QUARTERLY Summer 2003 This Issue: William Warner w In Search of Ida May QUARTERLY Summer 2003 Volume 1 Number 2 Editor Michael Valliant President’s Message Graphic Designers Laura Vlahovich, Phil Jones John B. Harrison didn’t have a Ph.D. in engineering. His Contributors education came from learning the water and a trade from his Cathy Connelly, Leigh Ann Gay, family and community. His mastery can be seen in the boats Pete Lesher, Otto Loggers, he built, like the bugeye Edna E. Lockwood (above), which Melissa McLoud, has become a cornerstone of the Museum’s fl oating fl eet. And Kristi Mertaugh, John Miller, we see his ingenuity in Captain Buddy Harrison’s story of the raising of his Bill Thompson, Mike Vlahovich father’s buyboat. John B. masterminded a plan that would be the pride of any Photography M.I.T. graduate. Julie Heikes, Bill Thompson, We place a high value on a formal education. By this, people generally Laura Vlahovich, John Whitehead mean a high school, college, or graduate degree. I stress the importance of this kind of education to my two daughters in high school on a daily basis. Illustrations But there is an equally valid way to teach that often gets passed over for this Eric T. Applegarth, Marc Castelli revered book learning. For over a century, skipjacks, workboats, and the Bay itself have been extended “classrooms” where younger generations gain the skills and knowledge they need from folks that have learned what they know by the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum same process. Masters pass on their trade to sons, daughters, mates, or Navy Point, P.O. Box 636 apprentices, who then have the skills and knowledge necessary to continue St. Michaels, MD 21663-0636 their profession. 410-745-2916 w Fax 410-745-6088 The Museum practices this same kind of education with our Shipwright www.cbmm.org w [email protected] Apprentice Program. Young boat builders come here to learn wooden boat The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is a private building from our master shipwrights. The value and history of apprenticeships not-for-profi t 501(c)(3) educational institution. A is not lost on Boat Yard Manager Mike Vlahovich, who speaks of this tradition copy of the current fi nancial statement is available on eloquently in his column. request by writing the Controller, P.O. Box 636, St. Our educational programs like Community Sailing, Bay Combers, and Michaels, MD 21663 or by calling 410-745-2916 ext. 124. Documents and information submitted under the many workshops we offer stress the fact that the Museum is a place for the Maryland Charitable Solicitations Act are also interactive, hands-on learning. Through ongoing programs like Apprentice available, for the cost of postage and copies, from the for a Day and Chesapeake People, we try to provide our visitors with similar Maryland Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis, opportunities. MD 21401, 410-974-5534. The knowledge and skills that have shaped the Bay’s culture do not lend themselves to a single way of teaching. To meet this challenge, the Museum creates public programs, conducts research, and develops publications that On the Cover embody education in all its varied forms. Invoking experience and history as “Chesapeake Bay Workboats,” Bellevue, great teachers, we hope to shape the future. Maryland 1994. The cover artwork is a hand-manipulated Polaroid by Julie Heikes. Julie is an Exhibits Technician at the Museum and a freelance photographer. She heats the photograph to make it pliable, John R. Valliant then rubs the surface until things start to President move. No computers are used. She is drawn to subjects that convey a sense of stillness. [email protected] Her work can be seen at Artist Locale and Chesapeake Trading in St. Michaels. Julie Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum w Summer 2003 can be reached at [email protected]. Contents Features Complete in Every Detail 3 The Chesapeake Bay blue crab turns After a distinguished career as a boat builder, Robert Lambdin turned his up around every corner in summer talents to making model boats. months on the Bay. Jimmies and By Pete Lesher sooks alike will be out in force at the Museum’s Crab Days on July 26 & 27 on Navy Point. Weekend Woodworking 6 So you want to build a boat? The Boat Shop opens its doors (and tool cabinets) to weekend visitors looking to get their hands dirty. By Michael Valliant Departments Writing Down the Bay 13 Breene M. Kerr Center Author William Warner looks back on writing the book that won him the for Chesapeake Studies 5 Pulitzer