Prize-winning essay: Sons of the Chesapeake
by Stephanie Fowler '01
 "I cannot escape my backwoods roots that bound me to tell these stories. Being born and raised on the Eastern Shore, I grew up with an instinctive respect for the land and the waters. Where I come from, people are fishermen and farmers, watermen and small business owners. And although we have our own misgivings and greed and pride concerning the Chesapeake Bay and our farms, there is a desire to be exactly where we are. If we know anything, we know where home is."
So Stephanie Fowler, winner of the 2001 Sophie Kerr Prize, introduces the reader to a collection of stories that sprang from the "dark waters and cypress swamps and hard weather" that define her home. What follows are excerpts from one of those essays that melds history with imagination, "Sons of the Chesapeake." In this tale, Fowler has meticulously recounted the political history of the infamous "Oyster Wars" that pitted waterman against waterman, while conveying the personal tragedy it caused one Crisfield family.
Orphans by the Bay
John Paul Nelson was playing baseball in the streets with the other neighborhood boys when he lost everything. The boy was a true son of Crisfield. His blonde hair, nearly white, was cropped short to the back of his tan neck and his thick accent held slight intonations of the Smith Islanders who still spoke in near-perfect and antiquated Shakespearean English. John Paul was 11 that summer of 1949. The days were humid, but for the little white-haired boy, the days were as long as they were hot. Three months earlier, he had lost his mother to tuberculosis.
When his mother passed, John Paul, the fourth of six children, became mute. He did not speak to anyone as he tried desperately to mend himself. His older brothers, Earl Jr., Gene and Royce, did their best to make their beautiful brother smile. They took him to the docks to fish, but all John Paul could remember was his mother's wasting away. Earl Jr. and Royce had not been there to witness her dying. Earl Jr. was married and lived far away in Brooklyn, near Baltimore, and Royce lived near him. Gene had come home from the military in 1947, and lived in Crisfield working jobs around the small town, and John Paul took comfort in the visits of his older brother. The older boys didn't know what she had looked like or what she sounded like in the middle of the night when he feared they would all die with her. They had not seen her pale and wasted, unrecognizable as their mother. John Paul had seen it all.
His mother was pregnant when she got tuberculosis. The doctor said that the baby was pushing against her lungs and that slowed down the disease, but once the baby girl was born, it took control of her lungs and she died within the year. Life at home was difficult for John Paul. His father, Earl Sr., spent his time divided between tending to his sick wife, caring for the baby and going to work. He was a Crisfield police officer and part-time waterman. John Paul was alone, except for his little brother David, who was four years old, so he spent most of his time watching over David. But still John Paul was alone with a dying mother, a busy father and siblings too young to know any better.
After the funeral, Earl Sr. needed help. He was 50 years old, his wife was gone, and his children were suffering. His oldest son offered to take the baby girl, Dorcas, back home with him to Brooklyn and take care of her until he got back on his feet. Earl agreed and his daughter left Crisfield a few days after the funeral.
But for John Paul, the passing of his mother had interrupted the natural flow from the freshness of spring to the excitement of the summer. Gene helped around the house and tried to get John Paul to come around, but Gene was a quiet young man, pensive and reserved. The brothers, unfortunately, never talked much and John Paul still felt very much alone in the small house full of sad men and unhappy children.
Three months after her death, John Paul was beginning to welcome the warm days like July 5 because he got a chance at just being a boy again. About noon, the baseball game was well underway on a familiar side street. A skinny boy with red hair and burnt brown freckles ran up to John Paul. "Somebody's shot your daddy!"
Earl Nelson had gone out on his 26-foot scraping boat early that morning to go crabbing. Like a true Crisfielder, Nelson worked the bay waters to help feed his family. He navigated the choppy waters of the Chesapeake to a familiar crabbing spot near Foxe's Island in the Pocomoke Sound, a place that lay dangerously close to the invisible boundary line between Maryland and Virginia. He kept his boat running perpendicular to the north side of the island, being sure to stay in Maryland waters. There he settled in for a morning of blue crabs and endless bay.
There were many other watermen out on the bay. The early morning was warm and sunny, a waterman's delight. Many others had motored out to crab near Foxe's Island. Earl had been on the water for about two hours when he noticed a mechanical buzz overhead. A dark seaplane circled over his boat, and then landed 50 feet away. Earl watched as the plane turned toward his boat and chugged across the waves. As it approached, the words "Virginia Fisheries Police" were visible on its metal side.
The seaplane carefully sidled up to Earl's boat and a young deputy popped open the tiny metal door. Holding a rifle, he boarded the boat.
Above the diesel churning of the seaplane, Earl said, "What kin I do for ya?"
The deputy stood in the center of Earl's boat. His hard blue eyes scanned the boat and locked on the bushel of crabs. "You can turn your boat off and put back your catch."
