Rappahannock River and oysters have for generations offered a platform for all races to make a living. Before good transportation and good roads, oystermen from Gloucester, Mathews, King & Queen and Essex counties came to the river during the oyster season and lived and worked here through the season — September to February. Most would only go home on holidays — Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Watermen worked out of sail and oar driven log canoes and during the season rented rooms in boarding houses and shanties from landowners close to the fertile oyster grounds. Oyster shanty towns were scattered up and down on both sides of the Rappahannock River and were for the most part segregated.
George Heath, called “GH” by family and friends, was white and a former Confederate soldier. He owned and rented his shanties to African-American oystermen. His shanty town was at the mouth of Robinson Creek on the south side of the river.
Heath, and his wife, Mary, had nine children and when the oyster season was over and oystermen had left to go home all the children were part of the spring cleanup. Minnie Lee (Heath) Blake, (born June 21, 1896) one of GH’s daughters, recalled from her early childhood and spoke of “shell cleanup day” during a family gathering in the late 1960s.
She recalled, as a very young child, the spring cleanup involved all the children who were old enough to walk. “On cool, clear nights, oystermen made camp fires and would sit around the fires roasting oysters, singing and talking. There was one man who came every year who played a fiddle and another who played a harmonica. Even when it was a real cold night my sisters and I would crack our bedroom window to hear the music and singing and when they all got to singing it was beautiful.
“After each season, there were piles of oyster shells left on the ground near each shanty that had either been part of an oyster roast or opened to be fried or eaten raw,” she said.
“Pappy gave the boys a rake and at each shanty they raked the shells into one big pile,” she said. “Pappy hitched up the horse and wagon and had the boys shovel the shells into the wagon. The fun part was when we all piled into the back of the wagon with our shoes on. When Pappy came to a mudhole in our lane, we would push the shells off with our feet until the mudhole was filled.
“Then Pappy moved to the next mudhole. We’d get enough shells from the shanties each year to keep the mudholes filled,” she said. “I loved riding in the wagon. It was fun!”
It Happened Here in Rivah Country!
