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42 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

Features

VOLUME 51 | NUMBER 9

Talk of the Bay

32 The Heart of the Eastern Shore hesapeake Heartland project puts Kent County Black C history on the map—Kate Livie

38 A Place on the Waterfront

8 Sweet Salvation

Cleaning up the Bay, one tree at a time—Emma Johnson

12 Sailing On

Sailboat racing in the Upper Bay has come a long way—Susan Moynihan

reserving the working history of Baltimore’s maritime P history—Brennen Jensen

42 100 Years of Bird Banding After a century of tracking birds, those little leg bands are



CONTENTS

12 50  

38 

32 

8 

more important than ever—Marty LeGrand

Columns 18 Chesapeake Almanac The winter Bay blends a nutritious spring smoothie—Capt.

8  12  50  38  32  18 

New Milford, Pa. Havre de Grace, Md. Susquehanna Flats Baltimore Chestertown, Md. Richmond

John Page Williams

25 On Boats: Stamas 370 Aegean An express cruiser with modern design and family heritage—Capt. John Page Williams

50 Wild Chesapeake

Capt. Chris Dollar goes gunning on the Susquehanna Flats. 22 

DEPARTMENTS

From the Publisher

BAY PARTNERS

54 58

Real Estate Boat Brokerage

On the Cover: Billy Laws, oyster shucker at

Metompkin Seafood in Crisfield, Maryland. Photo by Jay Fleming.

January/February 2022

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Richard “Dick” Royer

Volume 51

Number 9

1943-2022

PUBLISHER

by John Stefancik

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

John Stefancik

Meg Walburn Viviano

hen I first met Dick Royer in his office in December 1999, I entered the inner sanctum of someone who spent their life building something. Dick owned Chesapeake Bay Magazine since 1974 and along with pictures of his wife, Betty, and daughter, Victoria, his walls were covered in photos of Bay destinations, prolific scenes of regional landscapes, various boats of the Chesapeake, and

many awards that the magazine had won over the years. I would come to learn, over many years of weekly meetings in that office, that Dick was immensely proud of not only the photos on the walls, but the relationships that went with them. Dick originally bought the magazine from Richard and Dixie Goertemiller, who had launched it in 1971. He was a young advertising salesman at The Washington Star newspaper, and Dick smartly made the move, lining up clients beforehand and establishing relationships with other business owners that lasted almost 50 years. Dick also brought several writers and photographers with him to Chesapeake Bay Magazine, and they ascended to lofty places, winning

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 6

editorial awards and being recognized on the international stage (for example, shooting the America’s Cup, and becoming regular contributors to national magazines). Dick was a thoughtful, wellinformed person who read The Wall Street Journal every day. His words matched his always-impeccable attire. His comments were deliberate, he always had a kind greeting or quick joke. I looked forward to annual company events, because Dick always gave a speech about the successes of the staff, or how we had responded to a challenging year, and reminded us why our subscribers were so loyal. John Martino and I purchased Chesapeake Bay Magazine from Dick in 2014, and our weekly meetings became bi-annual lunches. He still loved talking about the economy, about our subscribers and advertising revenue. He was genuinely happy that we owned the magazine, and were developing it through new digital channels, keeping the spirit of the Chesapeake Bay alive. Dick passed away last week, just shy of his 79th birthday. He is survived by his beloved family, including Betty and Victoria; along with his grandchildren Katherine Elizabeth and Paul Richard; sisters Elaine Yoza (Fred), Catherine Royer, Joanne Ronayne, and Edna Wentworth (Kenny); as well as numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins; and this magazine, which he helmed for 40 years. He will be missed.

January/February 2022

MANAGING EDITOR Chris Landers

CRUISING EDITOR: Jody Argo Schroath MULTIMEDIA JOURNALIST: Cheryl Costello CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Susan Moynihan EDITORS-AT-LARGE: Wendy Mitman Clarke,

Chris D. Dollar, Ann Levelle, John Page Williams CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Rafael Alvarez, Ann Eichenmuller, Robert Gustafson, Mark Hendricks, Marty LeGrand, Kate Livie, Nancy Taylor Robson, Charlie Youngmann

ART DIRECTOR Caroline Foster

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Mark L. Atwater, Skip Brown, André Chung, Dan Duffy, Jay Fleming, Austin Green, Jameson Harrington, Mark Hergan, Jill Jasuta, Vince Lupo, K.B. Moore, Will Parson, Caroline Phillips, Tamzin B. Smith, Chris Witzgall

PRODUCTION MANAGER Patrick Loughrey

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER Mike Ogar

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & CLIENT EXPERIENCE Krista Pfunder

ADVERTISING

SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER

Michael Kucera m.kucera@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER

Megan Tilley megan@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com PUBLISHER EMERITUS

Richard J. Royer

CIRCULATION

Theresa Sise • 410-263-2662 office@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com CHESAPEAKE BAY MEDIA, LLC CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, John Martino EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, Tara Davis 410 Severn Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21403 410-263-2662 • fax 410-267-6924

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Chesapeake Bay Magazine (ISSN0045-656X) (USPS 531-470) is published by Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC, 410 Severn Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21403. $25.95 per year, 12 issues annually. $7.99 per copy. Periodical postage paid at Annapolis, MD 21403 and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes or corrections for Chesapeake Bay Magazine to 410 Severn Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21403. Copyright 2021 by Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC— Printed in the U.S.A.

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TALK OF THE BAY

Sweet Salvation

Cleaning up the Bay, one tree at a time by Emma Johnson

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BUTLER HILL MAPLE FARM

atherine Holleran first tapped maples when she was a child, following her father around with a bucket on the same property she now owns. Maple syrup is a family business for Holleran, who owns North Harford Maple farm with her husband, Tom. “When our kids got older, my husband and I started tapping the same way my dad did,” Holleran says. The Hollerans began investing in better processing equipment in 2012, and were slowly growing until 2016, when the Constitution Pipeline project seized five acres of their land through

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

January/February 2022

eminent domain. The 124-mile pipeline was supposed to carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to New England until it was canceled in 2020. By then, the damage at the farm had been done: The pipeline workers had cut a 150-yard gap by a stream, destroying about 560 maples. Brush had overgrown the area until last autumn, when Holleran decided to do something. She contacted the Susquehanna County Conservation District, who referred her to the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership, a Chesapeake Bay

Foundation initiative that aims to plant 10 million trees in Pennsylvania by 2025. With 260 maples and other hardwoods from the Partnership, Holleran and some volunteers replanted the gap in September 2020. Small tree planting projects like the one at North Harford Maple are happening all over Pennsylvania because of a mandate by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce nutrient pollution in the Bay by 2025. The Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership is one of many efforts aimed at helping Pennsylvania meet its pollution reduction targets. Through projects like planting streamside forest buffers, the Partnership can prevent agricultural pollution from entering Pennsylvania’s waterways, and support maple syrup producers along the way. This work is happening landowner by landowner, tree by tree, in an attempt to clean up the largest estuary in the United States. The Chesapeake Bay is the lifeblood of the Eastern seaboard, supporting 18 million people, driving billions of dollars for the economy, and providing livelihoods for people in agriculture, tourism, and many other sectors. But pollution—especially agricultural runoff, the largest source— could destroy the Bay’s ecosystem and destabilize the region’s workforce. Runoff from Pennsylvania’s 52,000 farms goes into the upper watershed and then the rest of the Bay. High nutrient pollution in the Bay isn’t new. Nitrogen levels were already on the rise in the 1800s, which corresponds to the rapid industrialization and fertilizer use on commercial farms. By 2010, the Bay’s water quality was so bad that the EPA established the Chesapeake Bay Total

Maximum Daily Load, a set of enforceable limits on nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution that must be in place by 2025 to restore the Bay’s health. Each of the six states in the watershed plus the District of Columbia must follow Watershed Implementation Plans to meet these targets. “The EPA tells Pennsylvania how much pollution the state has to reduce, but then it’s up to [state government agencies] and the other groups that developed these plans to figure out how we’re going to get to those reduction numbers,” explains Teddi Stark, watershed forestry program manager for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Pennsylvania has historically lagged on its cleanup commitments. Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania account for about 90 percent of the Bay’s pollution, but Maryland and Virginia have made more progress than Pennsylvania. In 2020, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. filed lawsuits against the EPA for not forcing Pennsylvania to do more. Now, Pennsylvania has only a few years left to meet its share of the pollution reduction goals. “We’re all in this together,” Stark says, “working to make cleaner water for Pennsylvania and cleaner water for the Bay.” One of the programs making headway on achieving these targets is the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership. Ten million is an intentional choice; it’s closely correlated with meeting Pennsylvania’s pollution reduction goals, explains Brenda Sieglitz, the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership manager. Part of Pennsylvania’s cleanup work requires

“When our kids got older, my husband and I started tapping the same way my dad did.”

