin trunk. Steps lead from the deck to a door on the after starboard corner of the wheelhouse, which is surrounded with single-pane windows, each with a small fixed awning in wood. Access to the main cabin below is through a port-side companionway on the after-end of the cabin trunk. There is a canopy over the afterdeck, set up above the wheelhouse; the afterdeck holds a wheelbox, a water barrel, and quarter bitts.

Oystering gear consists of a dredging mast with two booms that handle the dredges. The dredges are dumped directly into hop­ pers and culled in barrel cullers then carried via an overhead con­ veyor to be dumped into large wire "cages" on the main deck.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: DAVID ROBBINS SR. O fficial n o .: 106359 ex-ADMIRAL Built: 1885 Baltimore, Md. Rebuilt: 1911 Owner: David Robbins Greenwich, N.J. Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Mauricetown, N.J.

Register length: 63.9' Breadth: 20.3' Depth: 6.5' Gross tonnage: 46 Net tonnage: 20

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 115 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame; rebuilt with wood from Ohio Hull form: centerboard schooner, low at stem Profile: straight, raking stem; angled transom stern, round- topped

Bulwarks: solid waist at stern; raised rails amidships and at bows Deck: flush Deck structures: tall forepeak hatch; cabin trunk with wheelhouse added; deep door entryway built onto port side of cabin trunk; wheelbox

Fishing gear: automated oystering gear: two dredges with dumper doors, conveyors, barrel cullers Finish: all white

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Description

Although built in Baltimore, the David Robbins Sr. has worked out of Bridgeton, New Jersey, since the year after she was built. Her original dimensions, as registered in 1886, indicate that she was slightly shorter on the keel but also slightly beamier than she is now. Originally a Chesapeake-built schooner, the boat was extensively rebuilt in Greenwich in 1911. Her straight stem and large, rounded transom stem are charac­ teristic of schooners in both areas before the First World War. The boat has a large amount of freeboard but rides low at the stern. According to her owners, 1'2" was added to her topsides when she was rebuilt.

The boat is carvel plank on frame, painted entirely white. When rebuilt, it is said that wood brought in from Ohio was used and that there are only two butts in the length of the sheer. The bottom part of the hull is original, having survived the rebuilding, and is fastened with treenails. There are upper and lower guardrails along parts of the hull.

The sail rig has been removed, and the boat is powered by a 115-horsepower engine. Used for spring oyster planting, her deck is free of gear the rest of the year. There is a tall forepeak hatch and a square cabin trunk with a square wheelhouse set on top of it. Steps have been built up from the afterdeck to a starboard-side door in the wheelhouse. A port-side door leads below to the main cabin; this is set into a deep, full-length door frame that extends from the after-end of the cabin trunk to the after-end of the wheelhouse. A wheelbox holds steering gear on the afterdeck.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: DEREK W . ROBINSON Official no.: 229413 ex-JACK & DORIS Built: 1930 ex-ACE Dorchester, N.J. ex-WALTER B. HINSON Dredging license no.: 22 (oyster) ex-SHEPPARD W . CAMPBELL 229413 (clam) Owner: Wayne Robinson Location: Atlantic City, N.J. Port of registry: Philadelphia

Register length: 73.2' Breadth: 21.8' Depth: 6.3' Gross tonnage: 60 Net tonnage: 53

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 165 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame; oak; steel reinforcements at bows and midships Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: spoon bow; sharply raking heart-shaped transom with elliptical top

Bulwarks: low rail with scuppers aft; raised waist on metal top timbers, steel bulwarks at bows Deck: flush Deck structures: forepeak hatch; hauling rig for surf-clam dredge; hatch; main hatch abutting cabin trunk; towing rig over trunk; wheelhouse built onto trunk; wheelbox and quarter bitts on afterdeck Compartments: main cabin; engine hold; centerboard hold; fore­ peak

Fishing gear: two four-legged rigs for surf-clam dredging (hauling rig forward, towing rig aft); one surf-clam dredge, about 10' wide Finish: green hull with white waist

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Description

The Derek W. Robinson was the last schooner built for the New Jersey oyster industry and the last boat built in South Jersey for oystering until 1983. Although the boat has been altered and reinforced for surf--clam dredging, she was converted to power while still in oystering and retains some of her sailing lines. She has a spoon bow and her original, steeply angled, heart-shaped transom with a long counter. Her long run and fine lines fore and aft exemplify the "new-style" Jersey schooner built in the 1920s.

