Pocomoke Shipbuilding • Vane Brothers - Chesapeake Bay ...

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Summer 2007
Pocomoke Shipbuilding • Vane Brothers

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On the Cover
WaterWays
Summer 2007
Volume 5 Number 2
Editor
Dick Cooper
editor@cbmm.org
Graphic Design/Photography
Rob Brownlee-Tomasso
Contributors
Cristina Calvert
Julie Gibbons-Neff Cox
Rachel Dolhanczyk
Robert Forloney
Pete Lesher
Melissa McLoud
John Miller
Stuart L. Parnes
Kathleen Rattie
Michael Valliant
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
Navy Point, P.O. Box 636
St. Michaels, MD 21663-0636
410-745-2916 Fax 410-745-6088
www.cbmm.org editor@cbmm.org
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is a private
not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational institution. A
copy of the current financial statement is available
on request by writing the Vice President of Finance,
P.O. Box 636, St. Michaels, MD 21663 or by calling
410-745-2916 ext. 238. Documents and information
submitted under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations
Act are also available, for the cost of postage and
copies, from the Maryland Secretary of State, State
House, Annapolis, MD 21401, 410-974-5534.
Vane Brothers’ tug Nanticoke bearing down
on the Baltimore skyline. The Company is
building a new fleet of tugs and doublehulled
barges. (See story, page 10)
Four hundred years and counting…
Our President and our (favorite) Queen recently celebrated the first permanent
English settlement in the New World, in Jamestown on the Chesapeake Bay.
How did you react to the anniversary? I have been taking an informal poll.
Some of us are enthralled. We find ourselves trying to picture life here
400 years ago. We can never fully appreciate the suffering and conditions that
awaited the settlers, but we try. We want to understand what drove them to
these shores. Some of us really care and want to connect to them.
Others simply let the events wash over, a sound bite in the flood of news
events. Why stop to look back on these desperate pilgrims?
I reacted a third way. I treasure the past and the artifacts that have survived.
I marvel at the
strength of these pilgrims
and I am stunned
by their cruelty. Yet as I
read the news accounts
of the festivities, I find
myself thinking about
the future.
Let me explain.
History museums such
as CBMM are firmly
rooted in the past, but
we are not just warehouses
of old stuff. We
study and preserve and share stories of the past to encourage thoughtfulness
about the future. If museums use history to encourage reverence for the past,
or nostalgia for the “good old days,” then we accomplish little. But, if our
work can broaden perspectives, deepen understanding and perhaps even inform
decision-making, then we serve both the past and the future.
So when I look back 400 years to John Smith and the Jamestown colony,
this is what I really wonder: What will life on the Bay be like 400 years from
now? Can I imagine what a visitor to Jamestown or St. Michaels in 2407 will
experience? While the quality of human life has improved beyond the wildest
dreams of the colonists, the rich natural abundance described by Smith has all
but vanished. This is what we Americans proudly call “progress.” But what
have we learned? I wonder how much more progress we will inflict on the Bay
in the next 400 years.
In this issue of WaterWays, we will offer you a fascinating look a boatbuilding
in Pocomoke City a century ago, take you aboard a tug to offer a view of a
family-owned Baltimore company and recount the launch of the first log bugeye
in almost 90 years. We will also offer you a glimpse into the future with a
journey into some of America’s disappearing marshlands, and a dip below the
surface to meet some of the latest immigrants to Maryland’s waterways.
I hope each of these stories will help you adjust your perspective on both
the past and the future. If they do, then we are doing our job.
Stuart L. Parnes, President

Contents
(Above) An eared grebe gives her
young a ride. Their photo is one of
40 by photographer William Burt
now on display at the Museum.
(See Marshes, page 18.)
Departments
Events Calendar
To the Point
Wood Works
Around the Bay
Mystery Photo Answers
19
30
33
34
35
Features
Shipbuilding Powerhouse
E. James Tull turned a sleepy Pocomoke River village into a major
shipbuilding town more than a century ago, launching scores of Bay
and ocean craft. By Pete Lesher
Tugging into the Future
Vane Brothers is a Baltimore tradition. A family-owned business
evolves from a chandlery in the age of sail into a marine transportation
company. By Dick Cooper
Marshes Exhibit
An exhibit of photographs by William Burt opens at the Museum
documenting the beauty and the secrets of the disappearing marshes
of North America. By Michael Valliant
Christening a Bugeye
The Katherine M. Edwards, the first log bugeye built on the Bay
in almost 90 years, is christened at Sidney Dickson’s dock in St.
Michaels. By Dick Cooper
Invasion of the Crawdads
10
22
24
27
The invasion of the big and ornery Louisiana crawdad into Maryland
waters is driving the local crayfish out of their habitats throughout the
state. By Jay Kilian
6
5

E. James Tull
6
Shipbuilding Power
on the Banks of the Pocomoke
By Pete Lesher, Curator of Collections
E. James Tull transformed
Pocomoke City from a small timber
town to a major shipbuilding center,
becoming the leading citizen of the
community, its longtime mayor,
and perhaps the most prolific
builder of wooden ships on the
Chesapeake.
Although he was located
far from the conveniences of
an urban center, Tull adapted to
changing technologies to build
steamers and early gasoline-powered
boats, as well as the last large
sailing vessel on the Chesapeake.
Beginning in the mid 19th century,
a lumber industry grew up in
and around Pocomoke City, then called
Newtown, near the mouth of the Pocomoke
River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore,
taking advantage in particular of the nearby stands
of rot-resistant cypress.
By 1880, five steam sawmills in and near the town were
feeding not only a lumber trade along the East Coast, but a
local shipbuilding industry that boasted three shipyards and
two marine railways. The same year, the railroad built a
bridge across the river at the town, initiating daily service
to Philadelphia, which supplemented a steamboat connection
to Baltimore. Although it had just 1,500 residents and 225
houses, Pocomoke City was growing rapidly.
In the midst of this civic and economic growth, a young
Tull trained as a ship carpenter at the yard of W. J. S. Clarke,
a timber merchant who had expanded into shipbuilding in
1864. 1 Tull’s career choice was not uncommon in this town;
by 1883, there were 54 current or former ship carpenters in
Pocomoke City. 2
Tull was born on a farm near Westover, Maryland, in
neighboring Somerset County, on January 19, 1850, and
moved to Newtown, at age 18. After six years at the Clarke
shipyard, he had learned enough of the business to go into
partnership with the adjacent Hall Brothers yard. By 1882, he
was supervising the construction of new vessels and certifying
them at the Crisfield customs house. In 1884, Tull severed
his 10-year partnership with Hall Brothers, rented the Clarke
shipyard and became a sole proprietor at age 34. 3 After Clarke
died in 1893, Tull purchased the yard.
Tull’s first vessels were the standard bugeyes, schooners,
and sloops of the day, destined for the oyster trade or freighting
around the Chesapeake. Bugeyes, the quintessential oyster
dredging boats of the region, were likely products for a
lower Eastern Shore boatbuilder in this period. The oyster
trade was near its peak and demand for these boats soared.
Earlier bugeyes were built with logs, and others were still
building log bugeyes into the 1890s, but Tull appears to have
built plank-on-frame bugeyes, from the start.
At the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Tull exhibited
a model of his 1885 bugeye Lillie Sterling with the
U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in the Transportation Building,
and won a medal for the design. The model is now at the
Smithsonian along with Tull’s own half-hull model for the
same boat. Lillie Sterling was a relatively small bugeye, but
typical of the type in almost every way, with a shoal draft,

house
The four-masted schooner Lillian E. Kerr bound for New
York with a load of Nova Scotia lumber in 1941.
relatively flat bottom, and trunk cabin aft. She was steered
with a tiller and lacked a patent stern platform or even a
duck tail around the rudder head, all typical characteristics
of earlier bugeyes. 4
A half-hull model, as Tull made for the Lillie Sterling, was
the design tool for Chesapeake shipbuilders. Like other builders
of bugeyes, schooners, and other commercial vessels, Tull
had no formal training in engineering or naval architecture, a
profession that was still in its infancy. Most shipbuilders did
their own design work by shaping a half model, typically in
half-inch scale (½ inch equals 1 foot), and lofted the frames
full size by taking dimensions from the model. Tull probably
learned this practice in the Clarke yard, and he clearly followed
it himself, although few of Tull’s models survive today.
In 1880, steamers were introduced to the menhaden fishery
on the Chesapeake with vessels brought from New England.
5 Not long after, the menhaden fishermen began ordering
steamers from Chesapeake shipbuilders. Generally, steamers
were built in urban shipyards where the steam engines and
boilers could be made nearby. With his rural location, Tull
was a notable exception. Although there were no engine
builders or boilermakers in or near Pocomoke City, in 1888
Tull constructed the fish steamer Isaac N. Veasey for the
American Fish Guano Company. At least 17 more menhaden
steamers emerged from the yard from 1897 to 1912.
Menhaden steamers were rather substantial vessels. Before
the Isaac N. Veasey, Tull had launched at least four
schooners of between 50 and 80 tons. The Veasey measured
95 tons, and each of his later menhaden steamers topped 100
tons, the last two exceeding 300 tons.
The transition from building traditional Chesapeake
oystering vessels to new fish steamers was one way Tull responded
to changing technology. Perhaps more remarkable
was his experimental gasoline engine boat, Bertie E. Tull,
launched in 1895.
Steam engines had been developing for most of the 19th
century, but internal combustion engines were a much newer
phenomenon. New steamboats in the 1890s were generally
propeller driven, but sidewheelers were still preferred for service
to the shallow tributaries of the Chesapeake, so Tull built
7