January/February 2022

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

planting about 86,000 acres of trees as buffers along streams to prevent pollution from entering the water. Ten million trees could make significant progress towards that goal, according to Sieglitz. “Nothing really beats forest cover for water quality,” explains Ryan Davis, the Pennsylvania forests projects manager for the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. Working with 200 partners around the state, from DCNR to environmental nonprofits and agriculture industry groups, the Partnership has provided resources such as trees and stakes for the planting of over three million trees on farms and other personal property. “They help by offering some resources that buoy what everyone else is doing,” Davis says. The Partnership also hopes to boost local economies like maple syrup production as much as possible. In 2017, Pennsylvania had the sixth highest syrup production in the United States at 139,000 gallons. “Maples are always one of our top ten species picked,” Sieglitz says. “When we encourage people to consider things they can eat

Clockwise from top: Stirring maple

“I’m 55. I may see these maples tapped, but more than likely not. I was looking to do something for the future, for my son.”

or source from their forest buffer, maple syrup is definitely on that list.” For maple farmers like Corrie Bacon, who owns Butler Hill Farm in Tioga County, working with the Partnership allowed him to plant maples on previously empty land. Bacon has about 1,500 taps on 39 acres of land, and last year produced 450 gallons of sap. He received 850 trees from the Partnership to help grow his farm even more. While the Partnership has been chipping away with tree plantings, there’s still plenty to do before 2025. From a numbers standpoint, the gap is clear. The Partnership has only four years to plant seven million trees. There have also only been a couple thousand acres of forest riparian buffers planted in recent years, according to Davis. “We’re still in the early stages of this effort, even though it’s been happening for decades,” he says. “The hope is that we’re not going to stay in the beginning stages for too much longer.” Interest in tree planting programs has been rising, which is great for awareness but presents another problem: “Right now, we don’t have enough contractors to do the work,”

cream; seedlings headed for planting; a double-tapped maple tree.

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 10

January/February 2022

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Sieglitz says. Stark echoed that concern, citing a lack of funding and technical assistance to keep up with the demand. But once they help a farmer plant trees, groups like the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay also help farmers install other conservation measures, such as manure storage. Because cows are constantly producing manure, farmers may spread it on fields even when they know it will be immediately washed away. Storage can help prevent nutrients from entering waterways in the first place. In the pressure to meet the EPA’s targets, Sieglitz doesn’t want to lose sight of what’s important: healthy trees. “The 10 million number is looming over us,” she says, “but first and foremost is tree care, survival, and maintenance.” That’s especially important for people who have planted maples, as it will take decades before those trees are ready to tap. The Partnership plants trees that are one to three years old, but maples can’t be safely tapped until they are about 40 or 50. “I’m 55,” Bacon says, “I may see these maples tapped, but more than likely not. I was looking to do something for the future, for my son.” . Emma Johnson is a writer and communicator working for the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. She graduated from the Yale School of the Environment and is a longtime salamander enthusiast.

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TALK OF THE BAY

Sailing On

Sailboat racing in the Upper Bay has come a long way. by Susan Moynihan

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HAVRE DE GRACE MARITIME MUSEUM

rive across any bridge around the Bay on a clear afternoon and you’ll see groups of sails dotting the water, racing from marker to marker in picturesque clusters of white on blue. Sailboat racing is ubiquitous around the Bay from spring through late fall, but it wasn’t always that way. A current project at the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum, done in coordination with Havre de Grace Yacht Club, sheds light on the early days of small-boat racing in the Upper Bay, following its development from a sport for the wealthy to an everyday enjoyment accessible to the middle class following World World II. And they even have the boat to illustrate it. Sailboat racing has been around as long as there have been boats, says Al Caffo, avid history buff and former commodore of the Havre de Grace Yacht Club, when I met him one summer afternoon at the HdG Maritime Museum. “It’s like that old joke: What do you call two boats on the same tack? A race.”

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 12

Hampton One Design, a top choice for Bay sailors since the 1930s

According to Caffo and the museum’s Executive Director Juliette Moore, the nation’s interest in yacht racing really ignited in 1851, when a trio of New York businessmen sailed the schooner America across the Atlantic to England to participate in a race during the World’s Fair. They won the trophy,

January/February 2022

and that regatta, now known as the America’s Cup, remains the world’s oldest international sporting event. (The modern Olympics didn’t start until 1896.) Buzz over the race led to the development of yachting clubs all along the East Coast and eventually around the Bay. With its location at the confluence of the Bay and the Susquehanna River, Havre de Grace was an ideal location for one, and the HdG Yacht Club was founded in 1907, with the chief aims of “social, boating, outing and camping.” Like many clubs around the region, it started off with high hopes but its resources dwindled with the onset of World War I. “Wars tend to end yacht clubs,” said Caffo, “and then they restart again.” And so it went with the HdG Yacht Club, whose initial capital of $1,000 had dwindled to $185 by 1913. The club was loosely reformed in 1927 and formally reincorporated in 1930 with the goal of creating an annual regatta. At the time, regattas focused on

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powerboating—typically on daredevil machines with outboard engines that were all about speed. The yacht club’s first race took place on June 14, 1930. A program from a weekend regatta later that summer, on display at the museum, lists a series of powerboat races, along with sculling, rowing, and even swimming races for men and women, but nary a sailboat race. Along with cash prizes and silver trophy cups, gifts were donated from local businesses, including a stopwatch from Pitcock Bros. Hardware, a fountain pen desk set from Green’s Pharmacy, and no fewer than four silver cup cocktail shakers, from the Democratic Ledger, the local Kiwanis Club, Hecht’s Hardware, and Susquehanna Hose Co. The regatta was a quick success, likely helped along by the city’s reputation as one of the East Coast’s premier horse-racing destinations. The Havre de Grace Racetrack, known as The Graw, ran from 1912 to 1950, drawing viewers from Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York to see winning races by Man o’ War, War Admiral, and Seabiscuit, among other thoroughbreds. “Sporting culture at the time was a great social event, from horse racing to regattas,” says Moore. By 1933, Motor Boating Magazine declared HdG Yacht Club’s regatta to be the largest held in the east, says Caffo. The program for the 7th Annual Regatta in 1936 lists 32 separate powerboat races, with multiple classes and distances, along with a few sailboat races almost as an afterthought. “The course maps for the sail races were not what we would refer to as elegant,” says Caffo, and did not factor in wind speed or direction. This isn’t to say that boats weren’t

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 14

Above: The restored Hull 117 sails through her first race.

racing under sail power in other parts of the Bay. Log canoe sailboat races have been documented since the late 1800s around St. Michaels. But it would take another world event to bring on the popularity of small-boat racing as we know it today. In the wake of World War II, returning servicemen created a new middle class, which led to a major increase in affordable housing, household appliances, automobiles, and yes, sailboats. In Havre de Grace, Bob McVey was of these returnees. He grew up sailing the upper Bay, joined the Merchant Marine, and then enlisted in the Army at the onset of World War II. Upon returning safely home, he was eager to get back on the water again. So along

January/February 2022

with two fellow sailors, Marshall Palmer and Steiner Pierce, he invested in a used Hampton One Design (HOD) sailboat. This classic Chesapeake sailing boat was designed in Hampton, Va., in 1934 by local boatbuilder Vincent Serio. According to the Hampton History Museum, the Hampton Yacht Club wanted to start a one-class boat sailing competition. They chose Serio to design a small sailboat that could be used in regattas and races. One of the key elements was a centerboard, rather than a keel, so the boat could maneuver through the shallow waters of the lower Bay. Equally key was the generous sail size, to take advantage of light winds in the Chesapeake summers. Best of all was the price: Designed as an everyman’s boat, and later available as a kit, a new one retailed for $324. McVey likely bought his for considerably less, due it its condition; it was said to have been sunk in the water, a deteriorating hull full of sand, when he found it in Chesapeake City. He brought it home and set to work restoring it, naming it Ringer. Despite its humble start, McVey and Ringer became quite the team, and in 1952 they raced to victory in the Admiral Byrd Cup in Cambridge. He continued to be a prolific racer and yacht club supporter until his passing in 1994. His passion and memory is celebrated annually with the HdG Yacht Club’s

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Bob McVey Memorial a 1938 HOD from Race, the final club his father, Charlie: race of the season. Hull 117, built by But his legacy Serio himself. The encompasses more hull was rotted in than the race. Fast parts, from being forward to 2019, when stored outdoors, the all-volunteer boat and the original crew at the nearby fittings had been Havre de Grace replaced by Maritime Museum had modern ones. Its Volunteers at work in the HdG museum’s boat shop. recently constructed a mast, boom, and wooden Opti that was rigging had been then donated to the local youth sailing an exhibit on HODs. The exhibit removed and were used to construct program. For their next project, what if included a refurbished, fully rigged the boat on display in the Hampton they could find and restore an HOD 1947 HOD on display in the lobby, museum’s lobby. Wingfield agreed to similar to Ringer, the sailboat that set along with tools and artifacts from donate the hull and his brother Ben, Bob McVey on his racing career? Serio’s original workshop. During the who had built an HOD of his own, Under Caffo’s unofficial guidance, visit, they met with curator Allen donated a collection of related the team set to work. HODs are still an Holiman and shared their hope of blueprints to help with the rebuild. active class, with an estimated 700+ restoring an HOD as it would have Holiman also connected them boats still racing (though they switched been when McVey started racing in with Mike Evans, who added his circa from wood to fiberglass in 1961). To 1948. Holiman knew people who had 1940s HOD to the effort. This boat still learn more, the team headed to the wooden HODs they might be willing to had its wooden mast, boom, whisker Hampton History Museum, which had donate. David Wingfield had inherited pole, and bronze fittings. By combining