Prize. More than twenty-fi ve years after its original publication, Beautiful Swimmers is still the Bay’s best book. From the Boat Yard 7 By Bill Thompson Advancement 9 An Expert Plan 17 Volunteers 11 Captain Buddy Harrison tells the unfathomable story of the sinking of his father’s buyboat, Ida May and the man who found and raised her. Events Calendar * C 1-4 Edited by Michael Valliant and Pete Lesher w Artwork by Marc Castelli Profile 12 “An Uncommon Intimacy” 22 * Events Calendar is a special pull-out A career newspaperman crosses something of his life’s “to do” list. And section that can be found between then remembers why. pages 11 and 12. By Steve McKerrow Contents 2 hat would an old boatbuilder do to occupy himself in retirement? For veteran log canoe builder Robert D. Lambdin of St. Michaels, the answer was clear. He carved boat W models. Lambdin died in 1938, but some of his models survive. The Museum recently acquired Lambdin’s model of the log canoe, Belle M. Crane, which he made at the age of 82. A 1932 article from the Easton Star-Democrat noted that this model was displayed at the Shannahan and Wrightson hardware store in Easton, and described it as “37 inches long, and… complete in every detail.”1 In fact, it retains not only spars and sails, but a spring board, on which the crew scrambles out to trim the boat, and an oar. The model belonged to Ruth Starr Rose, a Talbot County native and the first woman to actively campaign a log canoe in the local races. She owned the log canoe, Belle M. Crane, after which the model was made. Complete in Every Detail by Pete Lesher, Curator The log canoe itself was built not by Lambdin, but by Greenbury M. Coffin, another St. Michaels boatbuilder. Launched in 1897, it was raced with distinction by George Shockley of St. Michaels. Although its rig was cut out and the canoe motorized, in 1929 it was again reconditioned for racing by Ruth Starr Rose, and for a year or two it was the largest log canoe in the racing fleet. The owner’s brother, Richard Starr, recounted the frustrating first weekend of races on August 16 and 17, 1929: …with the boat unpainted, leaking, and only half finished we left harbor for the first race. We had a corking good breeze, and had it not been that our skipper was just a little too drunk we would have had a good start. As it was we ran afoul of a big power yacht, doing it considerable damage, but by the grace of God none to ourselves other than a man overboard and the loss of a quarter of a mile at the start. Although Ruth is a damned good sailor she thought it best to get old Captain George Shockley to sail the first race, he being a top notch sailor when sober and having sailed this boat in her pristine days of glory.2 Lambdin was critical of log canoe sailors in the late 1920s, suggesting that many of the new and reconditioned boats were over- rigged. “Our new canoe sailors, if they would blow their horn less and use more common sense in rigging their boats …they would get better sailing out of them.”3 Lambdin was born in 1849 in St. Michaels, the fourth of five sons of shipbuilder Robert Lambdin. When he quit school, he apprenticed to his father, and spent much of his career in urban shipyards, including the Washington Navy Yard. Back in St. Michaels from 1876 to 1893, he built log canoes for local watermen and residents, constructing some 68 canoes by 3 Chesapeake Bay the time he stopped in 1893. He liked to offer a complete package when building a canoe, so his contracts often specified “Complete with sales and oars and Rowlocks,” or, in one extraordinary case, “furnish two mast and sails and two pair of 8 foot oars and anchor and line.”4 Among his best-remembered log canoes were Dashaway, a successful racing canoe built in 1877 for John C. Harper of St. Michaels, and Chesapeake, which Lambdin shipped to the 1893 Chicago Columbian Fair for exhibition on the fairground’s lagoon. The last log canoe made by Lambdin is in the museum’s collection, on exhibit in our Small Boat Shed. After giving up the construction of log canoes, Lambdin returned to urban shipyards in Wilmington, Delaware, and, in 1896, to the Norfolk Navy Yard. He finally returned to St. Michaels on his retirement in 1919, as he was approaching the age of 70. His wife of 50 years, the former Sarah Elizabeth Horney, died in 1926, and two years later Lambdin moved to the Aged Men’s Home in Baltimore. Lambdin kept a few tools with him, and made small items to keep himself occupied, primarily models and small pieces of furniture. His models ranged from a 25-inch long pungy that he made for the son of St.