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History: A Work In Progress

Twenty three years after taking ownership of the “Nellie Crockett”, the Parishes still have some work to do on the wooden buy-boat. “The bottom chines need to be completely rebuilt,” says Mimi. “20 foot sections at a time.” That’s what’s ahead this winter in Georgetown, Maryland.

Tools of the trade for restoring a National Historic Landmark. Workbench in the hold of the Nellie Crockett. The boat draws more than 6 feet but has a flat bottom; wakes of much faster and much newer boats can send things flying.

Ted Parish says there are still 3 or 4 of the wooden buy-boats doing what they were first built to do – buying oysters out on the Bay. Altogether, he estimates 31-32 buy-boats in existence today. The “Nellie Crockett” is one of two that have been declared to be a National Historic Landmark, getting that designation in 1994.

Nellie Crockett near the Garland Fulcher Seafood docks.

Over the years, the Parishes and their now-teenaged sons have taken the buy-boat to towns along the Chesapeake shore. As was clear by the clusters of people who stopped by to look at her in Oriental, the boat attracts people wanting to know the history.

Some have a bit of their own to share.

Georgetown to Georgetown

That happened this month, as the Parishes set out from their home port of Georgetown, Maryland and pointed the “Nellie Crockett” south, beyond the lower Chesapeake Bay to another Georgetown — South Carolina — for that town’s annual Wooden Boat Show.

Looking aft from the galley in the Nellie Crockett’s pilot house.

In 23 years, it was their first time taking the “Nellie Crockett” outside the Chesapeake’s waters. But as they learned on their trip, it wasn’t the 88 year old buy-boat’s first time in North Carolina.

Sterns of buy-boats Nellie Crockett and the Thomas J on their stop in Oriental. The Thomas J has been through five other years, but it was the Nellie Crockett’s first time. The bright yellow dinghy was one of several made by the teenaged sons of Nellie Crockett owners, Ted and Mimi Parish.

It turns out that the “Nellie Crockett” used to run between Baltimore and Edenton, NC where it would pick up the watermelons that were stored in the hold. At the Georgetown Wooden Boat show, they spoke with a man whose father had owned the “Nellie Crockett” for three years after World War II. Donnie Smith is now 82 and lives in Florida. As a teenager, he had worked on what was then his father’s boat.

Stacked Every Melon

Prior to this, the Parishes say they’d been told that the hold of the “Nellie Crockett” held 3200 melons. But Donnie Smith assured them that it carried 5,500. The smallest crew member back then, he said, the job fell on him to get as many in the hold as possible. He told them that he was sure it was 5,500 because, “‘I stacked every one.’”

Nellie Crockett, port side, in Oriental’s harbor.

Several days after hearing that story, Mimi Parish is still touched that Donnie Smith “had driven up from Florida to Georgetown, South Carolina to spend three hours on the boat with us and tell us stories.” She pauses. “It was just….”

It’s been like that on their Georgetown to Georgetown trip, Ted Parish says. “We’ve had people come out of the woodwork.”

“The boat,” he says…

and Mimi continues… “touched people in various ways.”

That’s why, Ted Parish says, he thinks of them more as stewards than owners.

Nellie Crockett, keeping history afloat.

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Posted Tuesday October 29, 2013 by Melinda Penkava

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