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elements from the two boats, they would be able to create a convincing replica of what McVey would have sailed in 1948. The restoration work was done on the lower floor of the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum, much of it done during the pandemic. Following the faded blueprints and whatever images they could find, they cleaned and patched the hull, painted the deck and topsides, stripped and varnished the mahogany planking, fabricated and attached the mahogany coaming and gunwales, and varnished the king plank, decking, and centerboard. They removed the modern fittings and replaced them with Evan’s bronze originals, fabricating any missing details onsite from bronze and wood. “We learned a lot from YouTube,” says Caffo. After a year’s delay due to the pandemic, the boat made her public debut in the 2021 Bob McVey Memorial Race, the season ender held on September 10 at Havre de Grace Yacht Cub. For the occasion, the club agreed to have a fourth start, just for the HOD class. “If we’re able to sail around the course, we’ll be able to declare ourselves the winner,” said Caffo the week before they put their project in the water. “But we do have to complete the course, it’s not a slam dunk.” Turns out, the boat performed beautifully on the water, and the win was well earned. Going forward, Hull 117 will be on display in the boat shop at the museum, and then hopefully taken out each season to represent those early regattas. The whole project is a fitting testament to sailboat racers, then and now. In the words of Bob McVey, “The motivating force that defines the sport of sailing is the satisfaction of finding what your measure of ability is.” . Susan Moynihan writes about travel and food, and is the author of 100 Things to Do in Annapolis and the Eastern Shore Before You Die. Follow her at @susanmoynihan.

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CHESAPEAKE ALMANAC

Wintry Mix

An icy Bay blends up a spring meal. by Capt. John Page Williams

actions of bacteria and fungi, but on frozen, concrete, and asphalt surfaces, winter rain will send it overboard into the nearest waterway. In every location, the timing and degree of the winter’s weathering process dictates the particle size of, say, maple leaves or bird feathers that go into the water. Some of it will be large enough to nourish insect larvae that live in the gravel of stream bottoms, while microscopic bits will feed bacteria that break it down into plant nutrient compounds of active nitrogen and phosphorus. The way each winter distributes decaying material around the watershed tells a lot about what

AMY BALDWIN/MARYLAND DNR

INK BYERS/MARYLAND DNR

ver see winter weather crack a concrete sidewalk or lift and bend the pilings on a dock? Freezing and thawing water expands and contracts, inexorably widening any space into which it can flow. Meanwhile, ice cuts and grinds, and snow crushes. If such “weathering” can break concrete and move timbers, imagine what it can do to the accumulated dead plant and animal debris left over after all of 2021’s spring and summer growth and fall’s withering throughout the Chesapeake’s watershed. Some of that material will decompose and become part of the soil under it, thanks to the

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 18

January/February 2022

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FOR MORE INFORMATION NOAA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Climate Impact Summary: In an age of automated sensors, big data, and GIS (geographic information systems), it is now possible to map patterns such as seasonal precipitation and temperatures at high resolution to get a sense of how an ecosystem is working. A great source for the general public is NOAA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Team (MARISA), whose website offers a summary and outlook every three months. It tells us, for example, that last winter “ranked among the ten wettest on record for sites in Virginia, Maryland and New York,” driving strong runoff into Chesapeake waterways. Temperatures ran above normal everywhere except a band along the watershed’s southern boundary from the lower Shenandoah Valley east to Richmond and Hampton Roads. By the time you read this column, MARISA’s Fall 2021 Summary and Outlook will be on the website at midatlanticrisa.org. Look for the Winter 2022 Summary and Outlook in late March. See how it squares with your own observations of this winter, and watch how the Bay’s new year unfolds. Eyes on the Bay: Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources offers Eyes on the Bay, a gold mine for Maryland tidal water quality data and information, at eyesonthebay.dnr.maryland.gov. Use the search function to look up everything from current conditions to a summary of winter 2020-21. One especially interesting section for generally understanding the Chesapeake is the Seasonal Conditions section, where a menu feature lets you select the month and the creature (i.e., blue crab, striped bass, eelgrass).

which in turn will play huge roles in feeding larvae of spring-spawning fish. Yellow perch will lead the parade in late February, followed by white perch, river herring (alewives, bluebacks), shad (hickory, American), rockfish, and even a few Atlantic sturgeon. Crabs will begin to crawl and find winterkilled material to scavenge. Mature sooks will spawn. The Chesapeake’s complex, ecologically rich new year will begin, fueled by the legacy of winter. I once heard a marine science professor remark that the Chesapeake system is several orders of magnitude more complex than a human body. It’s never the same Chesapeake even minute to minute, much less day to day, year to year, or decade to decade. CBM Editor-at-Large John Page Williams is a fishing guide, educator, author, and naturalist, saving the Bay since 1973.

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Stamas 370 Aegean by Capt. John Page Williams

Stamas 370 Aegean

COURTESY PHOTOS

LOA: 39'5" Beam: 11'2" Draft: 21"/32" (engines up/down) Transom Deadrise: 18º Weight: 14,400 lb (w/T-Suzuki 350s) Max Power: 850 hp

Fuel Capacity: 356 gal Water Capacity: 40 gal Waste Capacity: 20 gal Bridge Clearance: 11'6" Cabin Headroom: 6'4" For more information, visit stamas.com, annapolisyachtsales.com

t was good to see Stamas boats back at the Annapolis Powerboat Show last fall, after an absence of nearly 10 years. Nick and Pete Stamas grew up in the Greek maritime community of Tarpon Springs, Fla., and won a prize for a wooden boat they built as high school students in 1938. They continued building commercial and recreational boats through the 1940s and incorporated Stamas Yacht in 1952. The brothers made the transition to fiberglass in the late 1950s and quickly developed a reputation for creating strong, able hulls that did the jobs they were designed for and held their value well. Four generations later, the Stamas family still owns and runs the

company with pride. The Stamas 370 Aegean we tested recently with Annapolis Yacht Sales reflects both proud heritage and modern design. It’s an express cruiser, a traditional model often overlooked with today’s emphasis on dayboats with multiple lounges. Instead, it’s fish-ready for a wide range of Chesapeake angling opportunities, it will serve a couple or a family well for weekend or week-long expeditions, and its large cockpit still adapts well to casual day use. The layout offers a large, bright cabin; a comfortable, elevated helm deck; a functional fishing cockpit with convertible seating; and a stern deck for handling fish or swimming. Instead of inboard gas V-8s

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Clockwise from above: A port-side dinette converts to a double bunk; bait station and under-seat cooler; a generous V-berth and galley to starboard.

shoehorned under the helm deck (as was common on express cruisers until a decade ago), power is twin outboards up to 850 horsepower. The outboard configuration allows cavernous storage, with good access to wiring, plumbing, and mechanical systems. The 370 Aegean is built for a family to care for and enjoy for many years. The hull’s design and structural layup reflect the long experience of the Stamas team. In all the company’s boats, each hull remains in its mold after layup for installation of the stringer grid and liner, all bonded together and allowed to cure fully before removal. That practice ensures the boat’s shape remains true to its design. Bottom deadrise starts with 18 degrees at the transom and sharpens progressively going forward to a wave-cleaving bow. Wide chines and bottom strakes with sharp edges damp spray and foster stability. Watch both of those features at work in the five-minute video of the 370 Aegean on the Stamas website. Like the boat in the video, power on our test boat was a pair of Suzuki 350s, sophisticated 4.4-liter V-6s with dual, contra-rotating propellers that provide powerful lift and grip on the water. They happily boosted this

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three-quarter-ton rig onto plane around 17 knots and cruised happily at 19–26 knots (3600–4200 rpm), burning 17–22 gallons of fuel per hour. Top speed with three people aboard and a light load was 42 knots. At the same time, the 350s throttled down happily to 3 knots (600 rpm) for trolling, and we could drop below that by turning off one engine, if necessary to tune speed for specific lures like spoons and hoses. On test day, the open Bay gave us northwest winds in the 10- to 12-knot range, which the 370 Aegean handled easily at cruise speeds and more. Drifting was comfortable, with easy movement at all angles to the seas. The express deck helm is high enough to give a

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commanding view, excellent for piloting and spotting fish as well as close-in maneuvering. Our test boat included an Optimus joystick for maneuvering (optional, $16,709), but we found that the big Suzukis’ propellers were powerful enough for easy maneuvering with the throttle and shift levers. So what does the somewhat retro express layout offer families and anglers? First, the cabin is spacious, air-conditioned, and bright, with large, thoroughly modern windows. It offers a generous V-berth forward; a four-person dinette to port that converts to a double bunk; a full galley with microwave, cooktop, and refrigerator to starboard; and an enclosed head and shower just

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aft. Headroom throughout is 6'4". Layout of storage reflects designers who cruise their own boats. Beneath the helm deck lies a small cabin athwartships with sitting headroom and a lounge with table that converts to a single berth. Accommodations would work easily for a cruising couple or a family’s weekend trip. The express deck is compact and businesslike, with twin adjustable seats port and starboard. Each tilts forward to reveal an insulated, dry storage compartment with overboard drain. The helm dashboard to starboard offers a compass above, space for a pair of 12-inch electronic displays, linked VHF radio, engine display,