The boat is carvel-planked on oak frames. Her original construction has been fortified against the strain of towing a surf-clam dredge, with heavy steel reinforcements at the bows and midships, and steel tie beams doubling the cracked deck beams at her port bow. The starboard bulwarks are reinforced with steel amidships, where the dredge comes aboard. The hull is painted dark green, with white trim on the waist (where black is considered traditional).

The boat's sail rig has been removed and replaced by a 165-horsepower diesel engine. The surf-clam rig consists cf two four-legged stands—a hauling rig forward and a towing rig over the cabin trunk and wheelhouse. The single surf-clam dredge, which measures about 10' wide, takes up the open deck space on the main deck. A second engine—hydraulic—is located in the main hold with the diesel engine and powers the bottom- clearing hoses and the winders for the dredge.

Deck plan, from the bows aft, includes a forepeak hatch, the hauling rig, a small square hatch, the main hatch, a square cabin trunk with a wheelhouse built onto it, over which stands the towing rig, and a wheelbox on the afterdeck. The hatch covers are reinforced with steel plates. The added wheel- house is set in from the forward end and sides of the trunk, built flush with the after edge. It has three windows forward and two on either side. The sloping transom stern is unaltered; its inboard side shows plugs where former salt holes were stopped.

Below the wheelhouse and cabin trunk is the main cabin, with living accommodations for the crew. Access is through a

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port-side companionway. A horseshoe locker circles the stern, with a stove and hanging cupboards at the after-end of the cabin. There are two berths built into either side of the cabin and a built-in table in the middle of the deck. Forward of the main cabin is a hold containing the boat's engine, the centerboard trunk (placed off-center to port), and the hydraulic engine for the surf-clam hoses and winders. (This is balanced, on deck, by the weight of the surf-clam dredge to starboard.) There is a step built onto the forward end of the foot-wide centerboard trunk, by which one can reach the hatch. In the forepeak, berths and lockers line the triangular area of the bows. A small hatch provides ventilation and additional access to the forepeak. The belowdecks compartments are all spacious and in use.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: JOHN C . PETERSON Official no.: 226358 ex-LAURA M. WILDE Built: 1927 Charles H. Stowman & Sons Shipyard Dorchester, N.J. Owner: Harold E. Bickings Dredging license no.: 18 Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Port Norris, N.J.

Register length: 71.0' Breadth: 21.8' Depth: 6.1' Gross tonnage: 55 Net tonnage: 31

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 275 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: long entrance with spoon bow, pierced by two hawse- holes in bows; heart-shaped steeply angled transom; long counter

Bulwarks: steel top timbers, new waist and rail forward; low wraparound stern rail Deck: flush; metal sheathing on main deck, wood covering Deck structures: rectangular samson post in bows; tall curved- back forepeak hatch; low hatch; box over winders; T-shaped cabin trunk, with hatch in roof of forward section, wheelhouse built onto after section; wheelbox on afterdeck

Fishing gear: two hand-dumped oyster dredges; barrel cullers mounted abaft forepeak hatch; hoppers, conveyors, and winders Finish: hull white with green trim on caprail; gray roofs on cabin trunk and wheelhouse; bright red on hawse-holes on bows

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Description

This "new-style" schooner has fine lines forward leading to her spoon bow and a long counter. Her stem is original; the spoon bow is pierced by two hawse-holes, painted bright red, and the bowsprit has been removed. The transom stem is steeply angled, small, and heart-shaped. It has not been cut down, so the stem retains wraparound rails fairing into the elliptical top of the transom and the slope of the deck leading up to the transom inboard.

