skipjacks

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(top) Baltimore harbor from Federal Hill, 1850.

(top middle) Baltimore harbor from Federal Hill (facing Fell’s Point), 1870.

(middle) Baltimore harbor from Federal Hill, 1902.

(bottom middle) Baltimore harbor from Federal Hill, 1948.

(bottom) Baltimore harbor from Federal Hill, 2014.

These five images show the dramatic transformation of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, all taken from the vantage point of Federal Hill. From the 1850′s, when the city had just started to feel the impact of the Industrial Age, to the 1870′s, when oyster packing filled the harbor with skipjacks and bugeyes, to the early 20th century, when the last of the steamboats plied their routes throughout the Bay, to today, when most of the traces of industry have been replaced by museums, malls, and leisure craft- Baltimore’s harbor has remained an essential element of Maryland’s largest city.

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photos by author

City of Crisfield at the dock in Wenona harbor, Maryland. She was built in 1948 in Reedville, Virginia, and is one of the few working skipjacks still left on the Chesapeake- most of the other vessels now earn their keep as education or pleasure craft.

Every winter, she heads out to the Tangier sound to oyster with her owner, Captain “Daddy Art” Daniels, notably the oldest skipjack captain still living. Skipjacks were practical vessels, built quickly and cheaply, but still sturdy and beamy enough to carry hundreds of bushels of oysters on a good day’s harvest.

An endangered species, skipjacks are an iconic Chesapeake symbol of the 19th and early 20th century, when the working communities of the Chesapeake built homes and futures on oyster money.

Iconic Skipjack Dredging Licenses

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City of Crisfield dredge license #33. Photograph by author.

There is much that is iconic about Chesapeake skipjacks- their long, wide-bellied form, their single masts and double sails, the weathered men who sail them to unseen oyster bars deep below the Bay’s surface. They have come to represent so much about the halcyon days of the Chesapeake’s past, when the water was the source of life and livelihood, and harbor towns hummed on the seasonal harvests: fish, crabs, and oysters.

But skipjacks have a whole visual language of tools and traditions associated with them, as well. As much as their towering cargo of shellfish, skipjacks are defined by the rusted dredges, white galoshes, and trailboards that encrust them like barnacles. Dredge licenses, those large, metal plates seen below the starboard and port lights on the skipjack’s rigging, are a part of that immediately-recognizable motley assortment of working objects.

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Image of Martha Lewis, CBMM archives

These 24" x 24" metal licenses are now assigned to skipjacks for their entire life. But that is a recent development. Prior to 1971, captains had to reapply every year for a new set of dredging license plates. And the issuing of metal licenses was started in 1958. Earlier licenses were paper, and skipjack captains had to  sew their license number onto their sails. It’s helpful tool for dating photographs here at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum- any skipjack photos that include sewn-on license numbers have to be earlier than 1958.

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Oyster sloop J.T. Leonard displaying a pre-1958 dredge license. CBMM archives.

Modern metal dredge licenses are rare- just as rare as the few skipjacks that still sail on the Chesapeake Bay. Their maintenance is part of the annual spiffing-up that captains undertake to prepare their vessels for the working months. Decks and hulls are freshly painted with a new coat of white that hides the rust stains and oyster grit of last season, and their licenses are often given a brush-up too. Layers of paint on the licenses, thick as cake frosting, are a symbol of pride in continuing this diminishing way of life.

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Dredging license, Rebecca T Ruark. CBMM archives.

Dredge licenses are not obviously beautiful adornments to the skipjacks they permit, but on closer thought, perhaps they are just right. Skipjacks are working girls, hardy, rough, and made for hauling, dredging, and sailing into headwinds. Flashy varnish or brilliant burgees wouldn’t suit these ladies. Their big frames are better set off by simpler things. Proudly painted and bright against a blue sky, dredge licenses are a skipjack’s crowning jewel, representing a working Chesapeake past that still defines our modern Bay.

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Fannie Daugherty relaunch after restoration work at CBMM. CBMM archives.

The "r" months- officially oyster season

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An old-fashioned “r” month view. The location of modern-day Crab Claw on Navy Point in St Michaels, Maryland, 1907. Collections of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

There’s an old saying around the Chesapeake: “you only eat oysters in R months.” These ‘R’ months (the coldest of the year, from September- April), are the Bay’s prime oystering time, as the delicious mollusks recover from their summertime spawn and fatten for the winter. Historically, as the seasons changed, watermen would store their crabbing gear away, readying their dredges, tongs and workboats for the icy, muddy work of harvesting oysters. 

“R” months meant plump, sweet oysters- and they also meant less spoilage, as the cold temperatures kept the oysters fresher for longer once they were loaded into the decks of skipjacks, shucked into bightly-colored cans, and shipped north, west, and south, to a public clamoring for the Chesapeake’s oyster bounty.

