Herald - Lantern - Dispatch 21 August '85 23

Man and Bay Together Oyster Schooners Recalled

The following speech was presented as part of the " Man and Bay Together" conference held last May. with the University of Delaware and the Wetlands Institute. Stohe Harbor, cooperating on the project to explore the past, present. and future of the Delaware Bay. By DAVID COHEN They still dredge for oysters under sail on Chesapeake Bay. using singlemasted skipjacks. On Delaware Bay they switched to diesel power in 1945. When we began work on Schooners on the Bay a half-hour documentary film coproduced by the New Jersey Historical Commission, the New Jersey State Council on the Art$, and New Jersey Network with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts — we were a little disappointed that we didn't have the opportunity to film oystering under sail. BUT ON second thought, we realized that the transition from sail to power constituted an equally interesting story, especially since the change occured within the memory of living oystermen. At least one oysterman still working— Fenton Anderson of Port Norris— started out in the days of sail. In the film Mr. Anderson describes how his boat, the Martha Meerwald, was altered when they went to power. When they cut down her masts, the Martha Meerwald technically was no longer a schooner, yet the graceful lines of her hull can still be seen. NOT ONLY were we able to show how the boats were changed in the transition from sail to power, we also were able to show the impact of technological innovation on the industry and on the boats. The culling machine— a machine that mechanically separates the oysters from the debris dredged up from the bay— changed the oyster boats into floating factories. Crews became smaller; what previously took eight to 10 men could now be done by two. In the film, we contrast Fenton Anderson, the last hold-out against the culling machine, and Todd Reeves, who at the age of 20 is one of the youngest oysterboat captains in the fleet. TODD WORKS for the Bivalve Packing Co., a large corporation that is owned out-of-state. Todd's boat, the Mary Ella Jenkins, is fully mechanized with a culling machine and dumper doors that automatically dump the dredges. Yet depsite this equipment, the Mary Ella Jenkins is still an old wooden boat, built as a sailing schooner. John DuBoise of Absecon owned a small boatyard in Mauricetown. He also worked as an oysterboat captain prior to his retirement. He describes how he learned how to build oyster boats, and how wooden boats differ from steel boats.

WHAT WAS once a boatbuilding tradition in New Jersey has become a repair tradition. We "filmed the Martha Meerwald being hauled out of the water for her bi-annual maintenance and repair at the Dorchester Boatyard, one of the last boatyards in New Jersey with men who know how to work on wooden boats. As John DuBois says in the film; "To know how to repair wooden boats, you have to know how they are built." We also filmed the launching at the Dorchester Boatyard of the Robert L. Morgan, the first oysterboat built in New Jersey in the last 50 years. IT IS A state-of-the-art steel boat, and there is distrust among some of the old oystermen about whether steel boats will last as long or perform as well as the old wooden boats. Wooden boats are spoken of as if they were people. "A captain and his boat are one thing," says Fenton Anderson. He tells an anecdote about how they would speak about the captain, not the boat, undergoing repairs. There is life-cycle imagery in the folk terminology about these boats— they are "christened," "put in a coffin," "die," and "are buried." John Du Bois tells an anecdote about how one of his boats, the Samuel J a c o b y . was "breathing"— that is, her hull began to separate in rough weather and they had to put it into the Cohansey River for repairs. FOLLOWING this lifecycle parallel, the film shows the birth of wooden boats using historic photographs of boatbuilding. the death of wooden boats in the skeletal wrecks "buried" along the shores of the Maurice River, and, finally, the rebirth of two New Jersey oyster boats restored to sail to take tourists on Windjammer cruises on Penobscot Bay in Maine. John DuBois explains how he was hired to raise the Issac Evans from the banks of the Maurice River, and he describes how Doug and Linda Lee came down from Maine to purchase and restore the boat. THE SCENE switches to Maine, where Doug and Linda Lee tell how they almost completely rebuilt the Evans and adapted h«fr to the tourist trade as what is somewhat derisively called a "dude" boat or a "skin" boat— references to the boats as nautical counterparts to dude ranches with a clientele of young women clad in scanty bathing suits. Captain Ed Glaser explains that the Issac Evans is not a museum. She is a working schooner, but she no longer is an oysterboat. Her lines were changed when they rajsed her deck and added cabins to accommodate tourists. SHE NO LONGER had a floating platform for the work of oystering. The old photographs of oysterboats under sail seem to come alive in the sequences