8
The menhaden boat Delaware under
construction in the Tull yard in 1913.
Bertie E. Tull as a sidewheeler powered by gasoline engines.
He operated this boat between Baltimore and Snow Hill for
a few months in 1896 and 1897, but it was apparently unsuccessful,
and it was later converted to a screw propeller driven
by a Globe gasoline engine. 6
Tull’s largest vessels were not steamers or power vessels,
however. In the early 20th century, large schooners were in
demand to carry coal, lumber, and fertilizer. For cargoes that
did not need to arrive on a schedule, sailing vessels with
minimal crews, could make the delivery for a lower freight
charge without the fuel costs. Tull built four three-masted
schooners between 1900 and 1920. His last, the slow but
solidly constructed Lillian E. Kerr, later rerigged with four
masts, remains the last large sailing vessel launched anywhere
on the Chesapeake. 7 He launched his only four-masted
schooner, Charles M. Struven, in 1917.
Rams, specialized schooners with narrow beam, straight
wall sides and flat bottoms, designed to pass through canal
locks, were a further development of the three-masted
schooner, and Tull launched one example, Reedville, in
1911. These late schooners relied on tugs to make their way
in and out of port, especially when serving rural ports along
the winding rivers of the Eastern Shore. Schooner barges,
which were towed, but carried a relatively small amount of
sail to assist, appeared on the Chesapeake at the beginning
of the 20th century. Tull produced seven schooner barges
between 1904 and 1918. The second of these schooner
barges, the 640-ton, 182-foot Merrimac, was one
of the largest vessels produced in his yard, slightly
larger than the four-masted Charles M. Struven of
632 tons and 171 feet.
Constructing larger vessels required more labor,
so by the turn of the century, Tull was the largest
employer in Pocomoke City with a workforce varying
from 15 to 60, depending on the contracts at
hand. 8 It took up to 10 months to construct a fourmasted
schooner, and Tull expanded workforce to
complete the new hull. Simultaneously, one or two
smaller craft would be under construction next to
the larger vessel. 9
Rams and schooner barges were not pretty vessels;
their lines were determined by the practicalities
of maximizing the size of the hold, not by aesthetics
or even sea-keeping qualities. But Tull was
able to build a pretty boat, too. The Lillie Sterling
caught the eye of several observers, and Tull later
built several yachts.
Perhaps his first was Dixie, a bugeye yacht patterned
after the common commercial craft of the day, but with
a longer cabin. The idea of using a bugeye as a yacht had
been proposed by yachting writer C. P. Kunhardt in 1884,
but Dixie was among the earliest bugeyes built for pleasure.
Dixie was launched in 1897 for writer Thomas Dixon,
Jr., whose novel The Clansman inspired D. W. Griffith’s
film Birth of a Nation.
Dixon praised Dixie in a 1905 autobiography.
“Such a craft is the most useful boat in Virginia waters a
man can build. She will go more places and do more things
than any other boat of her size afloat. She is so powerfully
built that she stands up straight on a sandbar or mud flat as
comfortably as afloat and without damage. We can anchor
on the feeding grounds of wild fowl where the tide leaves
her high and dry twice a day, and stay as long as we like. She
is a powerful sea boat when she drops her centerboard and
draws 10 feet of water. . . .” 10
Dixon had a clear idea of what he wanted in a yacht,
and he chose Tull, “an efficient builder of merchant work
boats,” to build her because he offered a significant savings
in cost: “the lowest estimate I could get on her in New York
and vicinity was $11,000, without sails. . . . [Tull] built her
hull. Her brass and iron work I had done in New York, and
her sails were made at Crisfield. When she was finished she
had cost me $3,500.” 11 In addition to the yacht for Dixon,
The bugeye yacht Dixie built
for author Thomas Dixon, Jr.

Tull launched several other sailing and
power yachts.
In addition to new construction, Tull
handled repair work on the yard’s horsepowered
marine railway. Repair work, always
steadier than new ship construction,
was a brisk business in Pocomoke City.
From the time he started, there were two
commercial marine railways in the town,
and by 1895, there were three. 12 In an 1898
newspaper notice that may have indicated
unusually high activity, the schooners
Elizabeth Ann, Jeanette, and E. H. Taylor
were all at Tull’s yard for repairs, while
four smaller vessels were at Charles W.
Crockett’s nearby marine railway. 13
Tull’s yard expanded and contracted
with the economics of shipbuilding. In the
1880s, when the oyster industry was booming, Tull launched
up to nine vessels in a year. Leaner times followed the depression
of 1893, but business again picked up a few years later.
After the turn of the century, Tull weathered the changes in
demand better than many other builders by learning to build
new types—fish steamers, power freighters, large schooners,
and schooner barges—when demand for bugeyes and
smaller schooners waned. America’s involvement in World
War I created a sudden but short-lived demand for new shipping
as war materiel was needed in Europe, and U-boats took
their toll on merchant shipping. Tull’s four schooner barges
launched in 1918 were typical of the American shipbuilding
industry’s response to the emergency call for new hulls.
The end of the war combined with surplus vessels to create a
devastating depression in the shipbuilding industry, and Tull
survived by shrinking his workforce and finding contracts
for smaller motor freight boats, yachts, and one additional
menhaden fisherman, this last one with an internal combustion
engine instead of steam. Tull died in 1924, and the yard
consequently closed.
Overall, Tull built a remarkable variety of vessels—bugeyes,
schooners, sloops, skipjacks, fish steamers, tugs, motor
freight boats, schooner barges, launches, sailing and power
yachts, barges, and a ram—some 200 in all, by a claim in his
own 1917 advertisement. Measured either by number of hulls
or total tonnage launched, no Eastern Shore shipbuilder out
produced him. This successful shipbuilder and businessman
rose to become Pocomoke City’s most prominent citizen. In
Celebrants crowd the deck of the ram
Reedville at her 1911 launch.
1901, he was elected mayor, and he served, with some interruptions
in service, up to his death. In addition to leading the
town through the typical civic improvements such as water
and sanitary service, he led the reconstruction of the downtown
after a 1922 fire.
Although owners of large shipyards were typically prominent
citizens in their communities, there is probably no parallel
on the Chesapeake to Tull’s dual dominance in Pocomoke
City’s business and civic affairs.
Sources
1. Dr. Reginald V. Truitt and Dr. Millard G. Les Callette, Worcester County: Maryland’s
Arcadia (Snow Hill, Md.: Worcester County Historical Society, 1977), 132.
2. Listed by name in the Rev. James Murray, History of Pocomoke City, Formerly New
Town (Baltimore: Curry, Clay, and Company, 1883), 92.
3. Portrait and Biographical Record of the Eastern Shore, (New York: Chapman Publishing,
1898), 799-800.
4. Howard I. Chapelle, The National Watercraft Collection (Washington, D.C.: GPO,
1960), 274-5.
5. John Frye, The Men All Singing. The Story of the Menhaden Industry (Norfolk, Va.:
Donning, 1978), 56.
6. S. S. Scott, Marine Review (Sept. 1910).
7. Quentin Snediker and Ann Jensen, Chesapeake Bay Schooners (Centreville, Md.:
Tidewater, 1992), 129.
8. Portrait and Biographical Record of the Eastern Shore, 800.
9. Truitt and Les Callette, 221.
10. Thomas Dixon, Jr., The Life Worth Living. A Personal Experience (New York:
Doubleday, Page & Company, 1905), 100.
11. Dixon, 96-7.
12. Sanborn Fire Atlas for Pocomoke City, 1895
13. [Pocomoke City] Ledger-Enterprise (Sat., 8 Oct. 1898).
The bugeye A.G. Sterling at the dock
in New Point, Virginia, showing signs
of a hard life.
9