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Another view of Navy Point, 1907. Collections Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

A sure sign of the beginning of the “R’ months and the real start to oyster season was the piles of oyster shells that would start to accumulate near packing houses in towns like St Michaels and Crisfield, where the oyster processors and cheek-to jowl log canoes jostled for real estate along the harbor front. By deep in the winter months, the piles could get several stories high- towers of shell testament to the mighty oyster, keystone of the Bay’s cuisine, culture, and the very stuff its small towns were built on.

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Oyster shells, Dorchester County, 1930’s. Collections of the Library of Congress.

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Oyster pile, Hampton, Virginia, 1915. Collections of the Library of Congress.

An Interview with Chesapeake Photographer Jay Fleming

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The Chesapeake Bay is an undeniably beautiful place, and it’s easy to take a photo that reflects the endless convergence of marsh, water, and sky. But the real challenge is to capture something that’s more than a pretty sunset. Jay Fleming is a young photographer working out of Annapolis, Maryland, who is hoping to change the conventional perception of the Chesapeake, one picture at a time.

From the traditional fishing culture’s slow disappearance as captured in the slumping collapse of the last house on Holland Island, to the vibrant eruption of silver croakers from a pound net (taken from the fish’s perspective), Fleming depicts a Bay that is working hard to keep its head above the water.  Bursting with life, color, and dynamism, his photos convey the clear sense that the Chesapeake’s working harbors and underwater terrain are rich, thriving environments.

Clearsighted to the Chesapeake’s charms and its changes as only a native son could be, Fleming’s pictures look past the sunsets to a Bay that’s struggling to survive but still has so much magic left.

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Following is the conversation of interviewer Kate Livie, Beautiful Swimmers blogger and CBMM education director, speaking with Jay Fleming, photographer.

KL: Who are you and how did you get started taking pictures?

JF: My name is Jay Fleming, from Annapolis, Maryland. I was born and raised in the area. My father is from Delaware and shot for National Geographic for 15 years, and I would go with him on assignments as a kid. As a teenager I started to use his equipment and when I was around 14 or 15, I submitted a photo to an EPA Wildlife and Wetlands photo contest and won the grand prize, which sparked my interest in wildlife photography and being on the water and taking pictures. I started shooting stuff I was interested in on the Bay and developed my own style that was different than my father’s.

KL: It seems like while some young photographers may expand away from the area where they grew up, you’ve really been dedicated to shooting the Chesapeake. What captures you about the Chesapeake, and why do you want to take pictures here?

JF: I would say that the more I look into a particular subject on the Chesapeake, the more I find out, the more I learn, and there are a lot of different photo opportunities for each subject. The thing I love about the Bay is that the deeper you dig into it, the more you find.

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KL: What do you think is your favorite setting and topic to shoot on the Chesapeake?

JF: I love being on the water. I love fish, anything underwater. Watermen, different fisheries, underwater stuff. Those are what really spark my interest.

KL: Do you think your pictures tell a story, and if so, what is that story about?

JF: I think they do help people understand more, like the particular topic I’m working on now, which is how people make their living working on the water. I think my photos help people understand that the seafood industry might not be what it was 50 years ago, but there’s still a lot going on. There’s a quite a few people making a living off of the Bay and the Bay’s resources. If I can help people gain appreciation for local seafood and the hard working watermen, then I think that’s a great accomplishment.

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KL: Do you feel like you are able to document the Bay in a way other photographer’s haven’t? What’s different about the pictures you take?

JF: I try to approach photos from a different angle than most photographers. I have the versatility of shooting above the water and underwater. I don’t think there are that many underwater photographers in the area, which I think you could say is my little niche.  I have the ability to get out on the water, as well.

KL: How do you think your pictures help to address some of the issues that are impacting the Bay as it changes?

JF: My photographs are helping document what is currently going on in the Bay, whether it is a beautiful sunset or it be a dilapidated old building on the water, like the house on Holland Island. The pictures address a lot of issues that the Bay faces. I’m not trying to beautify anything, I’m trying to document what’s going on in the Bay, in somewhat of an artistic fashion.

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KL: How do you think that your age gives you a different perspective or worldview on the Chesapeake than some of the photographers of the older generation?

JF: I see some of the things in the past that other people might take for granted, and I see how different ways of life and different communities are falling by the wayside with technology and this new generation. People aren’t really connected to the land like they were- not as dependent on the land. I think my pictures take people to a different place and a different time, also. The Chesapeake that once was, and still is, in a lot of ways.  Kids my age don’t really get out a lot.

KL: How old are you, Jay?

JF: 27…Maybe I shouldn’t call myself a kid (laughs).

KL: But you’re a kid at heart, though, right?

JF: Always will be!

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KL: Do you think your pictures might change any outcomes for the future Bay? When you talk about kids today that don’t get out, do you have a hope that they’ll reach people like that?

JF: Yeah, I do. I hope they can inspire people to treat the Bay better, and help protect the Bay, for the environmental purposes and the cultural purposes as well. Like with the watermen photos, a lot of people wouldn’t know half the stuff that I photograph actually happens. The people in DC and Baltimore and Annapolis might not know that people still go out in skipjacks and pull oysters off the bottom. They don’t know details about it. But being able to see it really brings it out in a different light. It’s still happening, and there’s quite a few watermen on the Chesapeake Bay. They’re going to hold onto their way of life and hopefully we can sustain it for the future.

