Teaching Tool, Time Traveler

The Future for Maryland Dove

by Kate Livie

AS THE WORK ON MARYLAND DOVE enters its last stretch and the hull transforms from skeleton to ship, it becomes easier to see its near future—splashing down to fanfare, sailing close to the wind with a new Boyer rig, and finally being welcomed home at Historic St. Mary’s City. But that will hardly be the end of Maryland Dove’s story. Crafted with a commitment to historical accuracy and informed by innovative scholarship, Maryland Dove will be a powerful new time-traveling tool for the educators at Historic St. Mary’s City. Representing a keystone component of the organization’s interpretive approach, the ship will bring to life the adventurous, harrowing, and human first chapter of Maryland’s colonial history.

For Peter Friesen, director of education at Historic St. Mary’s City, the arrival of the new Maryland Dove can’t come soon enough. Part of the issue is the vague design of the original 1970s-built representation, which was generally intended to represent a ship of the tobacco era as opposed to a more accurate representation of the original Dove. The other problem is the vessel’s historical accuracy. The first Maryland Dove, designed by marine architect William Baker and constructed by master shipbuilder Jim Richardson, represented the best scholarship and craftsmanship of its time. But the ʼ70s plans were quickly eclipsed as new information developed about 17th-century maritime design, powered by advances in marine archaeology and groundbreaking research.

Together, they’ve resulted in an awkward disclaimer for any visitor who steps onboard the current ship at Historic St. Mary’s City. “As a typical visitor, you’re going to walk down to the waterfront, where you have a nice view of the Maryland Dove,” Friesen said. “We have four costumed interpreters on the ship, and one of the first things they have to get out of the way is to explain to people that the ship they see before them does not represent the Dove of 1634. Instead, it’s a late-17th-century generic cargo ship. The only similarity it has to the Dove of 1634 is the size, the length, the width, and the name.”

With 20,000 to 25,000 visitors a year, that’s a lot of disclaimers. And it’s particularly off brand for Historic St. Mary’s City, which takes archaeology, scholarship, living history, and historical accuracy very seriously. It’s quite literally the core of their organization, which was constructed on the original location of the first Maryland colony—in some cases on top of actual excavated foundations. In four different, exhaustively researched exhibits that include the waterfront, the town center, a Woodland Native American village, and a recreated tobacco plantation, their living history program and interpreters teach the public about life in the 17th century.

But the narrative that the organization wants to communicate has changed since its establishment in 1969, and this ship is a big part of that shift. At its center, the ʼ70s build of Maryland Dove, Friesen explains, reflects a period in the museum’s history when there was a push and pull between the researchers at the museum and the politicians and big donors bankrolling and directing the initiative. “The historians wanted to focus more on the 17th century and the tobacco economy,” Friesen said. “But then you have the public perception and what the public wants to learn, which is where the politicians come in. The public wants to know about the voyage over from the United Kingdom, what it was like, what happened, who came over. They want that story—not the nittygritty of tobacco economics. At least, not at the waterfront.”

The new Maryland Dove will resolve the compromise represented by the ʼ70s vessel and give the public what it wants—Maryland’s origin story as told by a historically accurate recreation of the original Dove. It’s a change that Friesen sees as not just a way to spin a compelling historic tale, but to share a basic, relatable human experience that makes those colonists of 400 years ago seem a lot like people today.

“When you learn more about the voyage over and everything that happened on it, and you tell the public about it—that the ships got separated but they kept going, that they met up in Barbados, that Captain Orchard, the ship’s master, disobeys orders from the Calverts and ends up suing the Calverts, all the aftereffects of that conflict—to me, that speaks to humanity and shows us that people are still people,” Friesen said. “Just in that little story, there’s so much of an impact that’s more than just the dimensions of the ship or how much tobacco it could carry.”

The new ship will also allow for even more accurate nautical education, the domain of Maryland Dove Captain Will Gates and his crew. The new vessel will transform not only what they teach—maritime skills like sailing and navigation— but fundamentally how they approach it. “Square-rigged ships are not that uncommon. This new ship—no one really has that rig,” Friesen said. “It’s been at least a hundred years since anyone has seen one in action. And the idea that the ship is convertible, and that the square rig could be used for ocean transit and the Boyer rig for coastal sailing, is fascinating. It almost makes this ship like a Swiss pocket knife and shows how it was the pinnacle of technology at the time.”

This is especially important given that the new Maryland Dove will be able to obtain Coast Guard certification to carry passengers, meaning that maritime skills will no longer be taught only conceptually but can be conveyed during immersive on-the-water excursions. Previously, Maryland Dove had only functioned as a dockside exhibit, but now small groups can join the captain and crew on short sails, enjoying a vantage point and an experience that the original colonists on Dove would have recognized. And, with a new handicapped-accessible ramp designed for Maryland Dove, those passengers with limited mobility can also board the ship while it’s docked at its homeport.

“It’s not every day that there’s a large capital project at a museum that you get to be a part of from beginning to end. Much less one that’s part of the vision of your team, pushing your museum in the direction you want to see it go, and to make the interpretation more accurate, more accessible,” Friesen said. “By having two of our exhibits—Dove and the Indian village—focus on that early time period, and the town and the tobacco plantation focus on the wider history, it helps thematically streamline the storyline and the message for the public.” This new approach hones in on the first voyage over, the colonists on the journey, and the experiences they encountered in the New World. It also sets up the waterfront at Historic St. Mary’s City to act as an introductory chapter in the four-part museum time progression.

It won’t be long before Maryland Dove is making waves at Historic St. Mary’s City and in how they tell the story of Maryland’s colonial history. But even before the ship sets sail on its next chapter, its build has already made an impact at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Like Peter Friesen, Jill Ferris, CBMM Senior Director of Engagement, Learning, & Interpretation, has embraced the educational possibilities presented by the construction of the new vessel. Docents, Shipyard staff, and CBMM interpretive staff were given extra training on 17th century history and shipbuilding to ensure they could share the historical context around the vessel and its construction, as well as the evolving understanding of its design throughout the last 50 years.

“We wanted to give them the tools they needed to talk about what’s happening, why it’s happening, and how that’s historically significant,” Ferris said. That new knowledge was shared in dropin visits to the Shipyard. Before the pandemic halted in-person programming, the build was also integrated into a CBMM STEMbased tour for students called Tides of Technology.

Some of the deeper research coming out of the project has been shared in two collaborative symposia, one hosted by CBMM and the other originally scheduled to be held at Historic St. Maryʼs City. The first was held in September 2019, while the second has been rescheduled for fall 2021 as a virtual offering with an exciting lineup of historians, archaeologists, and Native speakers. The virtual learning continues with a series of monthly STEM webinars for students, bringing in different shipwrights and speakers to explore historic scientific concepts like buoyancy and navigation through the lens of Maryland Dove. Virtual tours and Coffee & Wood Chips virtual programs also provide adults with front-row access to the build and the history.

From the groundbreaking research that informed its design to its future as a critical element of an interpretive transformation at Historic St. Mary’s City, Maryland Dove has been a catalyst for growth and learning. And that’s not changing anytime soon. The ship continues to make its mark at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. And, in just a few months, it will be bringing passengers up the St. Mary's River under the power of a new Boyer rig. Through their sail, they’ll see through the eyes of those colonists 400 years ago, understanding something important—that a critical period of Maryland’s history isn’t so far away after all. ★

Joe Connor, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s lead shipwright and construction manager on the build of the new Maryland Dove, leads a tour of CBMM’s campus and the project’s home base in its working Shipyard. Photo by George Sass.