10
Tugging into
By Dick Cooper, Editor
Baltimore glistens in the morning sun as Captain Cutter
Belote puts the tugboat Nanticoke through her
paces. Sitting high in his leather armchair, steering
the 100-foot-long workhorse with a practiced touch of the
remote clicker in his right hand, Belote is in his element.
The panoramic views from the wood-paneled wheelhouse,
three stories above the water, help burnish the harbor,
from the working bustle of Dundalk to the touristy gleam of
Inner Harbor.
Belote, a broad-shouldered man with a quick smile and a
firm handshake, grew up on the water on Virginia’s Eastern
Shore. The son and grandson of men who worked the water,
he is at home at the helm of the Nanticoke as the twin, 2,200horse
Caterpillar diesels churn the Patapsco into froth.
“When I was growing up, you either farmed or fished.
Now, a lot of the guys who fished have gone tuggin,’” says
Belote, 36, who has worked for 14 years for Vane Brothers
and now lives in Richmond, Virginia. “I got into tugboats
early as a deck hand and I worked my way up. I got my Coast
Guard license and worked to upgrade it. Then Duff gave me
a shot at the wheelhouse.”
Captain Cutter Belote has a sweeping view of the water from the
wheelhouse of the Nanticoke.
Duff is his boss, C. Duff Hughes, president of Vane
Brothers, Inc., the 109-year-old Baltimore nautical landmark
company that has revitalized a gritty part of the harbor and is
a leader in the petroleum delivery business from New England
to Texas.
A family-owned business, with roots in the Chesapeake
Bay schooner trade, Vane Brothers christened the 123-foot
tug Brandywine and the 480-foot double-hulled tanker
barge, Double-Skin 141, at a June 2 celebration on its Fairfield
waterfront campus.
More than a thousand guests listened as Hughes told them
how the new vessels were expanding and shaping the future
of Vane Brothers as a shipping company. The crowd cheered,
boat horns blared and spray from fireboats filled the air as a
ceremonial champagne bottle broke on the tugboat hull.
The tug and barge, which were designed and built to
work together to ship oil for Sunoco, are part of Vane Broth-

the Future
ers long-range plan to modernize and standardize
its fleet of 60 vessels.
Hughes, 49, the third-generation of
his family to run Vane Brothers, says the
company is building 15 news tugs and
eight barges. The company that had
five employees when it incorporated
in 1958 now has 450 workers, 300
of them deployed in the fleet.
Vane Brothers is a company
that has lasted more than a century
because it has been constantly
changing, adapting and innovating.
The story of the company
and the families who built and
run it, is chronicled
in “Time
and the Tide: A Centennial History of the Vane
Brothers Company,” an in-house publication by
Mary Butler Davies the company published in
1998 to mark its 100th birthday.
Established by brothers William Burke Vane
and Allen P. Vane as a ships’ chandlery in Fells
Point, the company has moved around the harbor
and shifted direction and focus several times, but
it has long remained a vital part of Baltimore’s
attachment to the sea.
The company sold everything a ship and its
crew would need, from coffee to compasses to
carpentry tools. Vane Brothers was a sailor’s
Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Safeway and social
hall, all under one roof.
Schooner Captain D’Arcy Grant, known as
“Miss Stormy,” wrote an article for the Baltimore
Sun in 1940 about the importance of Vane
Brothers as a place to gather and share stories.
“Midway of the store is the ‘social circle.’ Its
center is a stove, and in the winter, the circle of
chairs surrounding it is never empty. Not too active
now, Capt. Vane presides over the forum, and
from the farthest reaches of the inland waterway,
seafaring men bring him their news and yarns.
“Vane’s is the one spot on the Eastern seaboard
where you can look forward with any hope
of certainty to meeting a sailing man you want to
see,” she wrote.
During a recent tour of the new Vane Brothers
campus, Duff Hughes met visitors in the Pot
Belly Room, a richly paneled lounge with a large
fireplace, comfortable armchairs and a sweeping
view of the harbor. He says the room is used by
sailors who carry on the tradition of the stoveside
camaraderie.
The Vanes were shipbuilders and sailors who
moved to Baltimore from Dorchester County in
the 1800s. In the 1920s, Claude Venables Hughes
and his brother, Charles Fletcher Hughes from
the Eastern Shore, joined the Vanes, believed by
family members to be distant cousins.
continued, page 14
11

12
From Schooners
The evolution of the
For more than a half century, Vane
Brothers owned schooners that worked
the Chesapeake Bay, Coastal and
Caribbean trade. One of the last of
the great sailing ships the company
owned was the Doris Hamlin, a fourmaster
built in Maine in 1919. She
was 200.5 feet long and carried
pulpwood, lumber, coal and
logwood. She was sold by Vane
Brothers in 1939 and torpedoed
by a German U-boat in 1940.
Vane Brothers runs a fleet of 60 tugs, barges, launches and
tankers up and down the East and Gulf Coasts. Here are
some examples of Vane Brothers vessels over time.
Vane Brothers diversified its fleet over time and in
1971 built the Duff, a 58-foot, 42,000-gallon
tanker, used to deliver fuel to ships in and
around Baltimore Harbor. The vessel was named
for current Vane president C. Duff Hughes and
christened by him when he was 13-years-old.

to Super Barges
Vane Brothers Fleet
EBI
5 TON
The Willkate is a 65-foot launch
used to deliver 500 gallon
containers of engine
lubricants to vessels
in Baltimore. It was
built in 1979 and is
still in daily service in
the harbor.
BRANDY WINE
BRANDY WINE
BRANDY WINE
The Brandywine is the largest Vane
tug at 123-feet. It was christened in
June, 2007, along with its companion
barge, Double Skin 141, a 480-foot,
double-hulled barge that can carry
137,750 barrels of oil. They are
under contract to transport oil
for Sunoco for the next 10 years.
Elizabeth Anne, first tug bought
by Vane Brothers, was built in
1980, rebuilt 1990 and renamed
in honor of company Vice
President Betsy Hughes,
wife of former president
Charles Hughes
Jr., and mother of
company president
C. Duff Hughes.
The 60-foot Elizabeth
Anne is used to push oil barges in
Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and
North Carolina.
DO UB
L E S K I N 141 Source: Vane Brothers
13

14
from page 11
As well as the chandlery, the company owned schooners
that ran the Coastal and Caribbean trade. One of their vessels,
the 200-foot-long, four-masted schooner Doris Hamlin,
sailed from Baltimore in the logwood trade to Haiti. In his
youth, Robert H. Burgess, the late Chesapeake Bay historian
and former curator of The Mariners’ Museum in Newport
News, Virginia, was a crewmember. He took numerous
photographs of his voyage. Some are on display in the new
Vane Brothers headquarters. Two brass lamps from the Doris
Hamlin flank the fireplace in the Pot Belly Room. Vane
Brothers sold the schooner in 1939 and a U-boat sank it a
few months later.
In 1941, Allen P. Vane died and Burke Vane sold the
company to the Hughes brothers.
World War II ended the schooner trade and the Hughes
brothers began to diversify their business. Davies, in her
book about the company, wrote that during the war they supplied
goods to “picketboats – private yachts commandeered
to spy on suspicious vessels and otherwise act as coastal security.
The picketboats would tie up at Pier 4 and hand over
their store lists. Without asking too many questions, Vane
C. Duff Hughes talks about the future of his family’s company in
the library designed by his mother, Betsy Hughes, a company vice
president, editor and librarian.
Brothers provisioned them and then billed the Coast Guard.
The bills were always paid.”
With the schooners gone, the working harbor fleet of
tugs and lighters became Vane Brothers’ customers, setting
the company on a course that it continues today.
After his discharge from the Navy, Charles F. Hughes Jr.
attended Johns Hopkins University, but left school to join
the family business. He received his bachelor’s degree from
JHU in 1951.
Under his direction, Vane Brothers continued to evolve.
By the early 1970s, the 42,000-gallon tanker, Duff, was added
to the fleet to supply fuel to ships in the harbor. The company
continued to add tugs and specialty tankers. They delivered
potable water and marine lubricants directly to ships.
Duff Hughes says he grew up on the docks and decks
of Vane Brothers and joined his father and grandfather in
1980 after graduating from Denison University. He worked
in the fleet and received his 100-ton Coast Guard license
four years later. In 1991, Duff Hughes was named president
of the company.
He says one of the business decisions that paid off for
Vane Brothers was the purchase of a double-hulled
oil barge in 1987.
“We started early,” Duff Hughes says. “We
were already in the double-hull business” when the
massive Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in March
of 1989. He says the company is on course to have
a double-hulled fleet in place well before the 2015
federal deadline.
As Hughes walks from one building to another
on his campus, employees greet him by name and
he banters easily with them. Workers regularly refer
Vane Brothers operates a fleet of double-hulled barges to
transport petroleum products.

