Cooperative Living October 2019 - 18

Michael Allen, associate shipwright,
Maritime Museum
and demographic pressures that
contributed to the decline of the
maritime economy. In its wake came
a tourist and recreational industry.
The 1973 sister bridge span expanded
and completed the job.
As soon as you leave the bridge,
outlet malls, franchise hotels,
restaurants and businesses fringe U.S.
50 for about 30 miles. Quickly enough,
it's back to the scenery the Eastern
Shore is known for: Farm stands just
off the road selling globes of tomatoes
and watermelons the size of hogs;
the blue smoke and yummy smell of
barbecue slabs sold from trucks and
trailers; patches of humidity floating
in the woods above brackish marshes;
and the random boats dry-docked
in driveways.
Those are the sights that soothe the
tourists and, yes, even the bureaucrats
of nearby Washington, D.C., Baltimore
and Annapolis, who gladly barter
interminable bridge traffic for the
chance to unplug from it all for a few
days in St. Michaels and its
surrounding areas.
St. Michaels' crown jewel is the
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
(cbmm.org), which opened in 1965.
More than 75,000 guests now flock
to it each year. The interactive museum
sits on an 18-acre campus with
activities that include the October
hosting of the AJ Meerwald, a restored
1928 oyster schooner that is the official
tall ship of New Jersey.
Yet, St. Michaels' most photographed
icon, the 1879 Hooper Strait
Lighthouse, was never part of the
town's actual historic bustling
waterfront.
Condemned by the federal
government in 1965, the demolition
contractor sold the structure to the
museum for $1,000. The Arundel Corp.
towed it by barge 60 miles north to
where it sits on its distinctive stilts at
16 | Cooperative Living | October 2019
Navy Point on the museum campus.
It is perfectly preserved to how it might
have looked in the 1920s.
In the museum's working shipyard,
the woodsy smell of resin and sawn
wood mingles with the chopping
sounds of the axe-like adze and the
pounding of mallets, chisels and squeal
of hooks where the shipwrights work.
From now to 2021, the shipyard's
mission is the rebuilding of the
Maryland Dove, a 40-ton cargo ship
that in 1634 accompanied some of
the first colonists to what became
St. Mary's City.
That was 44 years before the
establishment of Christ Church in the
St. Michael Archangel Parish that sets
the founding date of St. Michaels. Silver
altar vessels from that period are on
display at the church, but it is best
known for the sounding of its bells
that drift hourly in the air above town.
At 4 p.m. one afternoon in August,
Michael Allen, an associate shipwright
at the museum, paused, listening to
the chiming, a smile was on his face.
Contentment. He is a happy man,
he said, because he is working in
one of the few places left in the U.S.
where a person with his skills as a
carpenter/boatbuilder/historian could
ever find a job.
Contentment seems to be the
undercurrent here. Quick conversations
with local shop and business owners
underscore that point.
Take Jaime Windon, CEO of Lyon
Distilling Co., which makes liquors and
spirits. Windon, a photojournalist,
moved to St. Michaels in 2011 from
the exotic Lamu Island, off the coast
of Kenya in the Indian Ocean. She
remembers the community from a
photo project on the area's community
of watermen. " This town has a feel to
it like Lamu. "
Jaime Windon, CEO,
Lyon Distilling Co.
She managed a local bed and
breakfast, and then decided to start a
distillery, filling a niche void left by
the St. Michaels wineries and brewery
that were already established.
" When I got here, it was known as a
tourist town, but what appealed to me
is that it was first a waterfront hardworking
town. Distilled spirits were
always part of its economic and cultural
landscape. The last distillery closed in
1972, " says Windon, who is serving a
second term as a town commissioner.
Though Lyon Distillery has the feel
of a tiny but classy speakeasy, a dozen
people work here now since the first
rum ran from the distilling pots.
" I said, 'Why not go for it?' I found
people who have specific talents and
we got to work. That was in 2013.
We now ship to five states, " says
Windon. " What I have learned is
the way to be happy and content is
to take opportunities. "
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY MARITIME MUSEUM
co-opliving.com
PHOTO BY GEORGE STUTEVILLE
PHOTO BY GEORGE STUTEVILLE
http://www.cbmm.org http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living October 2019

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