The 370 Aegean is fish-ready for a wide range of Chesapeake angling opportunities.

stainless-steel wheel with turning knob, switch panel, and “the sticks.” The dash on our test boat included a pair of cooling vents from the air conditioner (optional, $1,031). It tilts

back for access to the devices and wiring. A curved windshield provides twin wipers and a sturdy aluminum frame that fits the human hand well, though Stamas has also added grab handles in appropriate places. The hardtop stands on a sturdy, powder-coated frame with additional handholds and rod holders. On our tester, it also included cooling misters hanging overhead (optional, $2,453) and a remote-controlled spotlight (optional, $2,123). Then there’s the cockpit. It’s businesslike too, self-bailing and large, with room for two anglers to work jigs on each side. An aft-facing seat to port

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allows two anglers to watch trolling lines, with an insulated cooler beneath. To starboard is a tackle center with freshwater sink, cutting board, three drawers, and a compartment to stack five 3600-size tackle boxes. There’s a step on each side for climbing up to the side decks for going forward to handle the anchor (a windlass is standard). Each gunwale is bolstered, with horizontal storage beneath for rods and vertical rod holders on top. The transom mounts a folding seat for three on its forward side, with a 235-quart, insulated fishbox on top and a 92-quart livewell to port. On the after side, our test boat included eight vertical rod holders (optional, $1,760). To starboard is a transom door with a stout latch. It leads to a full-beam platform for netting fish, swimming, or checking on the engines. Oh, yes, about access for maintenance and storage. Put outboards on an express cruiser and you’ll free up a huge space under the cockpit sole for access to wiring, plumbing, and mechanical systems. On the 370 Aegean, that includes the fuel tanks port and starboard, a Westerbeke gas generator (with its automatic fire suppression system), and a SeaKeeper (not necessarily needed). There’s plenty of space left over for anything else a boating family might need to stash. Access comes via a huge hatch forward that lifts on electric rams and an after hatch that’s manual. Both areas are sized for humans. Traditional and modern all at once? Yes, that describes the Stamas family’s boat company in general, and it certainly applies to the 370 Aegean in particular. Base price with twin Suzuki 350s is $498,047. CBM Editor-at-Large, educator, guide, and author of three quintessential Chesapeake Bay books, Capt. John Page Williams was named a Maryland Admiral of the Bay in 2013.

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The Heart of the Chesapeake Heartland project puts Kent County Black history on the map by Kate Livie

K PHOTOS COURTESTY OF STARR CENTER/CHESAPEAKE HEARTLAND

A mobile operations center collects and preserves history directly from the community.

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im Briscoe Moody carries a map in her memory. “I was born and grew up on Prospect Street, in Chestertown. My mom grew up, was born on Calvert Street, and my father was also born on Prospect Street. I grew up in the Bethel AME Church [on the block in between], and I can remember playing on the back lot. It brings me joy, when I go home, to see these places.” These streets, in the heart of what was once Chestertown, Md.’s predominantly Black neighborhood, have changed since Moody was a little girl. Thriving nightclubs, grocery stores, barber shops—all Black owned—have vanished since her childhood in the 1960s. All over Kent County, small rural Black communities have

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followed the same trend, dwindling in population as generations of young Black Kent Countians have moved away, seeking opportunities elsewhere Moody was one of those talented African American Kent County ex-pats. A valedictorian and MVP star athlete of her graduating class in 1978, Moody moved away for a career and family. Over the years, she’s returned to Kent County, and has observed the slow disappearance of the Black community’s cornerstones. So when Airlee Ringgold Johnson, a community historian and old friend working with the Chesapeake Heartland project, reached out to collect her snapshots and stories, Kim saw an opportunity to preserve several generations of her family’s Kent County’s history.

Eastern Shore The cultural map in Moody’s memory is as developed as the rural landscape of Kent County is not. The stories, traditions, language, and kinship of the Black community are vibrant, passed down through generations that have called this place home. This cultural landscape is largely uncharted and in some cases threatened by time—something the new Chesapeake Heartland initiative is working to change. Through the combined efforts of the local Black community, local and national partners, and the Starr Center at Washington College, oral histories, family photos, local lore, and historic documents are being shared and carefully preserved for future generations—mapping a rich and deeply rooted heritage along the way. The inspiration for the Chesapeake Heartland project started in 2017, when then-director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Lonnie Bunch, made a trip across the Chesapeake Bay to Chestertown. Bunch was in town to receive an honorary degree from Washington College, and stopped by the historic Grand Army of the Republic Post #25, Sumner Hall, which was hosting a Smithsonian-sponsored Museum on Main Street exhibit, “The Way We Worked.” The exhibit focused on work in the Black community, and during his visit, Bunch met with the organizations—including the Starr Center—who had partnered with Sumner Hall on “The Way We Worked” for a roundtable discussion. There, Bunch identified something the local Black community already knew: that the depth and breadth of Kent County’s African American history and culture was unique. “The Way We Worked” marked just the beginning of what was

possible when the community was asked to share their knowledge. For Bunch, the true heart of the National Museum of African American History and Culture wasn’t in Washington D.C. It was in places like Kent County, where the stories of Black triumph and artistry, celebration and accomplishment were just starting to be documented. Later, over eggs and coffee at a local diner, Bunch spoke with some of the Starr Center staff about how to keep the momentum going through a partnership with the Smithsonian. The best approach, he suggested, was the one already modeled through “The Way We Worked” exhibit. Rather than an organization or museum identifying stories and objects to collect and then going out to ask for them, the Starr Center should rely on the Black community’s expertise. As community curators, they should define what January/February 2022

Above: Singer-songwriter Kentavius Jones speaks to Chesapeake Heartland interns about the Maryland Spirituals Initiative. Left: Smithsonian Director Lonnie Bunch speaking at Washington College.

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Airlee Sparrows Beach This photo shows sisters Airlee and Muriel Ringgold during their family vacation at Sparrow’s Beach in Annapolis in 1953. Sparrow’s Beach— together with neighboring Carr’s Beach—served as respite resorts for Black vacationers in the tri-state area between 1920 and 1970. These exclusive properties came to be known as the Black Coast, and drew such major musicians as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Ray Charles. Airlee Ringgold Johnson, from the Chesapeake Heartland Digital Archive

Heartland intern Paris Young (right) looks over images with Irene Moore, a volunteer curator at The African American Schoolhouse Museum in Worton, Md.

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they thought was important to share and preserve, and work with the Center closely to tell the stories of their own history and heritage. It is this approach—community curation— that is the core of the Chesapeake Heartland project. Envisioned as a grassroots initiative to find, digitize, share, and interpret four centuries of Kent County Black history, the Chesapeake Heartland team of local, regional, and national collaborators aimed not only to illuminate the region’s rich culture, but to define the Chesapeake Bay watershed as a national heartland of African American history and culture. For this to work, it was clear the power needed to be in the hands of the community from the start. “From the beginning, there was a very diverse group of stakeholders from within the community who came together to talk about this initiative and brainstorm,” said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College. From those conversations, it was clear that there were already members of the Kent County African American community who were collecting and sharing histories—and doing it in creative and January/February 2022

important ways. Identifying these people and getting them involved was going to be critical to the project. “We had this network that already existed of people who knew local history, who had grown up in the heart of it, and who were gifted and dedicated chroniclers and sharers of that history,” Goodheart said. Airlee Ringgold Johnson was one of the community historians who signed on to the Chesapeake Heartland project’s launch in 2020. Along with her friend and colleague Carolyn Brooks, she helped the Starr Center and its partners reach out to the Black community to ask for their guidance and suggestions, and gather their oral histories, documents, and photos for a large public archive. Ringgold Johnson is a natural connector who seems to know everyone in Kent County, and if she doesn’t, she can reach out to someone who might. Like Kim Briscoe Moody, Ringgold Johnson is a native of Kent County who moved away after graduation for college and a career, but she returned to Chestertown to retire. A passionate lover of local history herself who has long volunteered for Kent County historical societies and organizations, Ringgold Johnson is proud of her work with the Chesapeake Heartland project. It’s an initiative that’s important to her, on a community level and on a personal level, too. “I got involved with the project from the very beginning. I’ve always been very interested in history and I believe totally in our community. I just wanted to be part of it,” Ringgold Johnson said. She liked that the project was giving back to the community in a collaborative spirit. In her role as community historian, Ringgold Johnson has worked with Kent County citizens as