Operations Manager Donald
Browning keeps an eye on the Vane
fleet in real time.
relatives and friends for job
openings at Vane Brothers.
He says he grew up
working with many of them.
He refers to Vane Brothers’
Port Captain Russi Makujina,
who has been with the
company since 1972, as both
“a brother and a father.”
“We have families within
a family business,” he
says. In a gallery of photos,
he points to the picture of
four men in watch caps and plaid. “They are all named Tokarski,”
he says.
Aboard the Nanticoke, Captain Belote says he just received
a birthday card, “signed by Duff. That’s the kind of
company this is.”
As the Nanticoke cruises the Inner Harbor, a green rectangle
shows her position on the GPS display in front of Belote.
Across the harbor, Vane Brothers operations officers
watch Nanticoke’s progress on a nine-by-nine-foot monitor.
From their desks, they follow every Vane Brothers vessel in
use, anywhere.
Viewed from the wheelhouse of the Nanticoke, Vane
Brothers is heavy industry at work—push and pull, muscle
and brawn, strain and stress—as heavy loads are moved on
water. From a desk in the Operations Center, Vane Brothers
is an Internet Technology company that happens to move a
lot of oil.
On his way to the Operations Center, Hughes points out
the offices where 12 computer specialists build custom software
for Vane Brothers, and then
steps into a bright and airy room
full of computers.
“This is the Ops Room, where
it all cooks,” Hughes says.
Two things jump out at you:
The huge computer display flanked
by flat-panels set to the Weather
Channel and CNN, and the lifesized
figure of a pirate dressed in
full swashbuckler garb suspended
from the high-pitched ceiling.
Hughes loves the lore of little-known
English pirate Charles
Vane who was hanged for his dastardly
deeds in 1720. While there
is no proven family connection between
that evil Vane and the Eastern
Shore schoonermen, Hughes
plays it up. Faux pirate figures
stand watch at several key spots in
the headquarters building and the
ship christening in June had a buccaneering
theme.
Donald Browning, Vane’s operations manager,
manipulates the computer display of the eastern
half of the United States from his elevated workstation,
keeping track in real time of all Vane vessels
in operation.
“This is where we keep an eye on everything
that is happening, at this moment,” he says.
He zooms in on the icon of a boat just off the
Atlantic coast. With a click of his mouse, a menu
appears and he clicks through a drop-down list of
what is happening in and around the vessel. He
clicks another icon and views a live feed from a
camera on a Philadelphia wharf.
“We have the Weather Channel and CNN on all of the
time because weather and news are things that can have an
impact on the price of oil,” he says.
Hughes says the computers are programmed to alert the
Operations Center when a vessel nears its destination. Workers
on the docks are notified so they can be ready to off-load
as fast as possible.
“Ten-15 years ago, we had offices in every port. Now we
can manage the entire fleet from this building,” he says. “We
have it wired 10 ways to Sunday.”
Ops Room employees monitor news, weather and Vane
vessels around the clock.
15

16
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The Boating Party
10th Anniversary Gala Celebration
Saturday, September 8, 2007 at 6:00pm on Navy Point
© N. Hammond 2007
Cocktails, dinner, dancing under the stars to oldies and today’s music by Golden Gup,
plus a one-of-a-kind auction that only CBMM can offer.
2007 Rockin’ The Boat Itinerary
Cocktail or Nautical Attire Suggested
6:00pm Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres on Navy Point
7:00pm Spirited hands-up auction followed by dinner
catered by PeachBlossoms
Raffle prize drawing for a 2007 Mini Cooper S
9:00pm Dancing under the stars
Consider Becoming a Boating Party Patron!
With support at the Patron and Benefactor level, enjoy a Patron’s-only evening of cocktails and
luscious hors d’oeuvres at the extraordinary waterfront home of Charlie and Carolyn Thornton
on Saturday, August 25, from 6pm to 8pm. Preview the exciting line-up of unique Chesapeakeinspired
auction items and test drive the 2007 Mini Cooper S before the Boating Party!
The 10th Annual Boating Party is generously sponsored by
Benson & Mangold Real Estate
Chevy Chase Bank
17

18
First Name Last Name
Daytime Telephone
Address City State Zip
E-Mail
Benefactor Ticket ($1,700 is tax deductible)
Table of 8 (To include 8 Boating Party
tickets and 4 Patron Preview Party tickets)
Patron Ticket ($250 is tax deductible)
(To include one Boating Party ticket
and one Patron Preview Party ticket)
Individual Ticket ($75 is tax deductible)
(One Boating Party ticket)
I/We are unable to attend.
Please accept a contribution of
I/We will join the table of
$2,500
$
$350
$175
Please make checks payable to the
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
Please charge my credit card:
VISA Mastercard AMEX
Card number
Exp. date
Signature
I/We will host a table of 8. (Additional guests $175 each) My/Our guests include:
Discover
Please respond by August 17, 2007. A portion of your ticket/table
is tax-deductible.
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Name Address City State Zip
Complete and mail with your check payable to CBMM or credit card information to:
The Boating Party, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
P.O. Box 636, St. Michaels, MD 21663
or call 410-745-2916 ext. 122

July
Crab Days (New Times!)
Saturday, July 28th, 12pm-8pm
Saturday Only: All-U-Can-Eat, 4:30pm-8pm
Sunday, July 29th, 12pm-5pm
Don’t be crabby—celebrate the 25th anniversary of
Crab Days with us! Enjoy the food that “Maryland does
best!” with steamed crabs, soft-shell crabs, crab cakes
and soup. Once you’ve gotten your fill of crabs, enjoy
live music, boat cruises down the Miles, local chef demonstrations,
wine tastings, or discover buried treasure
in Kidstown. Don’t miss Saturday evening’s sunset
cruises and Moonlight Mixer concert!
August
Moonlight Mixer (Live Concert)
Saturday, August 18th, 7:30pm
It’s summertime! Don’t miss your last chance to relax
on Navy Point and listen to an exciting band under
the stars.
September
Boat Auction
Saturday, September 1, 1pm-5pm
Forget about the 3 “R’s,” it’s the 4 “B’s” to remember
now. Boats, BBQ, Bluegrass, and Beer at this year’s
10th anniversary Boat Auction. Celebrate with us and
purchase the boat of your dreams. Your choices range
from classic sailboats, to wooden skiffs, to modern power
cruisers. Once you’ve purchased that “B” don’t forget
to enjoy the other 3!
Calendar
Summer 2007
Boating Party
Saturday, September 8, 6pm
Cocktails – cheers! Elegant Dinner. Spirited, live auction.
Dancing under the stars. Favorite songs preformed by the
Golden Gup. Toast with us as we enjoy our 10th Boating
Party and fundraiser on Navy Point. By invitation, please
call the Museum if you would like to attend.
October
Mid-Atlantic
Small Craft Festival
Saturday, October 6, 10am–5pm
Commemorate 25 years of the Small Craft Festival this
year with us at the Museum. Enjoy amateur and professionally
made skiffs, kayaks, and canoes, or catch paddle
and sailing races! Children’s activities, workshops, and
demonstrations will also take place. See the John Smith
replica shallop fresh from its recreation of Smith’s journey
(shallop will be on display through October 28).
OysterFest (New Weekend!)
Saturday, October 27, 11am-4pm
Sunday, October 28, 12pm-4pm
20th Anniversary of OysterFest. What better way to kick
off a celebration than with CBMM’s 2nd Annual Oyster
Slurp Off. Join in on the fun as amateurs and the occasional
professional compete for the fastest time, or take
part in all in things “oysters”, cooking demonstrations,
tonging trips down the Miles River, KidsTown and more.
Have a boo-rific time at the Museum’s Haunted Halloween
while at OysterFest.
19

Education Programs
Saturdays for Kids
Children and their families are invited to visit the Museum
the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of every month for storytelling,
special tours, and hands-on art activities designed
just for them.
At 10:30 kids, ages 3 to 7 years old, can enjoy Tidewater
Tales, listening to an exciting story about the region
in one of our exhibitions. Boys and girls will learn about
Bay animals, local legends, history, and more. Drawing,
exploration of objects, and other activities will be part of
these programs. Tidewater Tales is free with admission.
Children can also participate in an art making or handson
activity inspired by one of our exhibits. During special
guided tours, participants will learn about the different
ways that the Bay has shaped the lives of local people.
At 11:30, 1:00, or 3:00 children (ages 6 to 12) can drop
by to take part in a unique hands-on experience. The
program fee is $3 per child.
July 7th Shiver me timbers, it’s pirate day! Pirates
were more than treasure maps and eye patches. Learn
the differences between the image and reality about pirates
on the Chesapeake.
July 21st Birding – Explore the local population of
birds. Learn how to identify some of the most common
species by sight and call, and how you can make your
own backyard a friendlier habitat for local birds.
August 4th Hooper Strait Lighthouse – It’s summer
vacation, and time to visit the lighthouse! Come experience
what life would have been like on a lighthouse
long ago.
August 18th Marshes – Learn why marshes are
important to humans and the critters that call them
home. Capture the beauty of a marsh through drawing
or photography.
20
September 1st Crabbing — Pull up a crab pot and run
a trot line on the Katie G. See and learn to identify crabs
up close. Find out about all the different jobs it takes to
bring a crab to your plate.
September 15th Seasons — Fall is around the corner.
What makes the seasons so important for the animals
and the watermen of the Chesapeake? Find out how
and make a waterman puppet.
October 6th Chesapeake Icons — What makes you
think of the Chesapeake? How do you feel about oysters,
skipjacks, blue crabs, and waterman? Explore
these icons up close in this unique exhibit, Chesapeake
Icons.
October 20th Explore the 28-foot reproduction of
Captain John Smith’s shallop or open boat that will be
on display. Learn about Captain Smith’s and his crew
voyage on the Chesapeake 400 years ago.
On-Going Programs
Community Sailing Program
Our Sailing Program continues through the summer with
offerings for basic, intermediate, and advanced sailing,
and don’t miss our Tuesday Evening Member Sails on
our JY 15s! For more information and a detailed schedule,
please visit www.cbmm.org/sailing.html.
Boaters’ Safety Courses
Any Maryland boater born after July 1, 1972, is required
to have a Certificate of Boating Safety Education,
in order to operate a vessel. The Certificate is obtained
by passing a Department of Natural Resources-approved
boating safety course, and once obtained, the
Certificate is valid for life. Participants completing the
Museum’s course will receive this Certificate. The course
is also recommended for anyone looking to become a
safer, more experienced boater.
The Boating Safety Education courses are offered at the
Museum in St. Michaels on the following dates:
Session 4: September 11 & 12, 6-10pm
All classes will be held in the Museum’s Steamboat
Building. Advanced registration is required. Members
and Non-Members: $25