"Why? What's the problem?" Earl studied the man on his boat. His uniform tag read, "Acree." There was another person inside the seaplane, and he figured it must've been the pilot.
"I can see from your boat numbers that you're a Marylander. These here are Virginia waters, and I'm ordering you to cease and desist." His eyes narrowed on the 50-year-old Crisfielder.
Earl said nothing. He wiped his brow with a dirty red handkerchief.
"We're going to Saxis, Virginia. I'm confiscating this boat. "
A hearty laugh burst forth from the barrel chest of Earl Nelson. It was an age-old feud: Marylanders and Virginians argued over the state line, which cut an invisible line through the dark waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Neither side wanted the other to sneak across the border and steal oysters, crabs, fish, and clams. No, Earl Nelson wasn't going to give into the fight because he was well aware of his position. He knew he was in Maryland waters. If he let Acree take him to Saxis, he knew he'd lose his boat for sure and be fined heavily in the process.
"Something funny?" Acree shifted his weight back and forth. His dark hair and chiseled jaws gave him the look of a strong canine.
Earl continued laughing. "You've got to be kiddin' me, son. We're narth of Foxe's Island. I ain't doin' a damn thing wrong. And you sure as hell ain't takin' my boat." He turned his back to the young deputy.
"I'm taking this boat whether you like it or not." Acree's voice lowered in a growl.
"Git off my boat, kid," he yelled over his shoulder. "You know we're in Merland."
Sweat beaded up on Acree's brow and slipped down his tanned face, cutting sharp angles on his cheekbones and chin. He shifted his weight again and again. His fingers slipped down the barrel of the gun and his sweaty palms rubbed against the hot metal. He stared at the back of the old crabber who had laughed in his face and defied his authority. Everything in him wanted to strike out in defense of his job, his state and his manhood. Acree had served four years in the United States Navy in submarine duty, and he returned to the area to work as a crop duster. He had seen men like this hard crabber before: men who fight tooth and nail for weather beaten, financial sinkholes they call their boats. His Navy training and his duty to his job reminded him to stay focused, but something else bubbled up inside of him like air pockets escaping through hot asphalt. White reflections from the bay burned into his eyes and lit his short-fused temper. The crabber continued to laugh.
Acree's rifle lurched forward and a bullet tore through the lower abdomen of Earl Nelson. The force slammed the old waterman's body forward against the wheel, and he grabbed hold of it. His body slumped over the wheel and fell to the side. Earl put his hands over the conjoining space where his hip and groin met his abdomen; his eyes met the blue spots on the deputy's face. Acree, without a word, stalked off the boat and jumped into the seaplane.
The blood came up between Earl's fingers and he heard the plane take off. Suddenly, the sun was the hottest it had ever felt and Earl closed his eyes.
Watermen near Foxe's Island had been watching the Virginia Fisheries plane with anxious eyes. The feud made everyone nervous, and over the past couple of months, a few men had been shot over the same problem in the lower Potomac. The watermen nearby had witnessed the shooting and rushed to Earl's boat. The first men to his boat were Tom Marshall and Calvin Marsh Jr., both Smith Islanders. As they climbed aboard the boat, they found him bleeding from the front and back, and barely alive. Nelson's blood stained the entire boat - the deck, the sidewalls, and the wheel, even the compass. A little water slipped to the top of the deck and mixed with the blood, and like a phantom paintbrush, it coated the deck of the workboat with a bright red mucus. Each man stared at the ghastly mess. Neither would see anything like it again.
Tom Marshall grabbed the bloody wheel and started back to Crisfield while Calvin Marsh dropped to his knees and pressed his rough hands over the open holes in the old crabber's body.
"Help me," he whispered.
The waterman nodded. He watched as Nelson's sad gray eyes slowly closed and his barrel chest stopped rising. When the boat docked in Crisfield, Earl Nelson was pronounced dead, the three youngest children pronounced orphans.
John Paul and several of his friends raced on their bicycles to the Bradshaw Funeral Home, the place where his mother was kept before she was taken to the cemetery. If his daddy was dead, then that must be where he could find him. If his daddy really was dead, then he had to see for himself.
The front doors of the funeral home were large glass doors. His hands formed a periscope around his eyes as he peered in the front door. The place was so dark inside; he couldn't make out anything. A tall man with a dark suit opened the door, and asked John Paul if he needed something.
"Yes. Some Virginia policeman shot my daddy. And I'd…I'd like to see him."
The tall man explained as best as he could that his father was not yet with him. He was sorry that he couldn't help him. The young boy looked familiar to him.
John Paul stared blankly at the tall man in the dark suit. If he wasn't inside lying on a table, then where was he?
"I'm sorry, son, I don't know how I can help you." With that, John Paul simply turned and got back on his bicycle.
"I'm gonna go have a look at my daddy's boat." John Paul and the boys headed for the wharf.