Fugitive Broadside This poster (also known as a broadside), printed in 1793, attests to the successful escape of an enslaved man named Amos, and his master’s fruitless attempt to recapture him. A great rarity, it is among the earliest extant documents of its kind—one of just a handful of such broadsides surviving from 18th-century America. Document image from the Commodore Collection, courtesy of the Chesapeake Heartland Project, chesapeakeheartland.org

whole, identifying who knows what; where treasure troves of photos, ephemera, and stories might be found; and slowly collecting, digitizing, and archiving the history shared with them. And what Ringgold Johnson and the Starr Center team have collected so far is astonishing and vast: photos and stories of the second African American ever admitted to the Coast Guard, William Pickrum; yearbooks from Garnett, Chestertown’s all-Black high school; oral histories from local Black clergy, community leaders, athletes, and entrepreneurs; wedding invitations; oil paintings of local scenes; family trees and home movies; and footage from Juneteenth celebrations and BLM protests. Ringgold Johnson, ever the staunch historian, has also submitted her own contributions to Kent County’s Black history, including photos of debutante balls and treasured snapshots of summer trips to Chesapeake African American resort beaches with her extended family. For Ringgold Johnson, being able to provide a wider background for individual histories or photos is deeply rewarding. “When I talk with people, oftentimes I can put things together or correlate things, putting them into context with what happened in earlier times or previous centuries. We’re able to connect the dots from the time that African Americans first came to Kent County up until now, and the whole story is just fascinating.” In particular, Ringgold Johnson appreciates the celebratory nature of the Chesapeake Heartlands project, and the chance to elevate the

stories of Kent County’s flourishing Black community. “We have a rich history. Chesapeake Heartland shows that despite all odds, we endured. We have a vibrant culture and we’ve been able to surpass our minority, oppressive situation, and it hasn’t kept us from mentally flourishing in our own community.” The Chesapeake Heartland project is further supported by a veritable army of Washington College students, interns, faculty, and local, regional, and national partners as it reaches into the community and researches what they share. A big, blue Heartland truck—staffed by students and interns, and equipped with digital recording equipment, teaching materials, scanners, televisions, whiteboards, and other gear—acts as a roving collections center, exhibit, and studio. Branded with the project’s “sankofa” logo (an

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Left: Digitization technician Jada Aristilde examines slides. Below: Chesapeake Heartland’s recording studio.

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Debutantes According to Chesapeake Heartland Community Historian Airlee Johnson, The Elks Fraternal organization in MD, DE, and DC sponsored Cotillion Balls from 1964 until the early 2000s. Young African American females were introduced to society at an elaborate ball, usually held at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. Each Elks Chapter selected several debutantes to represent their local chapter at the ball, chosen based on their school grade-point average. Image source: Cheryl Saunders, from the Chesapeake Heartland Digital Archive

Kent County resident Rev. Mae Etta Moore is featured prominently in the archive, sharing her family background and her own life in ministry and activism.

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African symbol of a mythical bird flying forward with its head turned backward), the big, blue truck makes its way to churches and town halls, festivals and concerts to connect with Black community members on their home turf. Jada Aristilde was in the first wave of students working with the Chesapeake Heartland project, and has since continued on as staff with the initiative after graduation. A self-professed “people person’’ with a passion for diversity and inclusion, Aristilde was approached in the second semester of her freshman year by Starr Center staff. She wasn’t a history major but had always loved the stories of the past. The idea of really rolling up her sleeves and working closely with community members was appealing. In 2018, Aristilde started working as a student intern specifically with community outreach, ensuring Black participation and engagement from day one. Aristilde found herself combing through church basements and attics, collecting photos and oral histories for the archive. Later, she’d deepen her knowledge with an internship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, working as a student bridge between the Chesapeake Heartland project and the museum. Today, Aristilde is a frequent fixture on the Heartland truck, chatting with locals and listening to their stories. For Aristilde, someone passionate about Black history who cares deeply about the January/February 2022

individuals she’s met through this initiative, her experience with community curation has been revelatory. It’s thoughtfully inclusive, and for Aristilde, that’s really the only way to approach this kind of project. “Black people in Kent County who learn about the project are always thrilled because they lead the way in digitizing and preserving their specific family history. They’re able to take a lead in preserving their own story. It’s asking them, what do you want us to do with this? How do you see the Chesapeake Heartland project helping you? Participants choose what items they submit to the archive, and then they also get a hard copy to keep for themselves so their personal history is maintained.” Many of the documents and histories that are submitted through the blue Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities truck or to the archive are pieces of a puzzle. Their stories and context need further research, and this is where Washington College students, faculty, and partners like the Maryland State Archives and Sumner Hall come in. In particular, a body of rare 18th- and 19th-century documents known as the Commodore Collection was identified at an auction by members of the local community. They told the story of enslaved and free Black people from Kent County, from runaway slave advertisements to estate purchases. Particularly remarkable was a bill of sale documenting the purchase of an enslaved man’s freedom by a prominent member of the free Black community, himself formerly enslaved. Through efforts of the Starr Center, Sumner Hall, and the Maryland State Archive, the items were acquired, digitized, and researched. Along the way, living descendants of the free Black man, Congo Mango (later Mander), were identified and contacted. Some of them still lived in Kent County.

Congo Mango purchase This 1800 document records a free person of color, Congo Mango (later known as Congo Mander), purchasing an enslaved man named Cato Daws in order to grant Daws his freedom. Such generous acts were not uncommon in the early African American community, with those who were already free saving up hard-earned money to purchase others’ freedom from white slaveholders. Both Mander and Daws lived near what is now Galena in Kent County. Document image from the Commodore Collection, courtesy of the Chesapeake Heartland Project, chesapeakeheartland.org

According to Goodheart and other staff at the Starr Center, the Chesapeake Heartland project is only just getting started. There have already been spin-offs—a Heartland hip-hop themed summer camp for high schoolers, a traveling exhibit sharing the story of former Coast Guard Commander William Pickrum. But Goodheart and the National Museum of African American History and Culture are thinking bigger. They plan to use the Chesapeake Heartland project as a model, giving Black communities across the Eastern Shore and Maryland the tools to identify the stories and achievements they want to share. For community members like Kim Briscoe Moody, having a way to preserve that kind of generational knowledge is essential to who we are today. It provides a sense of place and connection as the Black community moves towards their future, and it’s especially important

for the next generation, who can find pride and inspiration in their own rich roots. “The Heartland project really gets people to look at their pictures and tell their story. I hope that there’s an awareness that we need to continue to pour into our future by providing our history,” Moody said. “If it’s not told, if it’s not seen, we’ll never know. The preservation of African American history in Kent County is so important, so we never forget where we came from.” To learn more about the Chesapeake Heartlands project, to explore their online archives, or to share your own Kent County Black history, visit chesapeakeheartland.org. Kate Livie is a Chesapeake writer, educator, and historian. An Eastern Shore native and current faculty at Washington College’s Center for Environment and Society, Livie’s award-winning book Chesapeake Oysters was published in 2015.

A student-staffed Heartland truck serves as a mobile exhibit, collection center, and recording studio.

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A Place on the Wate�front Saving the Caulkers’ Houses of Fells Point, an important piece of Black maritime history by Brennen Jensen

The most astounding thing about the pair of diminutive, cojoined houses in Baltimore’s waterside Fells Point neighborhood is their existence. The frame construction and wood-shingle roofs of 612 and 614 S. Wolfe Street mark them as 18th-century edifices. (Fearful of fires, the building of wooden houses was banned in the city center after 1799.) So, over literally centuries, these two could have burned down or been pushed over to make way for the sturdier brick rowhouses now dominating the environs. They are improbably small. Each house has a single ground-floor window and a lone dormer protruding from a half-story garret, with about 500 square feet of living space. They’re believed to have been erected as rental properties, circa 1797. That’s the year Baltimore Town made the civic bump to Baltimore City and the frigate USS Constellation was built on the nearby waterfront. Their wooden walls echoed the sounds of Fort McHenry’s bombardment during the Battle of Baltimore. The pair have a deep relationship to the waterfront just a couple of blocks south, but at present their main maritime connection appears to be their elements-battered rooflines,

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bent and undulating like the storm-tossed ocean. They’re in pretty rough shape. Last thought to have been occupied in the 1980s, they endured a stretch of abandonment until the Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fell’s Point acquired them in 2005. This nonprofit group patched them up over the years, with efforts to fully stabilize the battered properties launched last summer. Indeed, when I visited them in October they were encased behind construction fencing and signage, reading, "The Ships Caulkers’ Houses: Little Houses. Big Story." They’ve had various names over the years, including the Two Sisters Houses, named after the siblings who owned them while fighting off a disastrous 1960s plan to send a highway through Fells Point. The current name goes back a century earlier, to the 1840s and 1850s when they were inhabited by free Black ship caulkers. These shipyard workers engaged in the messy, taxing, but utterly crucial task of caulking wooden ships to make them watertight. The process involves driving fibrous strands into a hull’s seams and sealing them with hot pitch. Author, orator, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass was an enslaved caulker in Fells Point before fleeing north to freedom in 1838. “The ‘big story’ is what the ship caulkers were able to create for themselves,” says architectural historian and Preservation Society board member Sarah Groesbeck,

THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FEDERAL HILL AND FELL'S POINT

whom I arranged to meet by the houses. between the beams, not unlike Tudor “The story of enslaved people is houses of medieval England. Their "We see a place important to tell, of course, but you don’t restoration brings something unique to where school groups always hear as much about free Black Baltimore’s streetscape, and historians and others can come people in Baltimore and the unique and say they’re the only example of this special community they created—their hoary form of domestic architecture in and learn about the schools, churches, and an early form of the Northeast. Black ship caulkers, unionization. All the things that other “Right now, the goal is just to get as well as early people had through government or them fully weathertight and stabilized society, they had to create on their own.” so they won’t fall down,” Groesbeck construction That the houses are little doesn’t says. This work, planned for methods." mean restoring them to their original completion before the worst of the appearance isn’t an enormous winter weather set in, is funded by a undertaking. Termites have eaten them, $100,000 African American Heritage water has warped them, and then there’s the need to Preservation Grant from the Maryland Historical Trust. A untangle the numerous modifications and rearward full-scale restoration will likely cost hundreds of thousands additions. Through painstaking “architectural forensics,” more—money that has yet to be raised. “The vision is for Groesbeck says it’s now understood that the pair are actually them to be some form of community and educational space; the southern half of a onetime quadplex of houses. (Brick not necessarily a house museum, as those are a little bit out rowhouses replaced the northern half.) What’s more, the of date,” Groesbeck says. “We see a place where school clapboard siding seen today is a later modification, as they groups and others can come and learn about the Black ship were originally timber-framed houses with brickwork caulkers, as well as early construction methods.” January/February 2022