The boat is carvel-planked on oak frames. Top timbers have been replaced in steel along the main and foredecks, with a raised waist. The hull is painted white, with green trim on the wheelhouse and caprail.

Converted to power, the boat now uses a 275-horsepower diesel engine. No masts or other traces of her sail rig remain. Because of the boat's long, fine lines, there is a great deal of clear deck space. The deck plan includes the unusual survival of a samson post, mounted athwartships in the bows aft of the hawse-holes. This would have been used for mooring. There is a tall forepeak hatch with a curved back, built of plywood; a main hatch; a box over the winders; a T-shaped cabin trunk, with a wheelhouse built onto the after section; and a wheelbox on the afterdeck. The forward section of the cabin trunk has a hatch in the roof. The added wheelhouse has a rounded front, tapered sides, and an overhanging roof; it is set well in from the forward section and from either side of the trunk. There are five rectangular portholes on the trunk and windows around all sides of the wheelhouse. The wheelhouse is finished in vertical flush-edged paneling, painted white, with green trim and a gray roof.

Oystering gear on this boat is mounted well aft, not directly in the bows. Because of the boat's long foredeck, the cullers are placed abaft the forepeak hatch and samson post to balance the boat fore and aft. There are two hand-dumped oyster dredges, hoppers, and conveyors along with the barrel cullers; metal sheathing with an extra layer of loose wood planking covers the main-deck work area.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: L. H. ROBBINS SR. Official no.: 222821 ex-MAC FOWLER Built: 1923 ex-HENRY NIC KELSON Dorchester, N.J. Owner: Leon H. Robbins, Jr. Location: Mauricetown, N.J. Port of registry: Philadelphia

Register length: 67.4' Breadth: 20.8' Depth: 6.5' Gross tonnage: 46 Net tonnage: 31

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 165 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame, oak and some cedar Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: spoon bow with reinforcing metal cap; original heart- shaped steeply angled transom with elliptical top; long counter; low at stern

Bulwarks: solid rails with scuppers at port/starboard quarters; steel top timbers Deck: flush, slopes up to transom at stem Deck structures: tall forepeak hatch with slanted back; box built over winders; low main hatch; wheelhouse atop original cabin trunk; wheelbox on afterdeck

Fishing gear: automated oyster dredging gear: two dredges with dumper doors, barrel cullers, conveyors, hoppers Finish: all white

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Description

Because this "new-style" schooner retains her original stem, the L. H. Robbins Sr. presents a particularly graceful appearance with the long, sweeping lines of her stem and her tall topsides. The stem, although replaced and topped with a reinforcing metal cap, is along the same lines as the original stem. Her stem has a small heart-shaped transom, with an elliptical top; there is no rail topping the transom, but the side rails fair into the transom, and there is a corresponding slant to the afterdeck.

The frame-built, carvel-planked hull is of oak, with the addition of replacement top timbers in steel along the forward waterways. Hull and all deck structures are painted white. As boat is used only in the spring oyster-planting season, there is no protective wood planking on her deck and some of her gear is removed.

The schooner is motorized with a 165-horsepower diesel engine, housed in the main hold. No trace remains of her for­ mer sail rig.

Deck structures, from the bows aft, include a tall, slant-back plywood hatch over the forepeak companionway; a box built over the winders; and a low main hatch. Abaft the main hatch there is a square cabin trunk, with four rectangular port­ holes, the two forward ones blocked off. This is topped with a wheelhouse, with a three-sided front and fourteen windows, which is reached by steps built from the deck up to a door on the star­ board after-end of the wheelhouse. It was built back from the front and sides of the cabin trunk but flush to the after-end. The main cabin below is reached through an extended companion- way on the port side. There is a wheelbox holding steering gear on the afterdeck.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: LULA M. PHILLIPS Official no.: 210862 ex-ANNIE M., LEONARD Built: 1877 Oxford, Md. Rebuilt: 1913 Owner: John W. King Bethel, Del. Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Port Norris, N.J.

