In 1993 John Page Williams of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation made the following observation:
“Thirty years ago, the gear was simple. Kids grew up with wooden rowboats and you couldn’t go very far or very fast. You looked at what was there. Now boats are bigger, faster [and] plusher. The boat is the center of recreation, rather than the river.”
Few Washingtonians longing for the beauty of living on the Bay and its many tributaries, the excitement of boating on the Bay, swimming in it, walking its beaches or feasting on its delicious bounty, will disagree that the Chesapeake Bay is to be honored as well as enjoyed, its history of the people who made their livings (often in the harshest of year-round climate) to be appreciated, understood and preserved for future generations.
To that end, people visiting St. Michaels– whether by boat or car — gravitate again and again to the 18-acre campus of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, a living shrine that showcases maritime life.
Here, in an open land tract just off the main street, surrounded by private homes and businesses, and with brick walkways leading down to the quaint waterfront, 10 of the museum’s 35 buildings are open to the public.
A campus highlight is a climb up the 1879 Hooper Straight Lighthouse. On a beautiful day, the top of this screw-pile structure (moved in 1966 from the treacherous waters of Hooper Straight) affords a 360-degree view of the water and town of St. Michaels. On a particularly stormy day of wind-driven rain, that same position, inside the cupola beside the cold Fresnel lens that lights safe entry into the harbor, the howling sounds of the wind and beating of the cold rain may be the loneliest feeling in the world.
“But this is more what it would have been like for the watermen who went out every day, sometimes in the worst weather, for their catch,” said Bob Forloney, director of education at CBMM.
Once back on terra firma, visitors have the opportunity to watch boat builders in the museum’s working boatyard or to enjoy a rotating schedule of exhibits in the Steamboat Building. “At Play on the Bay” is a new exhibit with its own dedicated building that explores the last 100 years of Bay life.
“I ask people to write down their feelings in the ‘Tell Us What You Think’ book,” said Mitch Anderson, supervisor of the museum store. “[There are] nothing but good things in it.”
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
St. Michaels, MD 21663
Phone: 410-745-2916
Driving time from D.C.: Approximately 1.5 hours
On the Web: www.cbmm.org