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The free Black caulkers’ story is one of triumph and tragedy, of determined self reliance and resilience in a hostile world. first African American union/mutual aid society, the As a byproduct of its location—as the northernmost Southern Caulker’s Association, to give them collective bargaining city, and southernmost Northern one—antebellum Baltimore power at the shipyards. was home to more free Blacks than any other municipality. By Around this same time, and with the same do-itthe start of the Civil War, the city had nearly 26,000 free Black yourself spirit, the Black caulkers formed the East Baltimore residents versus just over 2,000 who were enslaved. Mental Improvement Society. This self-help educational While spared the yoke of bondage, free Blacks lived a group met in private homes to improve reading, writing, and tenuous and vulnerable existence—subject to a shifting mathematical skills, and hold debates and discussions panoply of laws restricting their right to assemble, be around philosophical and educated (public schools were religious topics. And this brings closed to them), and acquire the story up to when census firearms, alcohol, and even dogs. data and city directories show Unable to vote, they had zero that the Black caulkers began political clout. Barred from renting the Wolfe Street testifying in court, the “justice” houses—tenants such as the system was of little use. Free Offer family: John, Jane and Blacks accused of unpaid debts, their four children; and the vagrancy, or other infractions real Joneses: Richard, Rebecca, and or imagined could be punished their four youngsters. with “terms of servitude”—in Curiously, the caulkers’ trail other words, a return to now leads well away from the enslavement. water, to an erstwhile catering But for at least part of the hall in the Northeast Baltimore antebellum period, enslaved neighborhood of Overlea. This Blacks, free Blacks, and whites is the home of the Natural largely worked together in Fells History Society of Maryland, Point’s bustling shipyards, where husband-and-wife birthplace of the sleek Baltimore archeologists, Jason Clippers. Talbot County-born Shellenhamer and Lisa Kraus, Frederick Douglass witnessed this are curators. They also run a cohesion shortly after arriving in nonprofit archaeology town in 1836 for his second (and organization that performed a final) period of urban bondage. series of volunteer digs at the Still a teenager, he was hired on The interior of a caulkers' house on S. Wolfe Street. Caulkers’ Houses, unearthing as an apprentice caulker, learning (Karl Merton Ferron/Permission from Baltimore Sun Media. more than 10,000 artifacts from a trade while handing over his All Rights Reserved) the postage-stamp backyards wages to a white master. “White where numerous privies once and black ship carpenters worked stood. (They continue to monitor the ongoing stabilization side-by-side and no one seemed to see any impropriety,” efforts as the work uncovers layers of history in and around Douglass wrote in his autobiography. “All hands seemed well the houses.) satisfied. Many of the black carpenters were free men.” A sampling of what they found spills out across a As it happened, this biracial cooperation was short-lived. folding table: pieces of pottery and dishware, a spoon, Pressured by the swelling ranks of working-class white broken clay pipes, some marbles, a thimble, and other immigrants, white ship carpenters suddenly refused to work artifacts of domestic life from over 180 years ago. In a way, with their Black counterparts. A hapless Douglass, though it’s extraordinary in its very ordinariness. “It looks strikingly tangential to the fray, was savagely beaten amidst the similar to what’s been found in working-class Fells Point violence that consumed the shipyards. In the end, whites sites associated with white families,” Lisa Kraus says. forcefully took control of all the skilled maritime trades, save “While that might seem insignificant, it speaks to the ship caulking. Here, Blacks dug in their heels, creating the

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earning power of the African American caulkers, which By the time the Civil War’s first blood was spilled in they fought for and were savvy about maintaining in the Baltimore, the Black caulkers had left Wolfe Street. But Black middle of the 19th century.” maritime craftsmen had one more gambit to maintain a What is unusual is the hoard of writing slates and slate foothold on the waterfront, their boldest and most ambitious pencils uncovered. These small slate rectangles could be of all. What to do when white-owned shipyards refuse to written on with a pencil-like slate stylus, like a primitive hire Black workers? Open a Black-owned shipyard. handheld chalkboard. While their backs are not stamped A short walk from the Caulkers’ Houses brings you to “Property of East Baltimore Mental Improvement,” it seems Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park. Run by the probable that these might have been used by the group, Living Classrooms Foundation, it includes a museum within perhaps even by Douglass himself. an 1840s warehouse. It was closed because of COVID-19, but “We found so many of them, and we know from I arranged with Julia Muller, the Foundation’s education Frederick Douglass and other sources that the East Baltimore coordinator, for a quick walk-through. Myers was a free-born Mental Improvement Association was really active during Black ship’s-caulker-turned-labor leader who helped found their time of the Caulkers’ Association, the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry and that it was something that was Dock Company in 1866, a shipyard that happening inside people’s households,” ultimately employed hundreds of Black "The number of Kraus says. “The number of writing slates caulkers (and some white ones). The writing slates and and pencils that we found in this tiny museum’s exhibits track the doings of space is comparable to what a 19thboth its namesake men, including pencils that we century school might have.” Douglass’s train trip to freedom disguised found in this tiny Alas, the Black caulkers’ hold on their as a sailor and wielding borrowed space is comparable industry was not to last. Previously, the seaman’s papers. swelling numbers of white immigrant When the caulkers’ houses are to what a 19thlaborers pushed free Blacks from the restored, a more complete picture of their century school waterfront, but the demise of the Black unique Fells Point history will emerge. might have." caulkers was likely an opportunist power “Did you know many of the free Blacks grab by whites who hated immigrants, the used their earnings to buy the freedom of Know-Nothings. their relatives?” Muller asks after I meet Following national trends, nativist secret societies began her by the large metal sculpture of Douglass’ leonine head forming in Baltimore in the early 1850s, their members that sits on a plaza overlooking a working boatyard. “And viscerally hostile to immigrants and Catholics. When that’s another way they were able to create such a big outsiders asked about their activities, participants had a community. If your cousin or brother or other relation is stock reply: “I Know Nothing.” This refrain became a name enslaved, you buy their freedom and have them come live for the political party that grew from the movement, also with you and work as a caulker.” referred to as the American Party. Muller says she hopes to erect signage on the “Trail of Today’s bruising political battles over ballot access and Tears” featuring a map of area slave pens where the enslaved voting rights pale before the literally bruising and bloody men and women were corralled before being marched in battles the Know-Nothings brought to elections, when violent shackles through Fells Point for southbound ships. gangs—with names such as Plug Uglies, Blood Tubs, and Rip Meanwhile, much of the existing Douglass-related Raps—attacked immigrant voters and political rivals in the interpretive signage around the waterfront is weathered to streets. Know-Nothings soon infiltrated city government and near illegibility and the Douglass-Myers Museum exhibits the police. (Baltimore even had a pair of Know-Nothing could use tweaking. There is work to be done on this end of mayors between 1854 and 1860.) Against this corrupt the story as well. backdrop, a Know-Nothing gang calling themselves the Tigers But when the Black maritime story is effectively and fully set their eyes on the Black caulkers and their well-paying jobs. told (and COVID safety measures are, themselves, history), Thus began what have been called the Caulkers’ Riots. Fells Point should emerge as a compelling destination for In the end, through fisticuffs and a look-the-other-way African American history and tourism. “Too often now,” police force, the Tigers and their allies took over the Muller says, “people come here to pose for a photo by the caulking jobs—despite being horrible at the craft. “The Douglass sculpture, then just leave.” Tigers who physically bludgeoned their way into caulking the boat Virginia did such an appallingly bad job, it came Brennen Jensen is the co-author of A History Lover’s back within two months because of leaking,” Kraus says. Guide to Baltimore. January/February 2022

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

00 ¹ YEARS OF

BIRD BI

BANDING BAN STORY & PHOTOS BY MART Y LEGR AND

The little song sparrow doesn’t know it, but it may become a bellwether for its species. Feet up, head gently cradled between Jim Gruber’s index and middle fingers, it fusses as the bespectacled researcher crimps a tiny aluminum anklet around one of its legs. Further avian indignity ensues. The bird’s wing is measured. Its estimated age and its gender are noted. Gruber blows softly on its breast and belly feathers to assess its fat content. Finally, he weighs the sparrow by carefully inserting it headfirst into a long plastic cone attached to a digital scale. Only after its vital statistics have been recorded does the sparrow get to resume its daily activities. The bird’s delicate physical lasts about 60 seconds. The coded band it now carries for the rest of its days will help scientists trace its movements and habits, and discern threats to the species’ survival. Bird banding, as practiced here at Foreman’s Branch Bird Observatory on the upper Eastern Shore, has been around for more than a century, but scientific inquiry into