Register length: 77.5' Breadth: 22' Depth: 5.6' Gross tonnage: 65 Net tonnage: 47

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 170 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: Chesapeake Bay-built, carvel plank oh frame; hull sheathed in metal; twin metal bilge keels on either side of rudder Hull form: centerboard schooner, round-sterned, straight-sided Profile: slight curve and rake to stem; tugboat stern (round and shelving)

Bulwarks: solid, low; wraparound stern Deck: flush Deck structures: forepeak hatch with high coaming; box over winders; main hatch; two-sectioned cabin trunk; wheelhouse atop trunk; full-length addition to wheelhouse abaft trunk

Fishing gear: two hand-dumped oyster dredges; finger-picker conveyors, hoppers, and winders Finish: hull is white with green trim; brightwork on front of pilothouse

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Description

The Lula M. Phillips is a round-stemed schooner with straight sides and a tubby aspect to her shape. The stem is slightly rounded; the stem can be described as a tugboat stern, round and shelving. A guardrail surrounds the hull and wraps around the stern. Despite her unwieldy shape, she is known as a particularly fast boat which "just cuts through the water."

The hull is carvel-planked in wood, now covered with wide vertical strips of metal. When first built—as the schooner Annie M. Leonard in Oxford, Maryland, in 1877—the boat had a square (transom) stern and a clipper bow, with longhead and trailboards. When rebuilt in Delaware in 1913, she retained her square stern and clipper bow. However, once convered to power, her bowsprit and longhead were removed; the stump of the fore­ mast was retained. Sometime after 1951 the foremast was removed completely and the stem was altered to its present tug­ boat shape.

There are several features on this schooner that illustrate the adaptation of Chesapeake boats to power: the tugboat stem; twin bilge keels, or metal skegs on the hull, aft, which protect the rudder and propeller from damage when the boat sits on the bottom; the round portholes on the cabin trunk (in contrast to the rectangular portholes on the Jersey-built boats); and a houselike addition to the wheelhouse. The boat's working career has mostly been in the Chesapeake; her rebuilding was carried out on a watershed to that bay. Her eventual service on Delaware Bay and her reputation as a fast boat illuminate both the stylistic differences in building between the two bays and the suitability of powered Chesapeake-built craft for service on Delaware Bay.

The Lula M. Phillips is now powered by a 170-horse­ power diesel engine, with her sailing rig completely removed. As the Annie M. Leonard she had a dark hull and a topmost schooner rig. Her hull is now painted white, with green trim.

Deck structures, from the bow aft, include a forepeak hatch with a high (7") coaming; a box built over the winders; a large main hatch; and a low cabin trunk with an added wheel- house. Abaft the wheelhouse is a houselike addition whose roof, slightly lower than the wheelhouse roof, supports a cradled skiff. The skiff is d isu sed, but it may date from the days when the boat was used as a "liveaboard" under power on the Chesapeake.

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The cabin trunk has round portholes along its sides. The wheelhouse has a rounded front (finished in varnished vertical wood paneling) and an overhanging roof, rounded on the forward end. There are six windows around the front of the wheelhouse. A door on the port side is reached by two steps on the side of the trunk. The after-section of the wheelhouse has center-opening doors at deck level port and starboard; this addition is suggestive of a living space or a domestic shed addition. The wheelhouse and its addition are finished in horizontal paneling like clap- boarding .

Oystering gear on this boat uses a finger-picking culling system. Oysters carried on a conveyor belt are "raked" by tines, or fingers, set into the belt at specific intervals; those that are large enough to keep get caught in the tines and carried to the end of the belt, while scrap shells and small oysters are scattered on deck and later shoveled back over the sides.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: NEIL JOHNSON Official no.: 203991 Built: 1907 Greenwich, N.J. Owner: William E. Friswell Dredging license no.: 14 Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Port Norris, N.J.