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KL: I think people tend to read the bad news in the newspaper and on TV and they begin to think the Bay is beyond all hope, but your pictures document how much is happening, not just above the water but below it.

JF: Absolutely. There’s a lot of negative publicity about the Bay, and the Bay has it’s fair share of environmental issues which have caused a decline in our fish stocks, but there’s still a lot out there that is pretty captivating and productive.

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For more on Jay’s work, check out his online portfolio at: http://www.jayflemingphotography.com/

Thanks to Jay Fleming for the interview, and for allowing Beautiful Swimmers to share his images. 

imageJay fly fishing in Yellowstone National Park. Courtesy of Jay Fleming.

The Mystery of the Chesapeake Christmas Tradition

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Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum shipwrights on Old Point in 2011, after decorating her mast with the annual Christmas Tree.

It’s a lovely little nautical Christmas tradition, with just enough pomp to make it memorable. Every year, our shipwrights dutifully cut, light, and trim a tree, then join together to raise it up the mast of one of our historic wooden boats as part of our annual holiday decorating customs. Here, it’s utterly routine, and the St. Michaels harbor wouldn’t look quite the same without its yearly starburst of colored lights at dusk, hoisted gaily over the dark water. But when did this Maritime Museum tradition begin? The mystery of who started this annual ritual and why is something we’ve never really questioned at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

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The boatshop Christmas tree waits to be raised.

Our Assistant Curator of Watercraft, the very salty Rich Scofield, has been carrying on the Christmas tradition for his lengthy tenure at the museum, and has a few guesses as to its St. Michaels beginnings:

“I think it is boat tradition, and certainly I have seen and heard about it on Bay boats. I do not remember when we started it. I think when I worked at Higgins (Boatyard), we put a tree up the gin pole we used to pull and step masts. It was about 30 ft high… and I said it was the tallest tree in St. Michaels.

My brother was working in the (CBMM) boat shop then and I think they decided to top us and put one up our skipjack, Rosie Parks. I came back to the museum in 1985 and was given the job of finding a tree and putting it up Rosie’s mast and I have done it ever since.”

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Scofield and other CBMM shipwrights haul the Christmas tree up the mast of the recently-restored skipjack Rosie Parks.

The traditional hoisted-tree is a annual ritual observed outside the museum among a few other Bay watercraft, but the origins of the custom are similarly murky. Is a Christmas tree on the mast a boating thing? A Chesapeake thing? A St. Michaels thing? A little sleuthing turned up only more questions, served up with a couple of great anecdotes.

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Nathan of Dorchester, a Cambridge skipjack decorated annually with lights, garlands, wreaths, an angel, and a masted tree by local volunteers and a little help from the local fire company. Image courtesy Nathan of Dorchester.

Captain Wade Murphy, owner and captain of the skipjack Rebecca T. Ruark, has seen a lot of Chesapeake boats in all seasons in his 60-year career.  Although the Rebecca is part of the masted Christmas tree tradition and typically boasts a decorated tree from Christmastime until the end of the oystering season, Wade’s not too sure where it started, either. However, he had this theory about the custom, based on the Rebecca’s previous owner, Captain Todd, who raised a tree up the mast, too: “This fella that owned my boat (in the 60’s and 70’s), liked decoration. He thought so much of this boat that he dressed her up, like jewelry on a woman.” The urge to spruce and prettify is not a stretch for a truly devoted sailor (and it certainly can explain the Rebecca’s decorating tradition, if nothing else),  but surely lashing a tree to a mast has roots extend further- perhaps even beyond the brackish Bay waterways?

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Christmas takes place during the heart of the Chesapeake oystering season.

Some research reveals that there may be an international historic precedent for masting trees in another the tree-raising tradition, called “topping out.” A Northern European ceremony for the completion of a building or boat, the custom called for raising a small decorated tree or branch of greenery on a beam or mast above the finished construction. The practice can be traced back to Scandinavia, where natural features, like streams and trees, were revered as deities in the ancient Norse religion. To honor the tree-dwelling spirits that been sacrificed for the construction of a wooden vessel or structure, a symbolic tree was placed on the top of the new boat or building. The practice migrated throughout Europe with Scandinavian immigrants, and eventually lost its religious connotations, simply becoming a way to commemorate a completed construction or shipbuilding project.

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CBMM crab dredger, Old Point, all lit up along the waterfront on St. Michaels harbor.

Whether started by tree-worshipping Vikings or captains with a desire for decor, the tradition of hoisting a little tree blazing with light and color to the top of a tall mast is carried forward at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum every year. It’s a bit homespun, and certainly no equal to the flashing LED’s and singing reindeer boasted by some of the grander homes along the harbor, but our one little tree doesn’t need newfangled conceits to get its message across the still water:

All is calm. All is bright.