Cooperative Living July 2022 - 14

COOPERATIVE FOCUS
THE CITY OF CRISFIELD RES T ORATION PRO JECT
Clear Sailing
(continued from page 11)
seven years passed until the group
bought the country store and tried to
convert it to a museum.
Th state of Maryland came through
with a $75,000 grant. That brought
cheers throughout Chance until
museum board members read fine print
that required state approval of building
alterations, such as replacing worn-out
wooden fl ors or a rusty tin ceiling.
" When they left, we had a meeting, "
says Shores, an accountant by trade.
" We decided to send them a letter
saying, 'Thanks, but no thanks. Here's
your money back.' "
In 2018, workers tore down the
country store and started the process of
building a museum. Donations poured
in, and not just of cash and challenge
grants. A lighting contractor provided
48 lights; a Salisbury store chimed in
with 53 gallons of paint. " I think the
Lord opened the fl odgates for us, "
Shores says. " I see us adding on to this
building. There's not enough room.
We're filling up right now and we're'
gettingmore stuffall the time. "
Like the horse-drawn hearse. A
We're filling up right now and we're
'
fi
d
funeral home operated in the area for
three generations, starting in the 1880s
with the kind oflighted hearse you'd
associate with the procession for a head
ofstate. " He definitely had a horsedrawn
hearse and that's the story, that
a man, Mr.Webster fromDeal Island,
gave it to us, " Shores says. For now, it's
in safekeeping in Whitelock's yard.
DAYDREAMERS
Chuck Collier and his schoolmates
pressed against a second-story window
at Deal Island High School to watch
the skipjacks duringwinter harvest,
their sails ballooning against the watery
blue backdrop. How, they wondered,
did the boats dance across the bay when
the wind blew in only one direction?
" I think all ofus were daydreaming when
12 ● Cooperative Living ●
July 2022
AND THE SEA T OF THE P ANTS
B Y THE RA CK OF THE EYE
we were in high school, " Collier says
more than 60 years later.
Dreams collided with reality when he
was a lad of16 or 17. " We were dredging
shells. These dredge boats, all they did
was load that dredge up every four
minutes. It came up loaded with shells
and you have to shove them back on then the
was a lad of16 or 17. " We were dredging
l
d f
d
el
deck. There were 854 bushels and this
was before lunch. The captain said,
'We can get another load.' "
Collier shakes his head at the
memory. " When I came home, I said,d,
'Well, I don't know if I want to do that.' "
He relates this story while walkingng
the 45-foot length ofthe gleaming,
white-coated City ofCrisfield, a skipjack
pjack
built in 1949 in Reedville, Va., and
owned for most ofits working life
by Art Daniels Jr., his uncle and a
legendary captain in these waters.
Daniels died in 2017 after skippering
into his 90s, so Collier places a premiium
er
um
on the museum's rehabilitation ofthe
Crisfield. He gets a little choked up
when he sees the burn pile in the back
ck
ng
of Scott's Cove Marina, knowing that
could have been the final destination
of an untended Crisfield, taking with
it the passion of his uncle.
Life on the water had its charms and
its challenges. " We did the boat deal
and the oyster deal and the crab deal.
Th re wasn't anything else to do here; it
was the only industry, " Whitelock says.
" It was hard work, but it was rewarding.
You were out in nature every day of
your life. So it's all good. "
At the same time, watermen had to
coexist with forces of nature, low prices,
poor bay conditions and parasitic oyster
infections. In winter months, Collier
recalls, his uncle and other captains
sailed north for four or fi e days at a
time, living on the boat and returning
on weekends. " Th y couldn't make a
living around here. It was a different
era, " he says.
During one fi e-year stretch in the
1960s, MSX, a disease known as the
" white death, " killed almost all the
oysters in Maryland's Tangier Sound
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Cooperative Living July 2022

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