Register length: 65.7' Breadth: 20.0' Depth: 5.2' Gross tonnage: 39 Net tonnage: 18

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 200 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame; oak Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: sharp stem, straight and raking; cut-back square raking transom; long overhang to stern; hogged at stem

Bulwarks: raised waist, rails/top timbers replaced Deck: flush Deck structures: low main hatch well forward; no winders on deck (dredge chains led belowdecks); low trunk cabin with wheelhouse added; tall companionway on port quarter of trunk; cooler, water barrel, and wheelbox on afterdeck

Fishing gear: hand-dumped oyster dredges (2), barrel cullers, conveyors Finish: hull and fittings white; name in black on bows

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Description

The Neil Tohnson is remembered as the only schooner on the bay to have red sails. She was built in 1907 for a "temperance family" and was christened, at her launching, with a shower of sweet-pea blossoms unfurled from a flag at her mast­ head, instead of the more usual bottle of liquor.

The schooner exhibits "old-style" characteristics: a straight, raking stem, somewhat hollow bows, and a raking transom stern. She has a long overhang to the stern and is slightly hogged aft. She is frame-built and carvel-planked, with metal sheathing at her waterline at the bow for protection of the hull from ic e . The hull and all fittings are painted w hite.

The boat has been converted to power and shows few traces of her days under sail. The stem retains a long stem iron, with a heart-shaped hook at its end, extending above the stem head; this may have been used to set up a jibstay or fore­ stay at some point during the boat's career. She is now powered by a 200-horsepower diesel engine.

Deck structures include a hatch on the foredeck; this may have provided access to the main hold, with a forepeak hatch farther toward the bows and now hidden beneath culling equipment. There is a great deal of clear deck space on the main (work) deck because the winders are below decks. Dredge- chains are led through holes in the deck to the winches below. The wheelhouse, with a rounded front, is built onto the forward end ci the original cabin trunk and is set well back from the sides and after-end of the trunk. The wheelhouse has windows all around it and is finished in vertical wood paneling; access is through a starboard side door, reached by a step mounted on the side of the trunk. Access to the main cabin below is through a tall companionway with a curved back, added to the port-quarter of the trunk where a sliding hatch cover once was. On the afterdeck are a wheelbox, with steering gear led into the wheel- house through the upper portion of the cabin, a cooler, and a water barrel.

Oystering gear includes two hand-dumped dredges, barrel cullers, conveyors; the winders are located belowdecks.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: PETER R. PAYNTER Official no.: 105853 Built: 1899 Essington, Pa. Owner: Carl W. Reed Dredging license no.: 55 Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Port Norris, N.J.

Register length: 55.8' Breadth: 17.6' Depth: 5.0' Gross tonnage: 28 Net tonnage: 23

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 100 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: very round stem; high straight-sided vertical transom; no tuck to stem

Bulwarks: guardrails forward of wheelhouse to keep oysters inboard Deck: flush, slopes up to transom; covered with loose planking of wood Deck structures: tall plywood box over winders; wheelhouse built onto deck; no evidence of hatches

Fishing gear: two hand-dumped oyster dredges, barrel cullers, winders, and conveyors Finish: hull is white; green trim on wheelhouse and caprail

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Description

The Peter R. Paynter was built by William Parsons, later of the Greenwich Piers Railway Company, before he moved to Greenwich to build schooners there. It is said that her round, "early spoon" bow represents Parsons's own whim, but it is not clear whether the boat was originally built with such a round stem profile. An early photograph shows her with a longhead and trailboards, which would have been difficult to mount on a round stem; this round profile may therefore be a lat^r modifica­ tion. It does not resemble, in the degree or proportion of its curve, the "spoon bow" of the later, "new-style" Jersey schooners.