Lighthouse Overnight Program
Become a lighthouse keeper with your family or friends.
Experience the life of a 19th century keeper through
planned activities. Take a hands-on tour of the lighthouse,
perform the tasks of a traditional keeper, participate
in an induction ceremony and more…
Family Programs
Select Saturdays in July, August, and September.
Non-members: $41, Members: $35. Cost includes
program activities, two days’ admission to the Museum
and dinner.
July 14 August 4 August 25
July 28 August 11 September 1
Scout, Student, and Youth Group Programs
Fridays and Saturdays in April, May, June, September,
and October. Limited dates remaining for the Spring,
book now for Fall 2007. Cost: $550 for up to 15 people.
Cost includes program activities, two days’ admission
to the Museum. Special lighthouse badge available
for Brownie, Junior, and Cadet Girl Scout groups.
New for this year’s Boating Party
Special Preview Party
Saturday, August 25, 6-8pm
An elegant evening at Thornton House, the
magnificent waterfront home of CBMM Board
member Charlie and Carolyn Thornton. Music
by “Free & Easy.” Cocktails and catering by
Gourmet By the Bay. Patron tickets are $350
and include one Boating Party ticket and one
invitation to the Preview Party.
Visit www.cbmm.org/boatingparty.html for invitation or raffle tickets
Win a MINI!
Drawing is September 8, 2007
Take a chance at winning a fully-loaded 2007
MINI Cooper S. $125 per ticket, only 700 tickets
will be sold. Call 410-745-2916 ext. 113 to use
your credit card.
21

Spartina Tufts, (above) taken by William Burt in 1981, Old
Lyme, Connecticut. Black Rail At Nest, (below) taken in
1985, Elliott Island, Maryland.
22
Marshes
The Disappearing Edens
It has taken renowned photographer William Burt 30 years of
prowling marshes and stalking birds to capture his striking and serene
images of vanishing wetlands. It will only take visitors a drive
to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum to enjoy the products of
Burt’s labor. The Museum has opened an exhibition of 40 photographs
by Burt entitled, “Marshes: The Disappearing Edens.”
Burt’s photographs and stories can be seen in Smithsonian,
Audubon, National Wildlife and other magazines. His photographs
have been exhibited in museums across the United States
and Canada. The “Marshes” exhibit comes to CBMM from the

Carnegie Museum of Natural History in
Pittsburgh and after its six-month stay in St.
Michaels, the show will travel to the Houston
Museum of Natural Science in Texas.
Burt has mucked through marshes all
over North America, with images in the
exhibit including vistas, textures, and inhabitants
from the Chesapeake Bay, Maine,
Connecticut, Everglades National Park
in Florida, and Saskatchewan, Canada, to
name a few. He is drawn to marshes for
their mystery, for their numerous and rare
birds, and for their beauty.
“No place has the wildness
any more, of the neglected
marsh,” says Burt. “I’ve been
dipping into marshes for some 30
years, leafing through, watching,
and waiting, scanning always
for that rectangle worth hauling
the camera in for so I can try to
snatch some of that beauty, frame
up a slice of it, take it home and
keep it.”
The “Marshes” exhibition
will be on display in galleries in
two of the Museum’s buildings,
connecting the Bay History and
Waterfowling buildings. The exhibition
has been made possible
in part through grants from the
Town Creek Foundation and Verizon
Maryland, who are also supporting
special programming.
Summer and fall at CBMM
will include a number of special
programs related to “Marshes,”
including an artist talk and book
signing by Burt on July 26 and
collaborative programs with Adkins
Arboretum, Environmental
Concern, and University of
Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory.
Programs related to the exhibit will include lectures,
book signings, tours, day trips, kayak tours, as well as
storytelling and activities for children.
CBMM Curator of Exhibitions Lindsley Rice feels
the exhibit has a broad appeal to residents and visitors to
Maryland’s Eastern Shore and the Chesapeake.
“These photographs are extraordinary,” says Rice.
“They bring us up close to rare and beautiful birds and
plants of the marshes, as well as capturing the feel of
being surrounded by marsh—both earthy and ethereal,
King Rail, (above) taken in 1975, Great Island, Old Lyme, Connecticut.
Salt Marsh In Fog, (below) taken in 2000, Great Bay, near Tuckerton, New Jersey.
with its gorgeous greens and golds. But more fundamentally,
Burt’s photographs capture in sharp detail an exquisite
beauty that anyone can appreciate”
“Marshes: The Disappearing Edens” is on display at
the Museum through December 16, 2007. For more information
and a schedule of programs related to the exhibition,
visit www.cbmm.org or call 410-745-2916.
— Michael Valliant,
Director of Marketing and Media Relations
23

An Indomitable Bay
A New Bugeye is Christened
By Dick Cooper, Editor
John Hawkinson works on the deck of the Katherine M. Edwards at Sidney Dickson’s dock on the backwaters of Broad Creek off
the Choptank River in St. Michaels.
For 27 years, Sidney Dickson’s dreamboat has been a
work in progress.
Dickson and his long-time friend and boat-building
buddy, John Hawkinson, have been futzing around the edges
of the vessel so long, they finish each other’s sentences. On
May 27, in front of scores of friends and supporters, the first
log bugeye built on
the Bay since 1918,
was launched and
christened the Katherine
M. Edwards at
Hawkinson
24
applies epoxy to the bugeye he
and Dickson started building in 1980.
Dickson’s dock in St. Michaels.
The bugeye is a distinctive Bay craft that evolved after
the Civil War to harvest shallow oyster beds and deliver
freight and produce. The Katherine’s hull was made with 11
hand-shaped logs, a boat-building practice that dates to hollowed
log canoes made by Native Americans.
The Edna E. Lockwood, the flagship of the CBMM floating
fleet, was built on Knapps Narrows in 1889 and is the last
known nine-log bugeye afloat.
“Nobody in today’s world recognizes what a good boat
this is,” Dickson says with the pride of a new father. Kather-
“Nobody in today’s
world recognizes what
a good boat this is.”

Lady
ine’s low free board, clipper bow, varnished bright work and
tiller steering give her a sleek, yachty look.
She is back on land next to Dickson’s dock after taking
on water following the christening. “Anyone who knows
anything about wooden boats would expect it to leak at
first,” he says.
“We will have her finished in three months and be sailing
by fall,” Dickson says.
He named her after his late, great aunt, Katherine May
Edwards of Pittsburgh. He says she was an indomitable
woman, who was born in 1873 and lived an adventurous life
that included driving an ambulance during World War I and
being an early aviator.
“She formed the Pittsburgh Ambulance Corps,” he says.
“She bought an ambulance, had it shipped over and drove it
to the front to pick up wounded soldiers.”
The two-masted, “man-and-boy” rig will make the Katherine
easy to handle with a crew of two, he says. He plans to
use her to deliver fresh produce to ports on the Bay, selling his
products under the “Bugeye Brand.”
Dickson, who describes his previous occupation as “moving
large, live trees with machinery,” says building the bugeye
came from a desire to revive the classic Bay workboat that has
all but disappeared. He and Hawkinson collaborated in the
“...but then we took a 17-year hiatus,
because we were occupationally
handicapped. We had jobs.”
Dickson gives the history of his collection of boat-building
tools mounted on the wall of his workshop office.
25

26
“From cranes and front-end loaders
to delicate carving knives, we used
everything we needed to use.”
Photo by Bill Thompson
A crane lowers the Katherine M. Edwards into the water as celebrants
watch from Dickson’s dock during her christening May 27.
early 1970s to build the Spirit of Wye Town, a log canoe they
campaigned on the race circuit for several years. They started
Katherine in 1980 gathering logs from around Talbot County,
“but then we took a 17-year hiatus,” he says.
Hawkinson, a retired gynecologist, says the Katherine,
a sweet-looking vessel with mahogany topsides and patent
stern, took so long to build “because we were occupationally
handicapped. We had jobs.”
Neither man has engineering training, but both have an eye
for detail. Dickson says he used “computer assisted design”
to build both boats, “with the computer being the brain.”
Back in the woods on his 37-acre property is Dickson’s
“workshop,” the barn-sized building where
Katherine spent her formative years. It is almost
as much a museum as it is a very large
workspace. The walls are covered with artifacts
of the boat-building trade. Axe heads,
some dating back more than 400 years, are
tacked up in a random display. Ships’ tackle
and fittings hang from the rafters.
Dickson opens some of the tool chests
used regularly in the building of the bugeye
to show the intricate workmanship of the boxes
within boxes. A library of rare and arcane
books on Chesapeake boatbuilding is tucked
in a sawdust-covered corner.
The wooden half-models that he made to
build the Katherine shine with an oft-handled
glow. The models are better than drawn plans,
he says.
“You can hold them and turn them in your
hands and visualize what you are making.”
Taking measurements from the model,
carved on a three-quarter-inch to one-foot
scale, gave Dickson and Hawkinson the dimensions
they needed to cut the wood to build
the boat.
Another friend and craftsman, Ellicot “Mac”
MacConnell, is building the yawl boat for the
Katherine out of an old wooden sailing pram
and a 60-horse Yamaha outboard. He and Dickson
joke as he shapes the decking for the small
boat that will push the engineless bugeye.
The building of the Katherine has been a
community effort, Dickson says, with volunteers
donating time and material for her construction. The 50foot
foremast and 55-foot main were shaped by volunteers
from the Alexandria Seaport. Old and new tools were loaned
and donated.
“We used only the tools that worked,” Dickson says.
“From cranes and front-end loaders to delicate carving
knives, we used everything we needed to use.”
He says that the simple beauty of the vessel has attracted
people to help build her.
“These boats were built as work platforms,” he says. “But
yachtsmen recognized them as being good-looking boats. I
just had an urge to bring it back.”

