Annapolis Maritime Museum

A brief history of the Eastport Historical Committee
as it became the "Barge House Museum,"
and with an expanded mission, became
the "Annapolis Maritime Museum"

The Eastport Historical Committee was founded as a Committee of the Eastport Civic Association in 1986 in response to a generous gift from Dr. Bobby Leonard. Dr. Leonard instructed that the gift be used for the placement of signs at sites of historic significance throughout Eastport. A small group withdrew from the civic association and started doing research, meeting in private homes.

In 1989, the Eastport Historical Committee placed a sign commemorating the Lafayette Encampment of 1781 at the foot of the Spa Creek Bridge. Also in 1989, the Committee requested Annapolis Alderman Ellen Moyer's assistance in saving the structure adjacent to the McNasby Oyster House, commonly known as the Barge House. The building was subsequently designated a Museum by the Mayor.

To fulfill a broader role in the community, and again with the help of Dr. Leonard, in 1990 the Committee incorporated as a nonprofit corporation. Its goal and purpose was to compile and preserve the history of the Annapolis area known as Eastport, including its maritime, commercial, architectural, and industrial history. The Committee's logo combined the themes of the watermen by depicting Cap'n Herb Sadler's boat Little HES, a boathouse, and the raked masts of a bugeye in the background.

The Committee published the results of historical research in a series of monographs. The first was printed in 1991: "Sentinel of the Severn; the Fort at Horn Point," by Larry Mickel. In the same year, the Barge House Museum and Cap'n Herbie Sadler Watermen's Park were dedicated by Mayor Hopkins. The first exhibit at the Museum, prepared for the dedication, consisted of photographs of the McNasby building and its workers.

During 1992, the Committee's first grant request was submitted, with the assistance of former Alderman Brad Davidson, and a grant was received from the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Also in 1992, the Barge House was listed as a State Historic Building.

In the fall of 1992, the Committee mounted an exhibit of Trumpy memorabilia at the Museum. With the support of the Annapolis City Marina, a fund-raiser and reception was held there honoring our first inductees into the Eastport Historical Committee's Maritime Hall of Fame. John Trumpy, Sr., and Arnie Gay were honored for their outstanding contributions to the maritime character of Annapolis.

For the holiday season, "A Holiday Doll House" exhibit was opened. Jerry Wood donated a 4x8-foot dollhouse. This was a display built by the Richwood Toy Company, which was owned and operated in Eastport from 1952 until it closed in 1958. This has been one of our most popular exhibits, and is brought back every year for the holiday season.

In 1993, the Museum, in cooperation with the Annapolis City Marina, started the Wooden Boat Project. The purpose was to revive the crafts associated with wooden boat building, which once flourished in Eastport and the greater Annapolis area. The group now maintains Miss Lonesome, a Chesapeake Bay workboat donated to the group by Paul Leffler. She is moored at the Annapolis City Marina. The Wooden Boat Program, a non-profit organization, is a partner of the Museum.

Also in 1993, the Museum organized a celebration, "Happy Birthday Eastport" to celebrate the 125th birthday of Eastport's birth in 1868. There was a parade, festivities of all kinds, and a dance that evening-a big time for the community! The Museum mounted an exhibit, "Eastport Then and Now," matching sites in the 1940s with what is there now.

In 1994 the Museum presented an exhibit "Eastport During the World War II," featuring photos and artifacts loaned and donated by veterans from the community. 1995 saw the exhibit "Watermen of Eastport" in the Museum, a poignant memory of the men who made a hard-won living working the water, summer and winter, on the Chesapeake Bay. In 1996, we presented an exhibit featuring the many churches in Eastport, including stories of their founding and impact on the local community. That year we also presented an exhibit "Artists of Eastport" featuring the many talented artist who live here.

For Maryland's Annual Preservation Conference in November of 1996, we were asked to conduct a tour of the Eastport peninsula's historic sites for the conference members. This lead the Museum to plan an outreach exhibit, with plaques located at the sites, to become our "Eastport's Walking Tour." Plaques at each location were sponsored by local businesses, and with a small amount of start-up funding from the City of Annapolis, the tour is one of our most popular exhibits. With the ability to expand the tour to other historic sites, it is designed to be there for generations to come. This was a heavily researched project.

In 1998, in celebration of the arrival of the Whitbread Round the World Race fleet to Annapolis, the Museum mounted three exhibits. "Historic Boatyards of Eastport/Spa Creek" opened at Carrol's Creek Café. Its pictures and research begin with Heller's boatyard, which started in 1865, and ending with the Trumpy Boatyard, which closed in 1973. The second was the actual opening of our "Eastport Walking Tour," an outreach exhibit with 13 in-ground sites celebrating the history of the community. Using a brochure, each site tells the early history of its area. Both exhibits were created by historian Mike Miron and designer Peter Tasi, and both won two awards each. The third, at the Museum, celebrated the continuation of maritime business in Eastport with "Modern Maritime Businesses in Eastport."