The boat is high-riding with a great deal of freeboard. Her round stem extends slightly above the breasthooks in her bow. The transom stern is vertical and is rounded at the water­ line with straight sides and a slightly elliptical top. The hull is painted white, with green trim on the wheelhouse and caprail.

Carvel-planked and frame-built, the schooner has been extensively altered since her conversion to power. She was rebuilt in 1953—according to local sources—in Virginia, along her original lines. This may account for the visibility of so few deck structures: after the changeover to oystering under power, the main cabin, forepeak, and main hold became less important because infrequently used, and access to these areas may have been eliminated when decking was replaced in the 1953 rebuilding. It is also possible that evidence of hatches may be hidden beneath the extra layer of loose decking of unfinished wood.

From the bows aft, deck structures include only a box over the winders and a wheelhouse built directly onto the deck. There is no evidence of a cabin trunk beneath the wheelhouse, which is rounded at the forward end and square aft. It has a full-length door opening onto the deck at the starboard side, and windows all around.

Oystering gear consists of two hand-dumped dredges, barrel cullers, conveyors, and winders. The boat has high

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. guardrails, consisting of three planks, each about 10' long, placed horizontally up from the waist at the main deck area. These serve to contain the pile of oysters carried on deck.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: RICHARD D. LORE Official no.: 209125 Built: 1911 Owner: Warren M. Berry Greenwich, N.J. Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Mauricetown, N.J.

Register length: 63.5' Breadth: 20.5' Depth: 5.5' Gross tonnage: 36 Net tonnage: 33

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 100 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame, oak and cedar Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner, hollow bows, little tuck to stem Profile: straight, raking stem, slightly hollow bows; transom stem with slight angle, oval shape with elliptical top

Bulwarks: original solid rail with scuppers aft; top timbers, raised waist forward Deck: flush; rises for about three feet to meet transom at stem Deck structures: tall forepeak hatch with curved back; T-shaped cabin trunk; wheelhouse built onto after section of trunk; canopy over afterdeck; wheelbox; stemsheets

Fishing gear: two oyster dredges with automatic dumper doors; barrel cullers; conveyors, hoppers; winders (removed from boat in off-season) Finish: all white; some metal sheathing on deck, top of trunk, and at sternsheets where joined to deck

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Description

This schooner, with her sharp, hollow bows and low, straight sheer line, exhibits "old-style" characteristics. Although the bowsprit and longhead have been removed, along with the trailboards, the stem profile retains a clipper-like aspect. The transom stern is high, elliptical at the top, and curves into the sides of the hull. There is almost no overhang to the counter, although the sides of the hull are tucked up at the waterline. The boat has little freeboard. The run is straight aft and does not curve in at the stern.

Carvel-planked on an oak frame, the boat retains original top timbers forward, which show some flare above the sheer strake. The construction of the stern has not been altered; the deck slopes up to meet the transom, where plugs fitted into former salt holes are visible. The afterdeck is especially long. The hull and all fittings are painted white.

Although the boat has kept her sailing lines on her rails and at the stem, there is no trace left of her sail rig. She is now powered by a 100-horsepower diesel engine, housed in the main hold.

Deck structures, from the bows aft, include a tall fore­ peak hatch with a curved back, a two-sectioned cabin trunk, and a wheelhouse built onto the trunk. An overhead canopy covers the entire afterdeck. Stern sheets have been built onto the transom; these are about 3' deep at their deepest point.

The cabin trunk is 2'4" high, well above the height of the rails amidships (1'3" midships rising to 2' at the stem). There are four rectangular portholes, all blocked off, in the for­ ward section of the trunk; the single rectangular portholes on either side of the after section are covered with metal screen and mesh. The cabin trunk roof is sheathed in metal. The built-on wheelhouse has an overhanging roof and a three-sided front. It is built flush to the after-end of the trunk, but set in from the sides and forward edge. It has plywood sides and windows all around. There is a door to the wheelhouse on the starboard after-end; access is by three steps built up from the deck. Access to the main cabin below is through a full-length door built into a foot-deep door frame bridging the after-ends of

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the trunk and wheelhouse on the port side. The door, set flush with the after-end of the foyer-like frame, has louvered windows for ventilation.

