Watermen's Recollections • Blackwater's Fragile Marsh Boating
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Spring 2007 Watermen’s Recollections • Blackwater’s Fragile Marsh Boating Party Invitation Help us ensure that the Chesapeake Bay’s historic heritage endures. Leave a Legacy at CBMM Have you considered extending your membership gift beyond your lifetime by naming CBMM in your will? A bequest of a specific amount or a percentage of the residue of your estate allows you the flexibility to support CBMM while providing for your loved ones. For more information contact John Miller, VP of Advancement at the Museum, 410-745-2916. BensonMangold.FP.1-2/05 11/30/04 1:53 PM Page 1 What’s in a Name? You have noticed (I hope…) that this issue of the CBMM Quarterly sports WaterWays a new masthead. WaterWays is the new name for our members’ publication, Spring 2007 and is the result of some considerable discussion here on campus. We did not hire corporate identity consultants to advise us on the psychological and Volume 5 Number 1 financial implications of the new brand because we had pretty definite ideas of what we wanted to achieve: First, we wanted a real name for the publication—Quarterly just didn’t Editor excite many of us. Dick Cooper Second, we wanted a name that sounded like us and wouldn’t be con- [email protected] fused with the scores of other Bay-related publications and journals. Although I have to admit that we did momentarily consider Baywatch. Graphic Design/Photography Third, and most important, we wanted a name that would signal a focus Rob Brownlee-Tomasso for the magazine, and ultimately for the Museum itself. We liked the double entendre that WaterWays provided. This is about water and the watery routes Contributors of trade, transportation and leisure on the Bay; but more than that, this is also Cristina Calvert about the customs and practices of those who live along the Bay’s shores. Julie Gibbons-Neff Cox We are a museum that explores, preserves and presents the uniqueness of life Rachel Dolhanczyk along these waters and celebrates the maritime traditions that continue to en- rich our communities. Robert Forloney The varied contents of this first issue of WaterWays all reflect this core Pete Lesher interest, but the focus will immediately extend beyond the pages of this maga- Stuart L. Parnes zine, with new offerings to visitors and members this season. Kathleen Rattie On Saturday, April 21, we will be hosting Bay Day, an environmentally- Richard Scofield focused festival and exposition of products, services, and initiatives designed Michael Valliant to care for the Bay’s fragile ecology. Family-oriented demonstrations, speak- ers, and exhibits will fill two huge tents and the Museum’s auditorium, and visiting ships will line the waterfront. The health of the Bay has always af- Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum fected life along the shore, and will certainly impact all of our lives. I urge you to attend. Navy Point, P.O. Box 636 Though the CBMM’s exhibits do St. Michaels, MD 21663-0636 a pretty good job describing to our 410-745-2916 Fax 410-745-6088 visitors the life of watermen, nothing www.cbmm.org [email protected] comes close to actually getting out on the water. Beginning this June, Mu- seum visitors (including members, of course) will be able to include a cruise The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is a private aboard Mister Jim or a sail aboard the not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational institution. A skipjack, H.M. Krentz, as part of their copy of the current financial statement is available experience here. The way of a vessel on request by writing the Vice President of Finance, P.O. Box 636, St. Michaels, MD 21663 or by calling on the water—under sail or power—is 410-745-2916 ext. 238. Documents and information the ultimate maritime experience, and submitted under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations I am delighted that we will be able to Act are also available, for the cost of postage and share it. It’s a tough job, but someone copies, from the Maryland Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis, MD 21401, 410-974-5534. has to do it. On the Cover The number of bald eagles in Blackwater is increasing, but the marshes are in trouble. Stuart L. Parnes, President (See story, page 10) Photograph by Bob Quinn. Contents Features (Above) Six loblolly pine logs await shaping into skipjack spars. (See story, page 22.) In