We returned to St. Michaels to hear a presentation by Kate Livie, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Director of Education, about the John Smith shallop built by Sultana Projects. We were not disappointed. Livie's knowledge of the history of the period and her ability to make it come alive kept us riveted throughout her talk.

Telling details
Picture this. A filthy, stinking, vermin-infested, unshaven Englishman, constantly scrounging for food and incapable of providing his own shelter regards an Algonquin Indian who is well adapted to his environment, almost always eats well and bathes every day as a savage.
That image gave me an entirely new way of looking at the arrival of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
The men and boys who came to Jamestown in 1607 (104 of them) on the Susan Constant, the Discovery and the Godspeed were a motley crew that included tradesmen, slaves and the second sons of gentry who, by the law of primogenitor, would not inherit from their wealthy fathers, Livie said. They were coming from an already highly-diversified society and none of them had basic survival skills needed to survive in the New World. The gentlemen were not used to working at all and spent what effort they did exert involved in power struggles among themselves.
John Smith was among those struggling for control. He was "irascible, pugnacious and kind of a jerk," Livie said. He was not a gentleman by birth, but his life experience as a soldier of fortune who had escaped slavery in Europe and found his way back to England had taught him survival skills and given him the ability to communicate with people whose language he did not speak.
Here's another set of contrasting images: Almost all the land in England was privately owned, much of it by wealthy gentry. There was a virtual caste system - if your father was a tailor, you were a tailor and your son would be a tailor, Livie said.
The opportunity to break out of the caste system and to own land motivated people to strike out to a world they knew nothing about.
And what a world they found. We would not even recognize it, Livie said. The huge trees, clear water, diverse and abundant wildlife, giant fish and native villages are all gone now.
But in 1608, despite this abundance, the colony was not doing well. The colonists' purpose was to enrich their sponsors back in England but they were barely surviving. Smith undertook the 1608 explorations in order to find something to make Jamestown worth it, Livie said. One major goal was to find a northwest passage. He was also looking for precious metals, natural resources such as gems and fish and the location of indigenous people.
Much of what we know about the New World the Jamestown settlers found comes from John Smith's writing and the remarkably accurate map of the Chesapeake Bay that he produced.
Unfortunately, there is no definitive description of the boat he and the 13 others who went with him used to make the voyages.
The boat built by the Sultana Projects was a "kit boat," with two halves, each able to float independently. The builders used Osage orange in the construction because it is such a hard, durable wood, Livie said. The first half was launched in Maryland in 2006. The second half was launched in Virginia.
John Smith shallop

Different boats for different folks
When I asked Livie about the different ideas of what the boat Smith used was like, manifested in the three boats built for the 400th anniversary, she said there's no hard answer because there's no documentation to go on.
"Nobody's wrong, nobody's right," she said.
Sultana Projects, started by educators from Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1997 as an educational resource to help students better understand and appreciate the Chesapeake Bay, went a step further than building the boat.

The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail
Theirs is the only one of the three that actually retraced much of Smith's route helping to inaugurate the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail established by an act of Congress in 2006. Smith explored the bay in two separate voyages during the summer of 2008. In the two voyages, which together took about three months, he traveled 1,700 miles. The 12 men and women who made up the crew of Sultana's shallop traveled 1,500 miles in 121 days visiting 28 cities and towns.
The National Park Service oversees the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail. It is the first national water trail in the U.S., Livie said, and is easy to follow by people is small boats, canoes and kayaks. One problem in establishing the trail, she said, is that the shoreline of the bay is now "extensively privately owned."
But the trail provides an opportunity for small towns and villages that have relied on fishing to enhance their economies by attracting tourists.
John Smith Chesapeake Water Trail

Sultana Projects
Sultana Projects' experience with traditional boats began with the schooner Sultana, a full-scale reproduction of a pre-Revolutionary War vessel that sailed the Chesapeake. Launched in 2001, Sultana has been a classroom for thousands of students and teachers who have sailed on her learning about the history, culture and natural environment of the bay.
Sultana Projects

For those interested in this pivotal time in history, Livie recommended David Price's "Love and Hate in Jamestown."
Love and Hate in Jamestown at Amazon


A dog named Rosie
In the afternoon we walked around the museum grounds looking at boats. We'd done this before, but there are so many, it's hard to remember them all. We ended up at the boat yard where we were listening to the crew working on the Delaware, a 1912 tug boat, razzing one other. Marc Barto, the project manager for the Rosie Parks Skipjack Restoration Project noticed Madison and invited us in meet Rosie, the project's mascot. Rosie is Barto's 4-month-old yellow Lab puppy, and what a charmer she is. Even Madison, who's usually quick to put strange dogs in their place, succumbed to her winning ways. (See photo gallery for photos.)
Rosie Parks Restoration Project