The Middlesex County Public Library (MCPL) system invites the public to a program on the Chesapeake Bay deadrise, presented by Larry Chowning, on Thursday, July 18, from 5-7 p.m. at MCPL’s Deltaville branch. The presentation explores the story of the iconic boat as well as the role of wooden boatbuilding in the Deltaville community, the topic of Chowning’s latest book from Arcadia Press. Q&A time and a book signing will follow. Light refreshments will be served.
A staple watercraft for more than a century, the deadrise’s unique design and utility for both work and recreation has turned it into a motif for the Chesapeake Bay. “Deadrise boat construction was the last significant wooden boatbuilding style to come to the bay,” Chowning said. “For centuries boatbuilders on the Chesapeake built boats out of logs and chunks of wood. The introduction of sawmills for cutting planks and shortages of good boatbuilding logs helped drive the deadrise and cross-planked boat market to expand from one end of the bay to the other. Deltaville evolved into an almost factory-like boatbuilding community as it became the wooden deadrise boatbuilding capital of the bay and remained that way until fiberglass and metal boats made headways into the boatbuilding marketplace.
“The deadrise talk will speak to the cultural elements of wood and water, and the role log and deadrise boats played into the cultural and economic life of Deltaville and beyond — looking at the Deltaville boatbuilding families of Prices, Waldens, Greens, Wrights, Deagles, Millers, Sibleys, Nortons, Westons, Thomases, Corneliuses and others who paved the way and laid a foundation and built an infrastructure for today’s maritime life in Middlesex County.”
Larry Chowning is an established expert on the Chesapeake Bay and its watermen, with more than a dozen books on the topic and regular contributions in local and national publications. “My love of the bay’s wooden boats and of the culture that surrounds them goes back to my childhood,” he recalled in one interview. His new book is an off-shoot of his 2007 book “Deadrise and Cross-planked.” “After that book came out, people continued to contact me about their knowledge of the boats and often provided photos,” Chowning said. Those contributions form the basis of his new book — “Chesapeake Bay Deadrise Boats” — a photo history published by Arcadia Press, widely known for their recognizable pictorial histories of locales around the country. It follows volumes Chowning wrote for Arcadia on Deltaville, Urbanna, Middlesex County at large, and the Chesapeake Bay’s deck boats.
For information, call 804-758-5717 or email yourmiddlesexlibrary@gmail.com. Check out the MCPL website for the latest updates on events.