Watermen’s Words 6 Working the water has been as much a way of life as a way to make a living. Two watermen share some of their stories. By Ken Castelli, illustrated by Marc Castelli Departments The Fragile Marsh 10 Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County is a critical To the Point 27 habitat for tens of thousands of animals. It has been in steady decline. Can it be saved? By Dick Cooper Wood Works 29 A Monster’s Bay Visit 18 Around the Bay 30 The steamship Great Eastern was the largest vessel of its day. When it churned its way into the Chesapeake Bay in 1860, it became a tourist Mystery Photo Answers 31 attraction. By Robert H. Burgess Events Calendar* C 1-8 Inner Beauty 22 Looking for skipjack spars in the middle of Maryland’s Pocomoke State Forest takes a trained eye. Coastal Heritage Alliance workers * Events Calendar is a special pull-out harvest future masts. By Dick Cooper section that can be found between pages 16 and 17. Freedom and Faith 24 Free blacks struggled against racism and hoped to find equality with whites in the church pew. Facing opposition, they formed a church apart. By T. Stephen Whitman 5 Recollections and Reflections in Watermen’s Words By Ken Castelli, Illustrations by Marc Castelli The Eastern Shore of Maryland has always held a spe- a bateau go out Fairlee Creek; had an air-cooled motor in it, cial place for my family and me. While living outside Phila- didn’t have an outboard. Nine horse, pull-started, didn’t have delphia, we would come down on weekend trips and watch an electric start on it. the log canoe races on the Miles, Choptank, Tred Avon, and Didn’t have a truck, had a station wagon, so we hauled Chester Rivers, and afterwards we would stay with friends everything up the road in a station wagon, but back then you at their houses at various places on the Shore. All of us fell didn’t catch many crabs either; we only had fifty crab pots. in love with the rural atmosphere and relaxed attitude of the All the pots was pulled by hand, and he would take me when I locals, and it was the perfect antithesis to living just outside got eight years old and I’d just steer the boat from pot to pot the City of Brotherly Love. and sometimes I’d sit there and fall asleep. The Eastern Shore was open, quiet, and incredibly pic- One time he woke me up cause he was cullin’ crabs and turesque. My father, Marc Castelli, is an artist who paints we were supposed to go to the next pot; I’d fallen asleep and mainly watermen and their boats, as well as log canoes and we’d gone a mile away from where I was supposed to be go- other maritime traditions and lifestyles of the area, so it made ing ‘cause he had his head down cullin’ crabs. sense to move here. He woke me up, asked me where we were going, I said, “I I would have to say that I love the Eastern Shore more than dunno where we’re goin.” I was eight years old; you’re not any other place I have visited. The main attraction for me is supposed to be getting up four o’clock in the morning to go the sheer amount of water. Rivers and creeks and guts pervade crabbin’. I’d’ve liked to have gone after I’d gotten up, you every aspect of the region, and for hundreds of years, the most know, but I didn’t like bein’ woke up in the morning to go, efficient way to get around on the Eastern Shore was by boat. you know? The water is not only great for commercial traffic and recreation, but it also provides a living for many people, especially commercial fishermen. They rely entirely on the bounty of the Chesapeake and its tributaries for their income, We went fishin’ one day and that’s how I cut my finger off. and have seen the Bay undergo massive changes. If we lose Down to the Bay Bridge, we were pullin’ anchor nets up our connection with the water, we lose a distinctly Eastern out of the hunnerd foot deep water down there, and it was Shore way of life. blowin’ and we had dropped Matty Crags and Bucky Collier, I interviewed people whose livelihoods and families are he was Billy Collier’s brother, and you know Matty. He was directly linked to the water, and got stories of how life used to workin’ with Bill Collier, and Matty and Bucky would get in be on the Shore. They all told incredible stories about the dis- the bateau; we’d take the big boat, tow two bateaux down the appearing lifestyles. I felt it was important to get these memo- bay, anchor the big boat, then you could go fishin’ nets out ries of bygone days down on paper for future generations to of the little boats.