MarylandI found these photos during a visit to the archives of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) in St. Michaels, Md. in April 2026.
These three photographs are part of CBMM's Howard I. Chapelle Collection. Each print is a copy made by The Mariners' Museum and bears a negative number: P424, P421, or P422. Chapelle probably received these photos from Robert Burgess, who was curator of exhibits and publications at The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Va., from 1945 until his retirement in 1978.
A working system on the lower Potomac
By 1904, the Potomac River dory was a mature regional workboat. It had a V-bottom planked fore-and-aft, an unusual construction in a Chesapeake region where workboat bottoms were more commonly cross-planked. Southern Maryland builders developed the type for the Potomac and Patuxent oyster grounds, where capacity, shallow draft, and seaworthiness all mattered.
The photographs are strongest when read as a sequence. Individual crews worked the oyster beds with hand tongs, while dories gathered alongside a schooner to unload. The series places small-boat harvesting within a larger waterborne system that could receive the catch and carry it onward.
Sail, tongs, and gasoline
The annotation associated with the unloading scene says that the boat in the foreground appeared to have a gasoline engine. That observation makes the photograph especially useful: the surrounding fleet still belonged to the age of sail, but internal-combustion power had begun to enter the same working world. Potomac dories would continue the transition from sail to engine during the following decades.
Further Reading
CBMM's 1931 Potomac River dory
CBMM's profile of its surviving 37-foot dory follows the regional type into the power era. Built by Francis Raymond "Peg Leg" Hayden at Banks O'Dee, Md., in 1931, the boat was later fitted with an engine and wheel steering. The profile also explains the dory's relationship to the smaller Black Nancy and the oyster boom that encouraged a larger, more seaworthy boat. Read Potomac River Dory Boat, 1931.
Voices from the Potomac dory tradition
CBMM's oral-history collection includes a 1989 interview with waterman Garnett Arnold about the Potomac River dory African Queen and oystering on the river, as well as interviews about builder F. R. "Peg Leg" Hayden. These recollections connect surviving boats and museum records to people who worked in and built the type. See the indexed CBMM oral histories.
Oyster law in 1904
Maryland legislation enacted in the same year as these photographs closed the oyster season in Potomac tributaries within St. Mary's and Charles counties from April through September. The statute gives a contemporary regulatory setting for the seasonal work recorded in the images. Read article 72, section 54 of the 1904 Maryland Code.
St. Clement's Island Museum
The St. Clement's Island Museum interprets the Potomac River industries that sustained nearby communities and preserves the dory Doris C. Its Potomac River setting provides a present-day point of contact with the regional workboat represented in the 1904 photographs. Read the museum overview.
CBMM Catalog Items
| Catalog # | 0000.0901.0571.00 |
| Object Name | photographs |
| Title | POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOATS ALONGSIDESCHOONER UNLOADI |
| Date Made | Range,Exac 01/01/1904 - 12/31/1904 |
| Description | POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOATS ALONGSIDESCHOONER UNLOADING OYSTERS.; From old Remarks field: DORY SECTION. BOAT IN FOREGROUND APPEARS TO HAVE GAS ENGINE. Old Subject Fields: POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOAT; DIVING/TONGING, OYSTER |
| Subjects | Bay Craft |
| Catalog # | 0000.0901.0572.00 |
| Object Name | photographs |
| Title | TONGING FROM POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOATS.; From old R |
| Date Made | Range,Exac 01/01/1904 - 12/31/1904 |
| Description | TONGING FROM POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOATS.; From old Remarks field: DORY SECTION. 9 0R 10 VESSELS IN VIEW. Old Subject Fields: POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOAT; DIVING/TONGING, OYSTER |
| Subjects | Bay Craft |
| Catalog # | 0000.0901.0573.00 |
| Object Name | photographs |
| Title | POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOATS WITH SCHOONER IN LOWER PO |
| Date Made | Range,Exac 01/01/1904 - 12/31/1904 |
| Description | POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOATS WITH SCHOONER IN LOWER POTOMAC RIVER.; From old Remarks field: DORY SECTION. DARK IMAGE. Place: POTOMAC RIVER Old Subject Fields: POTOMAC RIVER DORY BOAT; SAIL VESSELS, SCHOONERS |
| Place Made | No Address Middle River, Chesapeake MD USA |
| Subjects | Bay Craft |
Sources
1. Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Collections, catalog items 0000.0901.0571.00, 0000.0901.0572.00, 0000.0901.0573.00, accessed September 25, 2026.
2. Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, "Potomac River Dory Boat, 1931," accessed September 25, 2026.
3. Archives of Maryland, The Maryland Code Public General Laws, 1904, article 72, section 54, accessed September 25, 2026.
4. St. Mary's County Museum Division, "St. Clement's Island Museum," accessed September 25, 2026.
5. Eastern Shore Sailing Workboats, "Boatbuilders, Watermen and Waterwomen," accessed September 25, 2026.
6. Soundings, "News Notes Mid Atlantic," March 2007.
More about CBMM Collections
Items that are not exhibited around the CBMM campus are kept in the Norman & Ellen Plummer Center for Museum Collections. This is a climate-controlled facility that was expanded and modernized in 2023.
You can search all the collections online here. Look for the links at lower left to search these collections separately:
Objects, Photographs, Manuscripts, Ships Plans
Regional Oral History Database
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See my CBMM Collections Search Tips.
The collections and library are accessible only by appointment. Email collections@cbmm.org or visit the Library and Research page.