Cultured
Crawdads
By Jay Kilian
The blue crab is the most recognizable Chesapeake Bay
icon, and is undeniably Maryland’s most famous crustacean.
This renowned tidewater species is not, however, Maryland’s
only delectable decapod.
Another 10-legged, pincer-wielding invertebrate has
found its way into Maryland waters. It is large, it is red (prior
to steaming, no less), it tastes just as good smothered in Old
Bay as its blue crab cousin, and it is just as easily chased with
an ice-cold beer.
Despite its culinary appeal, the red swamp crayfish is a
non-native species that poses a significant threat to Maryland’s
stream ecosystems and has recently sparked considerable concern
among state biologists of the Maryland Department of
Natural Resources (MDNR). This species, one of many dozens
of non-natives causing or threatening trouble in the Bay
watershed, has been the subject of recent surveys conducted
by the MDNR, and is now known to be far
more widespread than once believed. It is
lurking in the fresh and brackish water
portions of many Maryland streams
and rivers.
The red swamp crayfish, a native
species of the lower Mississippi
The red swamp
crayfish is red, mean
and on the loose.
are Pincered Pests
River and Gulf Coast drainages of the southern U.S., is the
archetypical Louisiana Cajun crayfish. Due to its large size,
environmental hardiness, and low-maintenance disposition,
the red swamp crayfish is the most widely cultured crayfish
species in the world, having been cultured on every continent,
excluding Australia and Antarctica.
For as much economic benefit as this species has brought,
the ecological costs of rearing this species outside of its native
range have been immense. A form of “biological pollution,”
introductions of the red swamp crayfish have been linked to
declines in submerged aquatic vegetation, declines in amphibian
populations, changes in stream community composition,
and loss of native crayfishes.
This species has become a nuisance in many countries because
of its tenacious burrowing behavior; it has caused damage
to crops and reservoir dams despite efforts to control its
spread. The red swamp crayfish has also been blamed for the
spread of the crayfish plague, a North American fungus that
has been inadvertently introduced into Europe,
causing the near decimation of that continent’s
native crayfish.
So, how did it get here?
This non-native species was first stocked
27

28
▲ Aquaculture ponds where the red swamp
crayfish was once cultured
▀
Watersheds with feral stream populations of
red swamp crayfish now established
The invaders have been found in most Maryland
streams and have established significant populations
in the areas in red.
in ponds located on the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge near Laurel
in 1963. The intention of this introduction was to provide a
food source for waterfowl and wading birds during their annual
migration. Refuge biologists dropped what amounted to
“a handful” of crayfish into the ponds. Following the introduction,
the crayfish were largely forgotten.
The next introduction of the red swamp crayfish did not
occur until 18 years later, when a group of farmers became
interested in the idea of culturing crayfish for profit. Most
Maryland residents would be surprised to learn that a commercial
crayfish industry, albeit small, exists within the state.
Unlike most aquaculture, commercial culturing of crayfish
requires little more than a farm pond, a little patience, and
a few chicken-wire traps. In fact, add a few pounds of live
crayfish, throw in some food every now and then, and in a
year’s time, a relatively small farm pond can produce a profitable
harvest. That is exactly what attracted several farmers to
the idea of crayfish culturing.
It all began in 1981, when a small group of farmers on
the Delmarva Peninsula pooled their resources, and sent one
brave soul to Louisiana with a refrigerated truck, with “$5,000
in cash and a shotgun on his lap” to protect his bounty.
The cash bought seed stock from a Louisiana crayfish
farmer. Once back in Maryland, the crayfish were spread
among three ponds near Salisbury as part of the Worcester
County Crawfish Trial of 1981. This trial was conducted to
determine whether or not crayfish aquaculture was possible
in Maryland’s climate. The crayfish survived their first Maryland
winter, and grew quickly throughout the year. The results
of the trial were promising and indicated that crayfish
aquaculture was not only feasible, but also profitable.
In 1983, the Mid-Atlantic Crawfish Association was established.
Armed with 250 members (at its peak) and the
catchy slogan, “The tail is the best, you can suck the rest,” this
association promoted crayfish aquaculture throughout the
region. Thereafter,
the original
Louisiana crayfish were
used to stock farm ponds and drainage ditches throughout the
Delmarva and southern Maryland, many undocumented.
Unlike many finfish, crayfish are nearly impossible to
contain in a pond. After a heavy rainstorm, it is quite common
to find them walking about. They are also adept at colonizing
new areas. Thus, the culture of crayfish, like the red swamp
crayfish, often results in the establishment of feral populations
in nearby waterways. This has occurred throughout the
world and Maryland is no exception.
In 2006, the MDNR Maryland Biological Stream Survey
conducted surveys of streams and rivers throughout the
state’s Coastal Plain, including areas near known aquaculture
ponds. During these surveys, biologists discovered feral red
swamp crayfish in 14 watersheds. They were discovered adjacent
to every known location where this species was once
cultured in ponds, including portions of the Patuxent River
near the site where they were first introduced in 1963.
So, why is it a concern?
North American crayfish, the most diverse in the world,
are considered the second most imperiled group of animals
on the continent, behind only freshwater mussels. The most
pervasive threat is the introduction of non-native species.
Crayfish tend to be fierce competitors and physically fight
one another for prime feeding and shelter habitats in streams,
rivers, and lakes. These conflicts usually end in the death of
the smaller, less competitive crayfish.
Introductions of large, non-native species usually occur to
the detriment of smaller, and therefore less competitive, native
crayfish species. Non-native crayfish introductions have
caused declines and outright loss of crayfish throughout the
world. Maryland, home to nine native species, has already
experienced this phenomenon. The virile crayfish, another

Under the surface of Maryland streams, the crawdads are gaining control.
non-native species, was introduced, primarily by bait fisherman,
into streams and rivers throughout the central portion
of Maryland. The effects of this introduction have been quite
dramatic. A coincidental decline of one native species, the
spiny cheek crayfish, has occurred as the virile crayfish has
spread throughout most of the major river basins in the Baltimore
and Washington metropolitan area. The spiny cheek
crayfish, once the most abundant and widespread native species
in this region, has been eliminated from many areas.
Given the negative effects that the virile crayfish has had
in Maryland waters, the presence of feral populations of the
red swamp crayfish, as documented in 2006, is cause for
alarm. The red swamp crayfish has the potential to negatively
affect Maryland stream biodiversity. This may have already
occurred. In 2006, native crayfish were rarely observed in
streams in which the red swamp crayfish was found. This is
another indication that Maryland’s native crayfish are at risk.
Although the red swamp crayfish was brought here with
the best of intentions, this crayfish now joins the long and
growing list of non-native aquatic species established in
the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The short-term economic
benefits that this species once provided will likely be overshadowed
by its long-term ecological impacts on Maryland
streams and rivers.
Although its introduction is irreversible, MDNR will
continue to monitor this species, and document changes in
native crayfish populations and other components of stream
biodiversity that it may cause. MDNR, in passing recent
Aquatic Nuisance Species regulations, also aims to slow
the spread of the red swamp crayfish, and prevent the introduction
of other deleterious decapods in the state. For more
information on these regulations, and Maryland’s native
and non-native aquatic species, visit http://www.dnr.state.
md.us/invasives.
Jay Kilian is a biologist with the Monitoring and Non-tidal Assessment Division of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. He currently
works on the Maryland Biological Stream Survey, a statewide survey conducted to assess the health of Maryland streams. Photos and map by
the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
29