In 1999, the exhibit "John Trumpy and Sons" brought 13 Trumpy boats to Annapolis for a reunion. The Museum has the largest collection of Trumpy photographs in the country, and this successful exhibit ended with the formation of the Trumpy Owners Association, design of a Trumpy burgee, and a plan to meet in Annapolis again.

In the year 2000, after almost two years of research with members of Mt. Zion United Methodist church, we mounted "Eastport's African-American Community." Starting in 1895, when the church was started and the first black school opened through integration in 1963, it tells the story of this unique community through pictures and stories. This exhibit won a Maryland Historic Trust award in 2001.

During 2000, we began to look at where the" Barge House Museum" was going, and what story we wanted to tell as we grew. Our research of maritime history began to expand beyond Eastport. With a grant, we hired a consultant to help us focus our vision, and the move to become a maritime museum for the larger area was born. Moving from a small, entirely volunteer museum took courage, but by the end of 2000 we were the "Annapolis Maritime Museum." With the goal of researching the maritime and yacht racing and cruising history of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, we look forward to this new challenge with excitement and determination.

In 2001, we began to search for expansion space for the Museum Our site, within a small park bought with the first open space grant ever given by the State of Maryland to an urban area, has given us a wonderful location at the mouth of Back Creek, where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. As one of the Gateway sites, we had added a kayak ramp, wonderful local plantings, and with the completion of the Sadler Boat display and the shed built to protect it, we had the first on-land boat exhibit in the city of Annapolis. Story boards telling the story of local black and white watermen will be completed in the spring of 2002, tying the display to our collection of watermen's artifacts on display nearby.

An old oyster packing house, McNasby's, became available when its last tenant left in the late fall of 2000. As the building abutted our park, this was an ideal expansion site, and we answered a Request for Proposal from the city in early 2001, asking to lease the building for the expansion of our Museum. Working with the help of our local city councilman, Ellen Moyer (now our Mayor), we asked the city to lease us the property, and we were given the opportunity to go forward with a lease. The lease was finally approved by the city in January of 2002, and if we pass the final hearing, our lease should start in March of 2002.

In order to make all of our plans possible, our state delegation put through a bill in the 2001 Legislature to give us money to do design and engineering, and we were given $150,000.00 to proceed with this phase of the project. The city matched it with $100,000.00, but the amount was reduced to $50,000.00, and we expect to receive the balance of the match in the city's 2002 budget. Working with the city, we hope to have the design and engineering portion of the project done by mid-summer 2002. Our Representative to the House of Delegates, Dick D'Amato, has prefiled a bill to give us a further $400,000.00 to begin construction work, and we hope to have a match from the City and from Anne Arundel County. We face many challenges in turning this old packing house on the water into a first-rate Museum.

At this stage, our Museum faces some challenging work, and our focus now is to do serious fundraising to get the project completed. A just-completed five-year plan has given us the roadmap to our future, which will continue to focus on education and collections, and to create more of the exhibits that have won us over six awards in the past. In February 2002, we will have two exhibits open, an outreach exhibit of our 'Eastport's African-Americans" exhibit will be going into the Stanton Center for the month of February, and "Marion Warren's Chesapeake Bay Photographs" opened February 10, 2002.

In April we will open an exhibit, "Racing and Cruising: Four Yacht Clubs of Annapolis." Planned to open for the arrival of the Volvo Ocean Race in Annapolis at the end of April, this exhibit will focus on four of the dozens of yacht clubs in Anne Arundel County. Serious research is being undertaken as we collect information on the history of the clubs, their programs, and pictures of the founders, racing and cruising pictures, and their junior programs. Research of other clubs will follow when we have the space to show them in our new facility. Part of the exhibit will also be shown in the tents on the dock at the Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival held during the Annapolis stopover by the Volvo Ocean Race, April 26-28, 2002.

With our new mission in place, we continue to research and collect the history of this nationally known water-oriented area. Annapolis is now known as "The Sailing Capital of the World" by many. We plan to research and preserve this history, and use it to educate children and adults in this, their legacy.

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About the Museum

A brief history of the Eastport Historical Committee as it became the "Barge House Museum," and with an expanded mission, became the "Annapolis Maritime Museum"

A brief history of the Eastport Historical Committee
as it became the "Barge House Museum,"
and with an expanded mission, became
the "Annapolis Maritime Museum"