The overhead canopy provides shade and protection for the long afterdeck. Steering gear is open, rather than housed in a wheelbox. The stern sheets built onto the transom extend about 3' forward onto the afterdeck.

The Richard D. Lore is used during the spring oyster- planting season, and her winders and dredges are removed when not in use. She carries automated dredging gear, including self­ dumping dredges, barrel cullers, and conveyors.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: S. W . SHEPPARD Official no.: 222041 Built: 1922 Dorchester, N.J. Owner: John L. Reed Dredging license no.: 20 Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Port Norris, N.J.

Register length: 61.5' Breadth: 20.0' Depth: 6' Gross tonnage: 42 Net tonnage: 22

Current rig: oil screw engine Horsepower: 110 Former rig: schooner Date of conversion: after 1945

Hull: carvel plank on frame, probably oak and cedar Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: straight, slightly raking stem; low, angled, small tran­ som; stern cut down and new rail added

Bulwarks: raised waist; replaced aft Deck: flush Deck structures: low forepeak hatch; box built over winders; wheelhouse built onto cabin trunk; wheelbox, cooler, and water barrel on afterdeck

Fishing gear: two hand-dumped oyster dredges, conveyors, barrel cullers, and winders Finish: hull white; green trim

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Description

One of the last of the "old-style" schooners, the S. W. Sheppard was built with a straight, slightly raking stem and a small, low, angled transom. The stern has been slightly cut down, enough for the addition of a new rail.

The boat is frame-built and carvel-planked, of local materials—probably oak and cedar. The hull is painted white; there is green trim on the rails and wheelhouse. No trace remains of sail rig; bowsprit, trailboards, and longhead that once graced the "clipper" bow have all been removed. Boat is now powered by a 110-horsepower diesel engine.

From the bows aft, deck structures include a low fore­ peak hatch surrounded by a coaming; a box built over the winders; a low main hatch; and a square cabin trunk onto which a wheelhouse has been built. The trunk has two rectangular port­ holes on each side and may have also had ports on its forward end. The wheelhouse has a three-sided front; it is built flush to the after-end of the cabin trunk, but set in at the sides and forward end. It is surrounded by windows and has a door on the starboard after corner, reached by three steps built up from the deck. The wheelhouse is finished in vertical paneling painted white. Access to the main cabin below is through a full-length door cut into the after-end of the wheelhouse to port, where a slide was formerly cut through the cabin trunk roof. There are a wheelbox, a cooler, and a water barrel on the long afterdeck.

Oystering gear on this boat includes two hand-dumped oyster dredges, conveyors, barrel cullers, and winders.

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VESSEL INVENTORY

Name: TIMOTHY BATEMAN Official no.: 226390 Built: 1927 Leesburg, N.J. Owner: Dorchester Industries Dredging license no.: 31 Port of registry: Philadelphia Location: Dorchester, N.J.

Register length: 71.4' Breadth: 21.8' Depth: 6.3' Gross tonnage: 56 Net tonnage: 49

Hull: carvel plank on frame, probably oak Hull form: round-bottomed centerboard schooner Profile: spoon bow; cut-down, raking heart-shaped transom; moderate counter (overhang to transom)

Bulwarks: raised waist; steel and wood top timbers; open mid­ ships for dredges Deck: flush; main deck sheathed in metal Deck structures: forepeak hatch; plywood box over winders; wheelhouse added to forward section of T-shaped cabin trunk Compartments: main cabin; engine room; main hold with center­ board trunk; forepeak

Fishing gear: two oyster dredges with automatic dumper doors; conveyors; barrel cullers; winders Finish: hull green; waist black with white caprail and water­ ways; cabin trunk white with green roof; wheelhouse green and white; decks gray

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Description

This "new-style" schooner has a bold, graceful sheer, riding high despite the weight of her gear and added wheelhouse. The spike bowsprit has been removed from the spoon bow. Her transom, although cut down to allow the addition of a new rail, retains its heart shape and moderate rake; the overhang has been slightly reduced so the boat no longer has a long run aft. A former skipper has voiced the opinion that she is certainly a lovely boat to look at, but could be a "dog" to work, sometimes needing her centerboard to turn even under power.

