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| Visitors look at displays at the Eastern Shore Watermen's Museum in Onancock |
By MARSHA MERCER
A summer Saturday morning in Onancock, Virginia, might
go like this:
Stand in line for donuts at the Corner Bakery, pick up
peaches at the farmers market and swap stories of the community’s colorful past
at one of the local museums.
A town of 1,215 residents may seem an unlikely place
for one museum -- let alone three. But Onancock is home of the Eastern Shore
Watermen’s Museum and Research Center as well as Ker Place, a Federal-style
mansion built from 1799 to 1801, and Hopkins and Bro. Store, which operated
from 1842 to 1966.
As economic mainstays agriculture and seafood fade
from the shore -- replaced by tourism, poultry factories, government and the service
industry -- more communities off the beaten path want to capture their memories
and heritage before they are lost forever.
Museums have popped up in tourist favorites Cape
Charles, Chincoteague and Tangier Island, but also in Eastville, Harborton,
Locustville, Machipongo, Parksley and Saxis. A tractor museum in Nassawadox is
open by appointment.
The watermen’s museum at Historic Onancock School – an
old high school turned into a community center – preserves the stories of generations
of local men who made their living harvesting fish, crabs, clams and oysters.
Less than 5 percent of jobs on Virginia’s Eastern
Shore are still in agriculture, forestry, fishing or hunting, according to
state figures.
“It’s a dying way of life,” said Paul L. Ewell, the
museum’s executive director, told me, adding, “We’re telling a story no one had
told, and no one was telling.”
Last Saturday, Lucy Shea, who was about to turn 86, brought
in photos of her father in his boat, the Lucy Irene, and her grandfather’s boat,
the Hattie B, for Ewell to scan into the museum’s growing digital collection.
“I’m just so glad they started this,” Shea said. “I’m
so interested in the past now – so many things I wish I’d asked my daddy and my
grandfather.”
Ewell will be the first to say, “We’re not the Smithsonian.
We’re you.”
The museum – two rooms in the basement -- includes photos
of watermen and their vessels, vintage equipment and oyster cans, boat models,
old signs, newspaper and magazine clippings, and other memorabilia.
A third room houses the
office of the Watermen’s Heritage Foundation of Virginia’s Eastern Shore and
some of the 900 books donated for a used bookstore aimed at helping support the
foundation.
Ewells settled on the Eastern Shore in 1639. Growing
up, Ewell loved working on the water with his dad and brother, even though it
was hard physical labor. But he chose a different career.
The first in his family to go to college, he earned a
Ph.D. and is chairman of the Department of Management, Business and Economics
as well as dean of the University College at Virginia Wesleyan University in
Virginia Beach.
But Ewell, 53, also keeps his waterman’s licenses up
to date and drives 75 miles to the shore weekly to welcome folks to the museum,
open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays.
When John Smith explored the Chesapeake Bay in 1608,
he raved about the bountiful waters. By the early 19th century, many
creeks on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, a 70-mile peninsula that adjoins
Maryland, had communities with a Methodist church, a store and families who worked
on the water.
The railroad came in the 1880s, and by the 1910s
watermen and farmers grew rich selling seafood, potatoes and other produce to cities
on the East Coast and beyond.
Among the bustling towns on the rail line was Parksley,
with Victorian homes on streets named after executives of the Pennsylvania
Railroad.
But the rise of trucking and other factors took a toll.
Today the two Eastern Shore counties – Accomack and Northampton -- are among
the poorest in Virginia. Freight trains no longer rumble on the shore, and the
tracks could be pulled up for a rails-to-trails path.
Parksley remembers its glory days with the Eastern
Shore Railway Museum, which includes exhibits and a 1927 Diplomat parlor car,
1949 caboose and 1950 sleeper car.
In Onancock, Ewell said, “We’re all about keeping it real.
Our stories are real. Our history is real. You won’t see dinosaurs here to draw
the kids.”
On a Saturday morning, you will see local moms and
dads, often with grown children and grandchildren who have moved away, poring over
exhibits, telling stories – and proving museums in small towns keep history alive.
©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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Love reading this and passing along the joy of historical sites and rural life on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
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