30
To the Point
From the Chairman
Thanks to your generous support, we’re well on our
way to enriching the experience for CBMM visitors.
Your generous gifts made the 2006-2007 Annual Fund
a success. You contributed $457,000, beating the year’s
goal of $425,000. Congratulations to you, and “Thank
You.” You are the wind in our sails.
In an earlier Chairman’s message I said the Museum
was striving to expand education programs and enhance
our exhibits. We view these as important “next steps”
in the Museum’s growth, designed to make us an even
more interesting place to visit and revisit, and to better
serve the Bay communities. Your generous support
during the 2006-2007 fiscal year, which ended on April
30th, enabled us to:
● Create new gallery space in the Steamboat Building
for special exhibitions, and open the first two
changing shows: “Waters of Despair, Waters of
Hope: The African American Experience and the
Chesapeake Bay,” and “Their Last Passage: The
Collection of Robert H. Burgess;”
● Open the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network
Orientation Building to help visitors orient themselves
to the many cultural and historic sites
around the Bay;
● Launch our first Bay Day on April 21, a celebration
of the Chesapeake’s environment and ecology;
● Prepare a great menu of education programs for FY
2007-2008 that is gearing up for our high season–
Lighthouse Overnights, Community Sailing, Bay
Combers Club—and the list goes on.
Expanded education efforts and enlivened exhibits
are what the Museum is about. However, these activities
cost money. When we write to you in the fall about
the 2007-2008 Annual
Fund, please continue
to contribute; see if you
can increase your gift;
and if you haven’t given
recently, please try this
year. Your support makes
our new programs and
exhibits possible.
Fred Meendsen,
Board Chairman
Fred Meendsen, Chairman of
the Board of Governors.
Gilmore is New V.P. of Operations
Bill Gilmore better make good coffee. As CBMM’s new
Vice President of Operations, Gilmore will be moving into
CBMM stalwart John Ford’s Eagle House office, where staff,
Board members, and volunteers have become accustomed to
looking for fresh-ground coffee.
Ford is happy to pass the mantel of V.P.—a position he
has held since CBMM adopted an organizational structure of
President and four Vice President positions in 2002—and that
of barista along to Gilmore. During a search for the vacant
position of Facilities Manager,
Ford found Gilmore, the Director
of Campus Planning at
Bryant College in Smithfield,
Rhode Island.
“It became evident that Bill
brings to the table everything
that we need at the Museum
from a facilities and operations
perspective,” says Ford. “We
have grown so quickly especially
over the last 10 years, and we
need someone who has Bill’s
Bill Gilmore is the Museum’s
new V.P. of Operations.
experience and vision for where we need to go from here.”
It was also evident to Ford that in order for Gilmore to relocate
from Rhode Island and leave Bryant’s 450-acre campus,
the Museum needed him in a V.P. capacity. So Ford took the
Facilities Manager position and hired Gilmore as V.P. of Operations.
Ford will oversee the day-to-day use and maintenance of
CBMM’s campus, while Gilmore moves forward leading capital,
facility, physical plant, and energy efficiencies.
During more than 17 years at Bryant, Gilmore was responsible
for a range of initiatives from new equipment specifications
to procurement of energy for the college. He was
instrumental in numerous energy conservation projects, from
simple lighting to complex geothermal heating systems.
Gilmore knows the maritime field as well. Directing activities
for an apparatus repair facility in Providence, Rhode
Island, he was responsible for NAVSEA contracts in Boston,
New London, Connecticut, and Bath, Maine. He was also
quality assurance officer for the complete rewiring of the
U.S.S. Constitution.
See St. Michaels, From the Water
This season, visitors to CBMM can experience the “Heart
and Soul of the Chesapeake Bay” from the decks of the sailing
skipjack H.M. Krentz or the Museum’s replica buyboat,
Mister Jim.
Both vessels will be leaving the Museum docks on scheduled
tours of the harbor and the Miles River.
The Krentz is an authentic Chesapeake Bay skipjack built

The Museum’s replica buyboat Mister Jim.
in 1955 to dredge the oyster beds of the Bay. She carries up to
32 passengers. Mister Jim was built to resemble the buyboats
that brought oysters from the dredgers working out on the
Bay to sell them in port. She carries up to 30 passengers.
The boats are certified by the U.S. Coast Guard and are piloted
by U.S.C.G. licensed captains. Museum Volunteers John
Stumpf, Jerry Friedman, Don Parks and Ed Bird are serving as
captains on Mister Jim.
When purchased with a CBMM admission, the two-hour
sail on the Krentz is $40 for adults, $35 for seniors and $22
for children. A 45-minute cruise on the Mister Jim is $25 for
adults, $18 for seniors and $12 for children.
Tickets for just the Krentz sail can be purchased for $33
for adults, $30 for seniors and $17 for children. Museum
members’ tickets are $30.
Members can buy tickets for Mister Jim tours for $8 for
Adults and $5 for children. Check at the CBMM Admissions
Office for times.
Museum Surveys Members
As CBMM comes out of a period of institutional growth,
bringing on new staff, construction and fund-raising, we feel
that the time is right to reassess our members’ needs, our programs
and activities. To that end, we will conduct a survey
this summer to:
• Gain a better understanding of what you expect from
CBMM and how well these expectations are being met;
• Determine the value of the Museum’s existing programs
and learn about new programs that you would like to see;
• Determine what CBMM can do to remain relevant to our
diverse membership and within a changing community.
The survey invitation will be mailed to a randomly selected
set of members in early summer. It will ask you to visit
a web site to answer multiple choice questions, and will only
take about 20 minutes to complete.
We believe that this is a critically important effort but it
cannot succeed without your time and effort. It is our sincere
hope that those who receive the invitation will take a
few minutes to provide their views and help us to continue
to improve the Museum experience for all. After the survey
is completed, we will publish a short summary of the results
in WaterWays.
Saturdays are Special for Families
Children and their families are invited to visit CBMM the
first and third Saturdays of every month for storytelling, special
tours, and hands-on art activities designed just for them.
At 10:30am the visitors, ages 3 to 7, can enjoy Tidewater
Tales by listening to an exciting story about the Chesapeake
region in one of the Museum’s exhibitions. Boys and
girls will learn about Bay animals, local legends, history,
and more. Drawing, exploration of objects, and other activities
will be part of these programs. Tidewater Tales is
free with admission.
In addition, children can participate in an art-making
or hands-on activity inspired by one of CBMM’s exhibitions.
During special guided tours exploring the Museum’s
collections, participants will learn about the different ways
that the Chesapeake Bay has shaped the lives of local people.
At 11:30, 1:00, or 3:00pm children, ages 6 to 12, can
drop by to take part in a hands-on experience. The program
fee is $3 per child.
Upcoming Special Saturdays include sessions on how to
spot and identify birds, what the life of a lighthouse keeper
was like, and the importance of marshes. For more details,
see the calendar in this issue of WaterWays.
Changing Exhibits
Visitors to CBMM have until August 12 to view “Waters
of Despair, Waters of Hope,” the exhibit exploring the integral
role of African Americans in the cultural history of the
Chesapeake region. The exhibit uses artifacts, images, and audio/visuals
to enliven stories of slave importation and labor
as well as the many slaves who, such as Frederick Douglass,
employed maritime rouses or routes to escape to the north.
Other stories tell of African Americans in times of war
who boldly allied themselves with the enemies of their enemy,
or alternately have made, and continue to make, crucial
contributions to the American military.
On September 7, a new exhibit entitled “Chesapeake
Icons” examines how images of log canoes, oysters, skipjacks,
lighthouses, blue crabs, and watermen have been used
to symbolize the Chesapeake Bay.
Used by artists, writers, and salesmen of all types, these
31

32
To the Point
Log canoes have become Chesapeake Bay icons.
representations of the Bay make up much of the collection of
the Museum.
The exhibit will be on the second floor of the Steamboat
Building.
Profile: Lad Mills
Have a Boat? He’ll Sell it
Selling donated boats to raise money for the Chesapeake
Bay Maritime Museum started almost as an afterthought, but
under the direction of Lad Mills, it has evolved into a significant
line item in the Museum’s annual budget.
Mills, the Boat Donations Manager, has been on the Museum
staff since 2001 after
“being in and out of the boat
business all my life.”
What started as a small
part of his job, turned into his
only job.
Mill’s supervisor, John
Ford, says, “I ran the Boat Donation
program for a number
Boat Donation Manager
Lad Mills.
of years prior to Lad’s arrival.
In his first year at the job, he
tripled my best season and has
since topped it five fold. And it’s no wonder; he’s constantly
on the move and his non-stop hard work has provided terrific
support to the museum.”
After moving from the Washington, D.C. area to Easton
in 1980, Mills said he has worked in a variety of boat and
auto retail businesses and worked for Fawcett Boat Supplies
in Annapolis for six years before joining the CBMM staff.
He says that his Museum job “is very satisfying. It is a
win-win-win. I get to help the donors, the purchasers and
the Museum.”
Mills says the annual Boat Auction, set for September 1
this year at the Museum, has turned into “an exciting event
for everyone who attends.” Through the live auction and
year-around sales, he now moves 150 boats a year, with all
proceeds going to the Museum and all tax benefits going to
the contributors.
“We are helping people who have unsold, unwanted or
unused boats get rid of them,” he says, “And we are finding
buyers who can utilize them.”
Mills says he is always looking for more boats to sell
and has traveled from Maine to South Carolina to pick up
donated vessels. The boats Mills sells are an eclectic collection
that range from dinghies and canoes to racing sailboats
and cabin cruisers.
“I have sold boats for $10 and six figures,” Mills says.
“When someone buys a boat from us, he knows he is going to
get a great deal on the boat he has been looking for.”
Mills markets the boats on the CBMM web site,
www.cbmm.org, and the popular commercial sites,
www.yachtworld.com and www.boats.com.
“We have had people come from Missouri and Texas,
South Carolina and New Jersey, to buy boats,” he says. “I
have even shipped boats to Europe and the West Coast.”
Once a boat is donated, Mills says he does all of the work
required for the sale. When the boat is sold, he sends the previous
owners the documentation that allows them to claim
The Museum’s annual Boat Auction is September 1.
the proceeds as a charitable contribution on their taxes.
“The process is very quick and easy,” he says. “Paperwork
takes only five minutes and then the donor is immediately
relieved of all responsibility and cost of ownership.”
Before new IRS regulations were put into effect, there
was little control over how donated property was valued.
Now, the deduction cannot be claimed until the boat is sold,
and then its sale price sets the actual value.
“We follow the letter of the law,” Mills says.
To get more information about donating or buying a
boat from CBMM, contact Lad Mills at 410-745-2916 ext.
112 or e-mail lmills@cbmm.org. To view the list of boats
for sale, go to www.cbmm.org and click on “Boat Donations
& Sales.”
— Dick Cooper

