10 minute read
Reclaiming History
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nostalgia. It seems that little Whaler Super Sports, powered by Johnson engines, were a lot of people’s first boat. “I had a boat just like that when I was a teenager in Oxford.” “My first boat was a Super Sport. They’re the perfect size—easy on gas, easy to maintain. I wish I still had that boat.” The moral of the story seems to be that you can size up, add bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, you can’t really improve upon something that is already pretty damn great. It’s a good thing to keep in mind when you’re surfing the monster wake from another big cabin cruiser.
Maybe someday we’ll get something bigger; an 18-foot Montauk like the one I grew up on, perhaps. But for now, we’re happy to kick around in our feisty little Whaler. I like to think of her as the logical progression in a long line of Chester River small craft—the log canoe, the bateau, the deadrise skiff, and now, Elver, all built for one person to run in smaller waters. Where my grandfather ran trotlines north of the Crumpton bridge in the ’40s on his bateau, we now explore on our own river boat. With one lucky purchase, and a little elbow grease, we’ve fully unlocked a truly essential Chesapeake experience. It feels like a birthright, and a joyous one at that.
If you’re heading up the Chester on a summer evening, you might spot a little Whaler with a blue bimini. If there are two people on board who look like they’re having the time of their lives, that’s probably us. Give us a wave, and we’ll wave back, in the universal language of on-the-water camaraderie. Just do us a favor and watch your wake when you pass by.
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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.
TALK OF THE BAY
Reclaiming History
An Oxford museum celebrates Black founding families.
By Niambi Davis
In February 2021, the Water’s Edge Museum opened at 101 Mill Street in Oxford, Md. The building that once hosted African American dances now houses a collection of drawings, paintings, lithographs, and writings both informative and celebratory of African American life on the Eastern Shore. The Museum invites visitors to “find themselves at the water’s edge” and learn the stories of Maryland’s Black founding families. Museum director Candace Henry, the Eastern Shore’s first woman of color in such a role, offers this definition: “The founding fathers acknowledged that without the enslaved they would have been unable to build the country. The term founding Black families acknowledges that fact.”
According to both Jeffrey Moaney, director of founding black family genealogy and histories, and Annie Miller, director of education, the Water’s Edge story began long before the creation of a museum was ever considered. Dr. Barbara Paca discovered the paintings of Ruth Starr Rose while working on another project. Rose, a white artist, painted portraits of African American life on Maryland’s Eastern Shore that refuted every stereotype of the early 1900s. Impressed by the work of the woman she first assumed to be black, Dr. Paca began to acquire Rose’s work and in the process discovered the artist’s life beyond painting. Not only did Ruth Starr Rose capture the images of her neighbors in the villages of Unionville and Copperville, she invited them to her home and worshipped with them at Copperville’s DeShields United Methodist Church. “I give credit to Ruth Starr Rose for being a pioneer of her time,” says Jeffrey, also a descendant of many of Rose’s subjects. “She refused to paint the stereotypes of African Americans so prevalent in the depiction of the time.” Through genteel but revolutionary resistance, Rose fought against the status quo.
BERNARD MOANEY AS A DUCK HUNTER - 1931
ANNA MAY MOANEY - 1930
Rose’s portraits and lithographs depict life in the Eastern Shore’s Black community in a way few painters of the time did. MOANEY BOY ON THE STAIRS - 1930
HELL’S CROSSING - 1933
Of Dr. Paca’s growing collection, Miller recalls that “one piece led to another.” People showed up with items that had been stored away in their attics. A painting discovered in the basement of the Academy Arts building in Easton has been restored and now hangs on a wall at the Water’s Edge Museum.
Like Ruth Starr Rose, Dr. Paca and her family attended church with their African American neighbors. At Oxford’s Waters United Methodist Church, she met pianist Tessier Moaney. From the portraits she owned, Dr. Paca recognized the family name. When she asked if Mrs. Moaney could identify them, she informed Dr. Paca that the subjects were her brother and sisters-in-law. Mrs. Moaney in turn put Dr. Paca in touch with Jeffrey Moaney,
MARYLAND CRAB PICKERS - 1933
Mrs. Moaney’s grandson and the family’s historian and genealogist. Through Dr. Paca’s relationship as a cousin to the current owners of Wye House, Jeffrey Moaney learned that the 1762 birth of ancestor Isaac Copper predates the country’s independence. “We found this history through each other.”
Although establishing a museum for her collection played no part in Dr. Paca’s plans, living in Oxford during COVID-19 provided the perfect opportunity. In February 2021 the Water’s Edge Museum opened to honor the families “who harnessed knowledge and power and placed it firmly in the hands of their descendants.” The works include portraits of the founding Black families painted by Rose and lithographs depicting their lives as sailmakers, farmers, musicians, and watermen. Other walls display the themes of spirituality and military service, daily life and spirituality, the daily life of people of color on the Eastern Shore, and the folio—a collection of articles, letters, lithographs, and articles intended to supplement the exhibits. As a descendant of the Moaney family, seeing their portraits along the museum’s north wall was both moving and inspirational to Mr. Moaney. “As humble as our start and emergence from enslavement was, what they were able to do in building a foundation for our family and other formerly enslaved gives me an immense feeling of pride.”
To further honor these ancestors, on July 4, 2021, exactly 249 years after the last documented intra-American
FANNY E. COPPER - 1930
Rose’s shift to lithographs like this one marked an attempt to share her art with a larger audience.
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slave ship docked at the port of Oxford, guests gathered at the Water’s Edge Museum to honor their memory. In attendance were Maryland First Lady Yumi Hogan, state government representatives, diplomatic representatives from the Republic of South Africa, Museum Board members, guests, and first family descendants. Ann C. Cobb, executive director of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Marker Project, said, “It is long overdue that we acknowledge their sacrifices and commemorate their lives. With ceremony and dedication, we open the door and ask them to join us today. The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project applauds the Town of Oxford for its commitment to truth telling, to justice, to healing as we become one nation… .”
As part of the ceremony of song and libation, a request was presented to the Native American community for permission to place the marker on designated land. Chief Wolf Mother of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians gave permission and offered blessings to the ancestors and to the site where the marker will stand. Brenda Moaney Henry, a descendant of the honored first families, was presented with an original Ruth Starr Rose lithograph of her father as a baby. “This is what the 4th of July is really about,” stated one guest. “Reclaiming it for us as Black people as well. Acknowledging that the America we know and celebrate today could not have been possible without the work of our enslaved ancestors and their descendants.”
“The Museum will always be a safe space,” Annie Miller said. “Here the kids are free to say whatever they feel. We talk about race and we talk about disability. And even if they stay for only an hour, you can see the wheels turning. By the end of their time here we’re having open conversations.”
Young visitors sometimes see themselves at the Water’s Edge, especially when they discover that they too are descendants of the founding families, and declare it their favorite museum. “It’s an encouraging place where they can express themselves, be
Jeffrey Moaney, the museum’s director of founding black family genealogy and histories, is also a founding family descendant.