showing the restored boats in Maine. But it is only an illusion, because historical restoration is never totally accurate. We cannot recreate the past; we can only try to imitate it. This theme of the relationship between traditional use and historic restoration is paralleled in the music of the film. A folksong-revival singer named Jim Albertson, who lives in Mauricetown but was bom in Atlantic City, told us about an old song about a race between two New Jersey boats. "The Samuel Jacoby and the Eloisa Moore." THIS WAS the same Samuel Jacoby once owned by John DuBois. Albertson found the lyrics to the song in an old newspaper clipping, and he put it to music in the style of an old sea chanty. From his own interviews, he found that the song was sung to a melody somewhat similar to the one he made up. It was not a work song or sea chanty, however; the only work songs are hymns sung by the AfroAmerican oyster shuckers. IN OUR interviews we learned that the oystermen used to race their boats back from the oyster grounds, and at least once, in 1929, they staged a great oysterboat race for the public. In fact, the J&E Riggin. one of the two New Jersey boats in Maine, won that race. But they have an annual race in Maine between the schooners in the Windjammer fleet. In the film we staged a race between the Issac Evans and the J&E Riggin. The music we used was Jim Albertson singing the song about the " Samuel Jacoby and the Eloisa • Moore."

/ BUT WE ASKED Jim to sing the song in the old style, rather than in his own sea chanty version. The oystermen do not think of themselves as seafarers; they are baymen with one foot on the water and othe other foot on land. That is why they use - agricultural imagery to ( describe their work— plan- t ting, harvesting, seed beds. / etc The implied com- \ parison we make in the ( film is between historical r restoration of the / schooners and revival of V this folksong. This com- ( parison might not be ob- ( vious to the nonfolklorist. Finally, I'd like to close with a footnote about the Issac Evans. Last year, she went down when a gust of wind hit her unexpectedly in Edgemoggin Reach. Several passengers were treated for hypothermia, but there were no fatalities. A few months later the Issac Evans was raised again to begin her third reincarnation. IFYOUDONT READ THIS, YOU'D BETTER HOPE SOMEONE ELSE DOES.

t— BAY GARDEN—^ FLOWERS Fresh Flowers - Fruit Baskets - Plants - Crafts] Wedding and Funeral Arrangements j (1 jN ^ 0 W3\S^^ n » — r-» — 1 V-n r-l rA !fj I (I 5708 SOUNDS AVE., SEA ISLE ''<] J , [I. (57th at the Bay) * N1 i "I ' 1 i «1 t»fi I'H I.I I 1 Bakj Boutique :o r. 25% off : j C • JACKETS and SNOWSUITS ! J •—Continuing Summer Clearance Sale— ) ?- • Up to 70% Off Selected Items * V- • WAYSIDE VILLAGE, MARMORA • V I 390-3760 mmm*. -< V* 10-5 Mon. -Sat. 10-7 Friday ^ \ Tues. & Thurs. 4-8 Distinctive Designer I I Sat. 12-4 Discounts j rt? STOP IN FOR OUR I I AjfOTL. SUMMER 7 X r . ^ CLE AR ANCE I CLOTHtSf/oRSE SAUT 1 472 Shorr^td. |Kl. 9| / \/ Owner* J T Clrrltfonl. NJ. //' "*A Belly Hard I 1 al rear - upMair* I/ and C L 861 -.1.181 J) Carolyn Young / 1 S/Main St., Cape May Court House Entrance On Mechanic St. 465-2155 Breakwater Plaza North Cape May rnggm 884-1994 Open 6 Days A Week ^ y

f# l=i, EE£Sr- || I T 1 T ?1 t* Open Hi AM-Ifl PM Even- Day? \'t^- \ V| Viiii A- Jl Perry Street. Cape May 1 SUMMER ["I SUZ,E'S DUTCHMAN'S . cITN SHIRTS N THINGS nplvI T-shiris«Swcal Shirts L/Lll | JoRRiiiR Suit. •Transfer- . NovelUt'S*Cutlerv LlL/i UlteringaKmhroid-tias _u. ' Activewear-Swimwear Ik-ach c„«rup» Collectibles Pa & Accessories Nai/ it »n your shin' Dutch and German Items 884-3422 884-1177 J 884-3837 « 886-641 1 Trattoria 1 o&mtws I « OPEN PORCH DINING Gifts and Handcrafted Q/ Refers & Italian Accented Cuisine ,, lie nis of .Quality Confections Fresh Pasta & Seafood Selection of SINCE 1 886 884-1144 Teddy Bears and Dolls 889-0200 « 884-2490 POPCORN AIM IEWELRV CO. I PALACE , TAC0S •With Flavors Fit / ( Cold, Diamonds. Custom Designs & Tacos*Burritos#£nchiladas For A King More. We Buy & Sell Cold. Silver. Coins & Estate Jewelry For Take-Outs Call ^S^fav^^onwjfaday!^ Open 10 am daily. 884-7552 ^ 884-3648^^^ ^