Mobile Chop-Shop Pays a Visit
The sawdust flies as sawyer John Sudder slices an 80-foot
loblolly into neat stacks of skipjack replacement parts.
Sudder, a retired Navy man who has been turning logs
into lumber for 16 years, adjusts the calibration on his sawmill-on-wheels
next to the CBMM marine railway, secures
the plugs in his ears, and runs the high-speed band saw
through the pine.
Loblolly # 1 was the first of six 125-foot pines cut in February
in the Pocomoke State Forest in search of new spars
for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s signature skipjack, the
Stanley Norman, and the privately owned oyster-dredger,
Caleb W. Jones.
It didn’t make the cut to become a mast because its heartwood
was off center and its annual rings were spaced too far
apart, weakening its strength.
Mike Vlahovich, Director of the Coastal Heritage Alliance,
is overseeing the repairs to the vessels. The 20-footlong,
2 1/4-inch-thick boards will be used to plank the bottom
and sides of the Caleb, built in 1953 and now on the National
Register of Historic Places.
Vlahovich and Coastal Heritage apprentices have been
restoring the Caleb at the CBMM docks.
“This is a pretty piece,” Sudder says as he examines a cut.
“The log didn’t move much when I cut her. Some of them
tend to jump around.”
Sudder, who lives near Denton, Maryland, says he bought
John Sudder saws a loblolly log into skipjack planks.
A Delaware ducker under sail. AFAD’s next project.
the 21-foot-long mobile sawmill mounted on a trailer, in 1991
and has been cutting wood all around the Delmarva.
He milled the Wye Oak after the 460-year-old Maryland
landmark toppled in a 2002 storm. Wood from the majestic old
tree was used by Eastern Shore furniture makers Jim McMartin
and Jim Beggins to create the Maryland Governor’s Desk.
Visitors to CBMM will see the shaping of the spars in
progress over the summer, Vlahovich says.
AFAD to Build a Rare Bird
Boat Yard Manager Rich Scofield says that the Apprentice
for a Day Program is finishing off the second of two flat-bottomed
rowing skiffs for the Inn at Perry Cabin before starting
on a “Delaware ducker,” a sleek little boat once thought to
be extinct.
Scofield says the ducker started off about 1860 as a lightweight
boat designed for hunting in the bays of Delaware and
New Jersey.
“It was so fast that they began to race them,” he said
At the height of its popularity in the late 1800s, ducker
race results were regularly reported in Field & Stream Magazine
but no duckers were known to have survived until the
late Joe Leiner, a well known wooden boat builder from New
Jersey, discovered two in a Pennsylvania barn.
Scofield says there were no existing plans for a ducker
and Leiner took the lines from the old boats he found to build
one that is on display in the Boat Shop.
The thin, lapstrake-hulled boat with its curved dagger
board looks delicate next to the two-masted crabbing skiff
that is near completion in the Boat Shop.
Tug Delaware Back in the Water
The tugboat Delaware is sitting pretty on her lines after
the cosmetic surgeons in the Boat Yard gave her a shapely
new stern.
Vessel Maintenance Manager Marc Barto and the Boat
Yard crew spent most of the spring replacing rotted frames
and planks on the 95-year-old workhorse. The cabin top has
been recanvased and the 671 GM diesel that was installed in
1947 is awaiting a rebuild. The Delaware is being repainted
to give her good-as-new shine.
“We are just working on the cosmetics, but structurally,
she is put back together,” Barto says.
33

34
Arvie Smith, Baltimore my Baltimore (Detail), 2006: Courtesy of the Artist
New History Exhibits Open
in Baltimore
The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American
History and Culture and the Maryland Historical Society
in collaboration with Maryland Institute College of Art and
students in the Exhibition Development Seminar present
“At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland.”
The landmark exhibitions explore the history of slavery
in Maryland and the vestiges of slavery that still remains in
society. The exhibits bring together historical artifacts with
contemporary artworks, including new works by internationally
known artists, including William Christenberry, Sam
Christian Holmes, and Joyce J. Scott.
The exhibition runs through Oct. 28 at the Lewis Museum,
830 East Pratt Street and at the Historical Society, 201
David Claypool Johnston, Early Development of Southern Chivalry,
c. 1861-65.
Quilt Assembly: Photo by Aidah Aliyah Rasheed
West Monument Street, both in downtown Baltimore.
This exhibition tackles a subject crucial to the understanding
of Maryland’s history and future. Through research, students
in the Exhibition Development Seminar came to discover
that the history of slavery in Maryland is complex and
often contradictory due to Maryland’s unique position as the
northernmost southern state and southernmost northern state.
“At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland”
intends to engage visitors in a civic dialogue on the modern
issues of freedom, race, and social injustice by questioning
how both enslaved and free Marylanders responded to, challenged,
and defeated slavery as a legal institution.
It seeks to dissolve myths and untruths concerning the history
of slavery, as well as challenge the public perception of
slavery and freedom. The exhibition juxtaposes a rich repository
of historical artifacts and contemporary works of art.
Visitors to the exhibits learn that anti-slavery activity was
of critical importance in Maryland on both a personal and
national level. With the existence of more than 100,000 free
people of color in Maryland at the beginning of the Civil War,
the historical part of the exhibition showcases how black and
white Marylanders worked together to swing the weight of history
in favor of freedom and helped change American history.
The exhibitions’ contemporary component reminds visitors
that the struggle for African Americans to achieve parity
in American society was just beginning after the Civil War
and, through the inventive use of contemporary art, illustrates
that it has not yet ended.
For more information, visit www.mica.edu/atfreedomsdoor,
or call the Lewis Museum 443-263-1800 or the Historical
Society at 410-685-3750, ext. 321.

1 Annapolis? Looking in the harbor from USNA area?
1930s?
Rick Rhine
2. Spa Creek with Spa Creek wooden bridge and St Mary’s
on Duke of Gloucester St Annapolis. Probably around
years 1890-1900 in the a.m. in the winter.
G. Irving
3. This is a picture of the Annapolis Harbor with St.
Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in the background.
The picture appears to be taken from the base of Prince
George Street where it meets the waterfront. The trees
indicate that the picture was taken during winter months
when the “fleet” was in harbor and the shadows show
that the sun is in the east, so it is morning. I cannot be
precise regarding the date that the picture was taken but
it was prior to 1948 when the low wooden bridge seen
in the background crossing Spa Creek was replaced by
the current drawbridge. I would guess that it was the
1920’s or 30’s.
Karen Winters
Mystery solved, it’s Annapolis
Annapolis, 1934
The Mystery Photo on the back of the Spring issue of WaterWays drew only eight correct answers on the location of
the busy harbor. Only readers Rick Rhine, Karen Winters and St. John Martin were close on the date. The photo was taken
in Annapolis in 1934, probably from the deck of the Claiborne-to-Annapolis Ferry that docked at the foot of Prince George
Street and is from the B. Frank Sherman Collection.
See the new Mystery Photo on the back page of WaterWays and submit you answer by e-mail to editor@cbmm.org.
4. The place is easy...Annapolis Harbor (Spa Creek), looking
SW toward St. Mary’s Church. The time is tougher.
I’d guess early 20th century, pre-WW1.
William Kranzer
5. The photo appears to be one looking up Spa Creek in
Annapolis probably sometime in the 1930’s. St. Mary’s
Church can be seen on the right.
St. John Martin
6. The busy bay harbor mystery is Annapolis and I would
guess about 1910.
Charlie Willimann
7. The photo is Annapolis Harbor from the Eastport side
of Spa Creek and my guess is the photo was taken before
1947 when the bridge over Spa Creek was changed
from 4th St. to 6th St. on the Eastport Side.
Bruce Morse
8. The mystery photo is of Annapolis harbor probably
around the turn of the 20th century. I’ll guess 1905.
Judy Parks
35

Mystery Photo
Can you identify the location of this Chesapeake Bay harbor? The answer and the
names of the readers who get it right will appear in the fall issue of WaterWays.
Send your answers by e-mail to editor@cbmm.org.
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
Navy Point PO Box 636
St. Michaels, MD 21663
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage Paid
Chesapeake Bay
Maritime Museum