“Species extinctions have defined the global biodiversity crisis, 42

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January/February 2022

Left: A savannah sparrow awaits release at Foreman’s Branch. Right: Libby Witham untangles a sparrow from a mist net.

the mysterious ways of birds is more important than ever. Recent studies have documented in stark terms North America’s plummeting avian populations. Writing in the journal Science, researchers reported in 2019 that nearly three billion of the continent’s breeding adult birds have been lost since 1970—less than a human lifetime. “Species extinctions have defined the global biodiversity crisis, but extinction begins with loss in abundance of individuals,” the report warned. Birds are disappearing across all habitats. Grassland birds have declined by 53 percent in the last 50 years, forest birds by 22 percent, and shorebirds by 37 percent since 1974, according to the North American Bird Conservation Initiative. Even common species such as song sparrows are down by over 30 percent. Were it not for decades of extensive data-gathering by professional and citizen scientists, these incremental losses might have eluded detection for too long, leaving us with silent springs (as author-conservationist Rachel Carson famously warned of songbird decline) and flightless falls. “Three billion birds gone. That tells you to focus your energy on better understanding what’s going on,” says Antonio (Tony) Celis-Murillo, director of the Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL), during an interview on BBL’s campus. Founded in 1920, the federal agency has been collecting, managing, and disseminating banding data ever since. Its records form an enduring and invaluable resource for

but extinction begins with loss in abundance of individuals.” January/February 2022

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

MARTY LEGRAND

Clockwise from above: Maren Gimpel checks mist nets; Gimpel collects a bird from a mist net; a celebrity bird—a sharp-shinned hawk—is ready to be released; an ovenbird gets a radio tag.

“The BBL is the link between the scientists who are going to apply the science and people in the community collecting the data.”

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studying bird biology, behavior, and population trends. This bottomless memory bank of bird knowledge is located in the heart of Bay country, at the Eastern Ecological Science Center, part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Md. “With birds in your hand, you get to know them better and closer,” Celis-Murillo says of banders, all of whom must be permitted through his agency. “The BBL is the link between the scientists who are going to apply the science and people in the community collecting the data. Everyone who has a role in the chain of data can clearly see that they’re helping birds.” Foreman’s Branch, part of Washington College’s 5,000acre River and Field Campus near Chestertown, has been banding birds since 1998. It’s the only major migratory bird banding station on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Gruber founded the station (which also conducts avian research) and serves as its director. On an unusually sultry October morning, he, field ecologist Maren Gimpel, and a small group of Washington College interns and assistants are processing

birds during the station’s busy fall migration season, which stretches from August through November. On average, Foreman’s Branch bands more than 10,000 birds (representing about 120 species) in the fall, triple the bandings done during its more concentrated spring season. The station has banded nearly 350,000 birds during its existence. The banders begin before sunrise, unfurling more than 1,200 yards of nearly invisible nylon mist netting to be hung at nets deployed in fields, woods, hedgerows, and stream banks on the property. (The station, which occupies a fraction of the college’s outdoors campus, takes its name from a tributary of the Chester River.) Seven days a week, weather permitting, they check the nets hourly from daybreak to early afternoon, carefully untangling birds caught in the gossamer-like webbing. The birds are placed in mesh drawstring bags, which are then attached to the necklace of colorful carabiners each bander wears. After the net checks—which are briskly paced—everyone returns to the banding lab, a rustic wooden shed where a landowner previously raised pheasants for hunting. These days it’s a kitted-out biologist’s field office: shelves stacked with reference books (including thick volumes of The Birds of North America), a chalkboard for tallying bandings, a pin-studded map of the United States showing where station-banded birds were recovered, and a stash of essential supplies (Buzz Away, Itch Nix, cookies from a natural foods store that Gruber and his wife own). Business operations are conducted at a long workbench equipped with special banding pliers and a variety of BBL-issued bands, arranged by size. Inscribed on each is a unique eight- or nine-digit number and the BBL website where retrieved bands can be reported (reportband.gov). The tiny tags unlock a trove of avian insight. In banding, even brief examinations reveal important data about the bird in hand. The amount of yellowish-orange belly fat determines whether it is migrating or not. (Birds store fat for their arduous seasonal journeys.) Ecologist Gimpel fans out a sparrow’s wing, identifying it as a juvenile by its partial complement of black-shafted feathers. A mature bird’s wing would be entirely covered with them, she says. An assistant records the band’s identification number and the bird’s biological dossier on a clipboard, information that will be submitted to the BBL database. Data from migrating birds banded in Canada are also sent to the BBL, making the Maryland facility the world’s premier repository of scientific avian information. “It’s a very important resource, with over one hundred years of data,” director Celis-Murillo says. “We have a little more than 77 million records, and records of at least five million encounters (the term for banded birds whose information is

Bander Maddy Ondo with a captured blue jay

recovered). Once you have such an amount of data you can really be clever in finding an answer to many, many questions related to ecology, pollution, biology—whatever.” America’s first great student of birds, John James Audubon, is credited with being the first to band them. In 1804, he tied silver thread to the legs of Eastern phoebes nesting near his Pennsylvania home to see whether they’d return to their nests the following year. (Several did.) A century later, a Smithsonian Institution researcher named Paul Bartsch used a more sophisticated method to determine whether the aquatic snails he was studying were being transported by black-crowned night herons from one waterway to another. Bartsch fastened aluminum leg bands bearing the year (1902), a serial number, and the

January/February 2022

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

“We’re trying to make sure the birds are going to be well handled, well treated, and that the banding science won’t harm birds.”

Smithsonian’s return address on 23 nestling herons to track their movements. Only one band was returned, but Bartsch continued the experiment and other researchers soon adopted his monitoring technique. Banding became federalized with passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which prohibited killing and trafficking in protected species of migratory birds often hunted for their plumage. The BBL was established two years later. Now under the auspices of the fourth different federal agency in its history, the USGS-run facility issues all bird banding permits in the United States. It ensures applicants have a scientific reason for the banding they want to conduct and that banders have the proper and latest training for the species they wish to handle. Applicants submit proposals to the BBL, where a four-member panel reviews them and grants or denies banding permits. “It’s ultimately all for the welfare of birds,” Celis-Murillo explains. “We’re trying to make sure the birds are going to be well handled, well treated, and that the banding science won’t harm birds.”

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Bands range in size and design from the daintiest of rings for hummingbirds to beak-proof bands for hawks and other raptors inclined to remove them. They’re supplied gratis by the BBL to more than 5,000 permitted banders in the United States. Canada, which jointly supervises North American bird banding with the BBL, issues its own permits to that nation’s 1,000 to 2,000 banders. Would-be banders receive training—some at hands-on workshops, but more commonly through apprenticeships with programs such as Foreman’s Branch’s. Director Gruber says he was just 15 years old when he began banding birds decades ago under the tutelage of an experienced bander. (Today, the BBL requires that all banders be at least 21 years old.) Among his early experiences, Gruber worked for “Operation Recovery,” the first major initiative to band large numbers of fall migrants along the Atlantic Coast. One of its lead researchers was a Maryland birding legend, Chandler S. (Chan) Robbins, a Patuxent Research Center biologist who launched the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) in 1966, a pioneering annual roadside count by skilled birdwatchers. The research center still uses BBS numbers to assess songbird abundance and BBS data greatly informed the 2019 report published by Science. Gruber’s colleague, Gimpel, has been banding birds since 2006. Leaving a government desk job, she seized an opportunity to work at a banding station on a remote island off Nova Scotia. Conditions were spartan, but Gimpel found her calling. “I realized this is basically the coolest thing that I’ve ever done,” she says. One of Gimpel’s and Gruber’s proteges today is Washington College intern Libby Witham, a sophomore. She developed a love for birds early, she says, birding with her father at their home in New Jersey. She wants to find a job in avian research after graduating.

“That’s one challenge in bird banding is finding the experience,” Gimpel says. “We have more people who want to learn than there are jobs.” The station uses volunteers in addition to its paid interns, but only when there’s time enough time to train suitable candidates. Good hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity, and keen observational skills make for a successful bander, says Gimpel, a certified banding trainer. In addition to gathering basic biological data, Foreman’s Branch collaborates on projects with other avian research institutions: collecting tick samples to study disease transmission, observing avian behavioral patterns to test bird-friendly glass, using tiny radio transmitters to track by satellite birds that survive building strikes. Increasingly, the BBL is incorporating such ancillary data into its database, a boon for researchers. Currently, U.S. and Canadian banders submit records digitally via a web portal, but Celis-Murillo says one day the BBL also will have an app for that, enabling banders to input data directly from the field. Quality control is paramount. BBL computers employ filters that scan for anomalous information, flagging aberrant entries for internal review before they’re accepted. “We have a group of biologists who have a lot of

experience. They’re amazing,” Celis-Murillo says. “If one record says this is this species caught on this date in this location, they immediately say, ‘That’s two days late. That’s not normal.’ They know by the day, by the location, by the species.” The biologists work with banders to resolve discrepancies. The BBL’s primary mission is bird conservation. One of its oldest (over a half century and counting) and most successful collaborations is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Hunters are among those most likely to find and report certain species of banded birds. Data from those encounters helps the wildlife service establish hunting regulations that protect bird populations while preserving waterfowl and gamebird hunting. Wood ducks, once nearly extinct and federally protected until 1941, have recovered thanks to habitat restoration and monitoring efforts, including banding. (The River and Field Campus is among these ducks’ breeding grounds.) But for every imperiled species rescued—wood ducks, bald eagles, whooping cranes, wild flamingos—there are many more in need of intervention. In September, federal officials declared 11 U.S. bird species extinct, officially removing them from the Endangered Species Act that sought to protect them. In Maryland, there are currently 14 bird species on the state’s endangered list. Virginia lists seven. The primary culprits are habitat loss and climate change. A recent National Audubon

Clockwise from top: A blue jay waits to be released; Jim Gruber bands a small sparrow; this ovenbird will carry a radio tag to track its movements; one of several types of radio tags used in avian research.