When John Paul reached the docks, he saw his father's boat moored against the old wooden pilings of the lower wharf. John Paul threw his bike down and ran to the wooden edge, pushing his way through the crowd of men and straining his eyes in bright sun to make sure his father was alive and well. But what John Paul saw that day on the docks changed his life forever. The boat was awash in blood and his father lay like a carelessly gutted fish in the arms of another waterman.
More than 400 people attended the viewing of Earl Lee Nelson as all of Crisfield, Somerset County, and other local towns turned out to pay their respects. Two reverends and a full choir presided over his open casket service. The six children were all present: Earl Jr. with baby Dorcas, Gene, Royce, John Paul and David, who had recently turned five years old. Each son took his turn at his father's side for one last time.
Earl Jr. held his baby sister in his arms as they both stared down at their father. When he walked away, Dorcas stared back at Earl Sr.'s calm face.
David walked alone to his father's casket. He stood on the tips of his shiny black shoes to peer at his father and then, as though he understood everything, he turned to the choir with tears streaming down his face that looked so much like his dead father's. No one moved as he turned back toward his father's casket. A little ledge provided him with footing enough to peer down inside. He choked and wailed as he nudged his father with his small hands. At last, David hoisted himself over the edge of the casket and curled up on top of his father's chest, his white-blonde head underneath his father's stiff chin. A lady came forward and picked him up out of the casket as he screamed for his dead father.
Then there was silence.
John Paul was the last to look. He slowly took each step to the casket. His mother had just been here, had just looked like this. When he reached his father for the last time, he felt something tear inside his young body. The onlookers watched as John Paul finally burst into tears and slumped over the casket; grief pulled him to his knees. A few people rushed to the child, and helped him back to his seat. Nelson's best friend, a weathered old crabber from Crisfield, sang hymns as they closed the service.
When they arrived at the Sunnyridge Memorial Park where Earl was to be buried next to his wife, David was the first out of the car. Walking up to the burial site, David turned and asked, "What's all these pretty flowers for?"
His question was met with silence. Earl Jr. took his brother's hand and led him to the closed casket. The brothers stood close to each other, uncertain, devastated and angry, with bowed heads as the last of their parents was lowered into the ground.
Drawing Lines in the Salt
The funeral of Earl Nelson was only the beginning. The incident sparked a heated flare-up in an old debate between the states of Maryland and Virginia that had been ongoing for more than 150 years. The tension had finally reached a horrible climax. ...
Up and down the Chesapeake, there was gunfire and bloodshed, especially when the oyster boom of the 1880s hit. Watermen fiercely protected their rights and their beds. Each state was easy on its reported misfits, most troublemakers got away with a small fine and a slap on the wrist. Maryland and Virginia were not interested in punishing their own men; they were interested in crucifying the enemy.The harvests were rapacious. Even oyster policemen were caught stealing and dredging illegally.
To The Last
An old saying exists among the remaining watermen: "If a man found the very last oyster in the Chesapeake, he'd gladly sell it to you." Truly, this is the saddest story of self-defeat yet told.
For centuries of time and generations of people, the Chesapeake Bay has been the central backbone of Maryland's and Virginia's culture. It has served as a provider for living while awakening passionate loyalties that destroyed lives. So much has resulted from this body of water that lies in the middle of two states, with its arms and legs that stretch out at its sides and entangle the lands of Maryland and Virginia.
The watermen of the Chesapeake are a dying breed. Few men can now fully recall the days when thousands of oyster rigs jammed the Tangier Sound, tonging for their fill of the sweet and salty shellfish. No longer do the watermen mount machine guns on their bows, ready to stake their lives for their harvest. The sad, desperate irony of their situation is that they have put themselves in this position - the bay's plentiful harvests were not going to last an eternity, but the rapacious harvests continued with a blatant disregard for the future of their industry and, more importantly, the future of the Chesapeake.
The remaining watermen of the Chesapeake Bay rise every morning and greet the dawn on the bows of battered workboats. Their day will start earlier than the ones their forefathers saw, and their days will end long after their ancestors would have docked. But still they fight with hands thick in salt-white calluses, and their burned faces still carry the sun-bleached beards of their grandfathers. Their loyalty to this never-ending work exceeds the length of light scattered by the waves, and their frustration with the looming end of their business will outlive even their grandchildren.
But the Chesapeake Bay will continue to reach into the heart of the land, and race into the Atlantic down by the Capes, sweeping past towns and cities and trying to mask its bounty below. Marylanders and Virginians, when they stand out on beaches and sandy points, inexplicably feel the infliction of decades of trauma and when they turn their backs on the cold waters of the Chesapeake they feel lost. After all, the tragedy of the Chesapeake is one that belongs to us all, each and every one, to the last.
Stephanie Fowler intends to spend the coming months researching and writing more stories of the Eastern Shore, and then endeavoring to have her book of stories published.
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