Winter - Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

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Feature
President Langley Shook announced the restoration project at the November 6 OysterFest,
with three generations of Parks family members by his side, as well as the Museum’s Board
of Governors.
But Rosie was 20 years old when she joined the Museum’s
floating fleet. That was well past middle age for a craft that
typically lasted only 30 years before it had to be retired. Scofield
says the Boat Yard crew kept Rosie in shape for several years,
sailing her as a roving ambassador around the Bay to show the
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum flag at festivals and watermen
contests. “The last time she sailed was in the mid to late 1990s,”
he says.
By 2000, Rosie was dock-bound and demoted to being a stage
for dockside programs for school groups. Her sails were raised as
a demonstration exercise, but she did not slip her mooring lines.
A log of the repairs done to keep Rosie afloat lists a plank-byplank
process over 25 years. But it became clear that the repairs
would not stop the decay. Rosie’s decks became unsafe and the
dockside classes were stopped. Rosie was dying.
A 2002 entry reads, “Rosie sinks dockside while moored.”
Extra pumps were added, but Rosie became a filter for Bay water
as her old seams opened and her loblolly skin sloughed away.
In 2006, the decision was made to pull Rosie out of the water to
save what was left. Once on land, several of her bottom planks
fell off. Water pressure and a few rusty nails had been the only
force keeping them in place. Scofield did not give up on Rosie.
While others questioned the decision to keep her under a tent
behind the Boat Shop, he held out hopes. Rosie was a skipjack,
not the Space Shuttle. She was a simple boat made with local
wood by craftsmen who worked with hand tools. Also, Rosie has
a special pedigree and place in Eastern Shore history.
She is a Bronza Parks boat.
While no longer a household name, in the mid-1950s Bronza
“Bronzie” Parks was a well-known boat builder, popular
community leader and political candidate in Dorchester County.
He was also the victim of one of the more sensational murders
on the Eastern Shore.
As a boat builder, Parks earned
the reputation for excellence
that spread far from his home in
the fishing hamlet of Wingate.
A 1955 Baltimore Sun article
described the assembly line
he had set up to build three
skipjacks at one time. The Rosie
Parks was built for his brother
Orville and named for their
mother. The Martha Lewis was
built for his brother-in-law,
James Lewis, and named for
his mother, and Lady Katie was
named for Bronza’s wife.
Parks’ boat yard was not on
the water, so when the boats
were completed, they were
loaded on a long, big-wheeled
cart and towed to the launch
site a quarter mile away on the
Honga River.
Although the basic skipjack
design was more than 75 years
old by that time, there was still
a demand for the sailing vessels.
Maryland law required that dredging oyster bars in the Bay had
to be done under sail. Parks, the Sun reported, started working
the water when he was just a boy and was not impressed with the
handling of the boats on which he served. He began building a
crabbing skiff for himself but before he could finish it, another
waterman bought it from him. Thus began a career that would
turn out more than 400 boats.
…
(right) Boatbuilder
Bronza Parks posed at
the bow of one of his
skipjacks.
(left) Capt. Orville H. Parks
at the helm of the skipjack
Rosie Parks.
PHOTO BY ROBERT H. BURGESS, 1955.
In 1958, Bronza Parks was hired to build an 18-foot skiff by
Willis C. Rowe of Silver Spring, Maryland. Rowe was a lawyer,
researcher, and writer for the U.S. News & World Report magazine.
On May 13, 1958, Rowe asked another legendary Eastern Shore
boat builder, Captain Jim Richardson of the Neck District west
of Cambridge, to go with him to Parks’ boat shop and inspect
the skiff, according to original press reports researched by
Dorchester County writer, Hal Roth.
Richardson later testified in court that he waited outside the
shop while Rowe went in to talk to Parks about payment. Three
shots rang out. Richardson told a jury he reentered the shop and
saw Parks on the floor, dead, and Rowe holding a revolver. Rowe
was taken to Cambridge by the sheriff as a crowd of about 150
Wingate residents gathered around the Parks shop. A mysterious
fire destroyed the skiff.
Rowe was held in state mental facilities for almost five years. In
1963, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced
to 18 years in prison. The case was overturned by Maryland’s
highest Court of Appeals because the jury found Rowe was
sane when he shot Parks, but insane when he stood trial. He was
retried and convicted in 1965.
…
Scofield says one of the goals of rebuilding the Rosie is so she can
become a roving ambassador for the Museum and St. Michaels.
The skipjack represents a key part of the Bay’s history. The lines
for the Rosie were lifted in the late 1970s and the Museum has
plans and dimensions to help with the reconstruction. Scofield
says parts of the original keel, the transom and the stem may be
saved and reused.
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“We hope to involve area school children in the project,” he
says. “I can see Tuesday and Thursday mornings working with
kids on specific jobs.”
Pres Harding, Bronza Parks’ grandson and a Chestertownbased
musician, says the family is very excited about the project.
“I was a young boy when those boats were built, but I remember
all three of them in the yard,” he says.
Harding’s musical group has performed at Museum events
over the last two years. “I have to say, I was pretty shocked when
I saw the condition Rosie is in,” he says. “This is a really good
thing for the family and the Museum.”
Three generations of the Parks family were at the Museum
when the rebuilding project was formally announced on
November 6. Now deceased, Bronza was married to Katie
Lewis and had five daughters – Lucille, Irene, twins Mary and
Martha, and Joyce.
Shook says he envisions the project as an ongoing exhibit.
“Visitors will be able to return several times and watch
the progress.”
Photos from the Museum files show the skipjack in her prime.
She is under sail, cutting through the water as white foam rushes
from her stern. It is a majestic sight, a glimpse of the past and a
look into the future when Rosie Parks returns to sail again, rebuilt
and ready to rejoin the Bay’s skipjack fleet.
-Dick Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning career journalist with more
than 35 years of daily newspaper experience. He was a reporter and
editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer for 28 years before moving to
St. Michaels, Maryland.
PHOTO BY RILEY WALTER