January/February 2022

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

“I haven’t seen a picture of someone handling a bird where that person isn’t smiling. That says it all.”

Citizens who report band information Society report, “Survival by now receive certificates of Degrees,” found that two-thirds of appreciation. Celis-Murillo would like America’s birds are threatened with to further motivate bird lovers by extinction if global warming and opening up the dedicated banders’ sea level rise continue apace. But if portal so the public can view temperature increases can be migration maps for backyard birds limited globally, the report notes, and discover where to find banding three out of four threatened workshops and materials—anything species—such as whip-poor-wills, to facilitate greater public woodcocks, red-headed engagement. woodpeckers, and Eastern towhees At Foreman’s Branch, the day’s in Maryland—can yet be saved. operations wind down. The “Climate change is making station has added to its fall all scientists reassess our tally of unusual species, which strategies to move forward with already includes, among the science of conservation,” others, a yellow-billed cuckoo the BBL’s Celis-Murillo says. in August and a whip-poor“As chief, I see it as a really will in September. Today’s good opportunity to revamp rarity is an intergrade Northern our activities in the lab, flicker, a yellow-shafted/ improve our partnerships, red-shafted hybrid. and evolve together.” Yet another celebrity A bird enthusiast since he emerges from the final net was a teenager in his native check, a sharp-shinned hawk. Mexico, Celis-Murillo earned (On average, the station bands degrees in biology, evolution, fewer than a dozen annually.) and environmental science. He’s After recovering following been with the BBL for five years 1972’s DDT ban, the sharpie and takes a glass-half-full population is declining again, approach to federal budget cuts according to the National and staffing shortages that have Audubon Society. The beset his agency in recent years. numbered band that “I don’t blame our Chesapeake Conservation leadership because it’s not just Corps member and college the BBL, but across all alum Maddy Ondo affixes on government agencies,” he says. this hawk’s leg may help “I know it’s not personal. It’s not Bander Maddy Ondo learns to identify a hawk. biologists determine what’s that we’re doing a bad job.” happening to them. Given the challenges, however, The hawk’s large yellow Celis-Murillo is determined to eyes glare as two young paparazzi banders quickly snap raise the BBL’s profile as a national resource for birds in a closeups prior to the bird’s release—a human-raptor world of peril. Instagram moment that ends with a whoosh of the “For those of us who understand all the possibilities departing hawk’s wings. Their connection is palpable. of data,” he says, “we feel like we are sitting on a pot of “Having a bird in your hand is special,” Celis-Murillo gold.” He’s sharing the wealth, recently launching says. “I haven’t seen a picture of someone handling a bird “Banding Without Borders,” an initiative through which where that person isn’t smiling. That says it all.” the BBL can exchange ideas and methodology with banders across the globe. Celis-Murillo also emphasizes the agency’s historic Maryland native and award-winning contributor Marty dependency on the public. “It’s important for us to be clear LeGrand writes about nature, the environment, and Chesapeake history. that we really rely on the community science part,” he says.

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January/February 2022

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WILD CHESAPEAKE

Duck and Cover Gunning the Susquehanna Flats

Nearly half of America’s canvasback ducks used to winter on the Chesapeake

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UPPER CHESAPEAKE OUTFITTERS

’m glad I don’t have to, but if forced to choose one duck over another, then I suppose I’d pick the canvasback. Definitely in the mix are scaups (usually called bluebills or blackheads by duck hunters), as are pintails. But of the wild fowl I’ve witnessed do their thing, no duck compares to the canvasback's combination of power and grace. Cans can dive-bomb to the water from dizzying heights and pierce a 25-knot headwind without flinching. Once on the water, they’re as content as a cat on a quilt, even when the Bay is at its roughest. Canvasbacks are powerful swimmers, but like other diving ducks, they are clumsy on land because their legs are located far back on the body. Historically, nearly half of North America’s canvasbacks, the largest

Body booting on the upper Bay

diving duck species, used to winter in the Chesapeake Bay region, according to the Chesapeake Bay Program. The figure has since declined to about 20 percent due to a decline in bay grasses, their preferred food. Part of the canvasback’s scientific name, valisineria, derives from the scientific

January/February 2022

name of the underwater grass called wild celery, Vallisneria americana. However, canvasback populations appear to be slowly recovering due to better protection measures. During the halcyon days of Chesapeake gunning, beginning in the latter part of 19th century, untold numbers of waterfowl lured sportsmen from all over to the country to the Bay’s hallowed hunting grounds. The Susquehanna Flats ranked high on that list for hunters who pursued canvasback and other waterfowl. The influx of hunters helped support many people, particularly the families in and around Havre de Grace, Md. Back then, it was legal to sell game birds, a favorite for the well-heeled clientele who frequented Baltimore and Philadelphia restaurants,

ROBERT AMPULA/MARYLAND DNR

by Capt. Chris D. Dollar

Decoys on display in Havre de Grace

planted in the Susquehanna Flats. One such tactic is called body booting, a traditional style of waterfowl hunting developed in Maryland in the 1950s that remains popular in the upper Bay. Gunners stand in the shallow waters of the Susquehanna Flats and conceal themselves among a spread of decoys,

RANDY DUCHAINE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

as well as ones in Midwest cities such as Chicago. Locals developed tools, tactics, and techniques for both market and sport hunting. Many legendary decoy carvers hailed from the waterfront town of Havre de Grace, and the town earned the nickname, “Decoy Capital of the World.” It is internationally famous for its decoy carvers, who originally made utilitarian dekes for the sole purpose of fooling waterfowl within range of the sport gunner’s shotgun or the market gunners’ punt gun. The Havre de Grace Decoy Museum showcases the best of the best carvers, from present-day craftsmen and women to legendary masters from a bygone era. In modern times, many more people buy carved decoys as works of art to be admired and displayed rather than as a working decoy that floats among a hunter’s rig. Today’s waterfowl hunters and some outfitters continue the onwater traditions that have their roots

v-boards, and “stick ups”—the latter being a ridiculously oversized decoy silhouette that you hide behind. One of the younger practitioners of this style of gunning is Captain Ryan Popp, who owns and operates Upper Chesapeake Outfitters. He’s intent on keeping this legacy going. I’m friends

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with his father, Jeff, who runs Vista Lady Charters, and I first met Captain Ryan many years ago when he was still in high school. If I recall correctly, he didn’t yet hold a driver’s license, yet he had a decoy trail stuffed with various fake ducks and geese. From an early age, he knew he wanted to make a career out of his passion for hunting and fishing. I’ve hunted with Ryan when we were treated to a great mallard hunt on a picture-postcard snowy day and we’ve done at least two successful goose hunts on pastoral farmland in Harford County. Today, as a professional charter captain and outfitter, he gets real enjoyment from sharing his love of the outdoors with others who like to hunt waterfowl and catch fish. Although Popp and his guides follow the birds to offer their clients the best chance at a successful hunt, hunting ducks and Canada geese on the Susquehanna Flats holds a very special place for him. Typically, they’ll launch the boat from Havre de Grace, which allows for a conveniently short boat ride to the hunting grounds on the Flats. “As the sun rises, the Flats begins to come alive with birds moving, and the excitement begins to build,” the younger Popp says. “The birds will begin their morning flights to feed and land into the spread of decoys and hunters awaiting them. As the birds enter the spread, the shot is called

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 52 January/February 2022

October 2021

and you will rise from your crouched position behind the stick-up and take aim at your trophy. It is typical to have many shots (at birds) within 10–15 yards of your position. This hunt provides a truly unique experience that was made famous on the Chesapeake Bay. Few hunts rival the thrills of body booting on the Flats, where it all began.” Waterfowlers are a peculiar breed. It seems the nastier the weather, the more they crave being out in it. No doubt, snotty weather can be instrumental for to a successful waterfowl hunt, so when the weather turns snotty, duck hunters can become monomaniacal in their quest for the perfect toll. That said, I’ve never tried body booting, perhaps the only kind of Chesapeake waterfowl hunting I haven’t experienced. I don’t have a plausible explanation as to why, except maybe time constraints. And that’s a weak excuse at best. Whatever the reason, it’s a big hole in my gunning resume that needs to be filled. I’m hoping to persuade the Popps to let me tag along this winter.

Capt. Chris Dollar is a fishing guide, tackle shop owner, and all-around Chesapeake outdoorsman with more than 25 years’ experience in avoiding office work.

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Jan/Feb 2022

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Havre de Grace, Md

Richmond

Chestertown, Md