The Timothy Bateman is frame-built and carvel-planked. Three guardrails are mounted on either side of the hull, running for various lengths at the sheer, between the sheer and the waterline, and below the waterline—these protect the hull from the bumping of the oyster dredges. The hull is painted dark green.

Some top timbers have been replaced in steel; others are wood, some original and some replaced. Waterways are open to allow debris from oystering to fall overboard. The black-painted waist, elevated a foot above the top timbers, is topped with a white caprail about 2'6" off the deck. The lowest section of the waist is at the stern of the boat, where the waist is raised just a few inches above the scuppers. The waterways are painted w h ite.

The boat is motorized with a 165-horsepower diesel engine, housed in an engine room in the main hold. The sail rig has been removed, but a towing mast, carrying three vertical lights, is mounted on the top of the wheelhouse.

Decks are flush, with all openings either raised or surrounded by coamings. From the bows aft, deck structures include a forepeak hatch, which opens to a companionway lead­ ing down into the forepeak, once used as crew's quarters; a square plywood box covering the winders; and a T-shaped cabin trunk, with a wheelhouse mounted on the forward section and a tall companionway on the port quarter. Aft of the cabin trunk are a wheelbox (containing the steering gear and connected to the wheel in the wheelhouse), a cooler, and a water barrel. Quarter bitts, for mooring, are mounted on the afterdeck.

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The wheelhouse is fastened to the cabin trunk roof with long metal tie rods and stands 8' above the cabin roof. This may have been a removable wheelhouse at some point. The wheelhouse has a door on the starboard quarter, and nine large windows. There are a bunk and drawers built into the wheel- house, which also houses navigational gear and the wheel. The wheelhouse is finished, inside and out, with 3" vertical wood paneling; its forward wall has been covered in plywood. The wheelhouse is small in relation to the rest of the cabin trunk; abaft it, a port-quarter door with a flat roof and slanted back has been built around the former slide, providing access to the main cabin below.

The port-side companionway is balanced, in the main cabin, by a starboard corner built-in table. A horseshoe locker curves around the entire after-end of the cabin, providing seat­ ing and storage. The sides of the cabin are flanked by two berths built into each side of the boat. There are additional storage shelves and cupboards in the corners of the main cabin and engine room; a cast-iron stove sits squarely in the middle of the forward end of the cabin. There is a square central hatch in the cabin roof and two rectangular portholes on either side, built into the trunk walls above deck level. A vertical hatch and a fifth rectangular port on the forward wall of the cabin trunk have been boarded over. The cabin is finished in 1 3/4" vertical paneling painted white and brown.

From the engine compartment, two doors lead forward into the main hold, divided by a massive centerboard trunk. The foot-wide centerboard trunk is placed off-center to port; its weight would have been balanced, when the schooner was built, by placing the mainmast off-center to starboard. (The foremast, however, was situated on the boat's center-line.) Forward of the hold is the forepeak, now disused. A low locker runs along the sides of the triangular space, with two berths built in on either side, tapering forward into the bow. Two more berths, one atop the other, are placed athwartships at the bulkhead that separates the forepeak from the main hold on the port side. The starboard section of this bulkhead is pierced by a door. A central hatch leads from the forepeak up to the deck, opening beneath the elevated conveyor. Joinerwork in the forepeak is 3" vertical paneling, on the lockers.

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Oystering gear is fully automated and includes two dredges with dumper doors, conveyors, barrel cullers, and winders. The boat is used for spring oyster planting and for occasional towing duty.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.