The buyboat “Peggy of New Point” turned 100 years old this year and on Saturday, June 21, family, friends and old crewmen came together on Gwynn’s Island to celebrate the life of the century old boat.
Just having come off the railway from Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina at Port Haywood, the Peggy was spit-shined to celebrate her 100 years. The boat was built by Mathews County boatbuilder Harry A. Hudgins of Peary in 1925 and is owned today by the Mathews Maritime Museum Foundation.
The style of boat is referred to as a buyboat when being used as a working platform to purchase seafood from watermen out on the fishing grounds. The boats are also referred to as deck boats when decking is installed fore-and-aft over stringers and bulkheads to create a working/standing platform atop the hull.
The Peggy was originally built as an open “trap” boat for the pound net fishery. She was decked over and had a pilothouse installed in 1950 to be worked in Virginia’s winter crab dredge fishery and as a buyboat.
This was not unusual in that many large open hull “trap” boats were converted to deck boats and buyboats. Large boats used in the Chesapeake Bay’s Virginia pound net fishery were referred to as trap boats. The Peggy is unique, however, in that she is one of the last of her kind left in existence that transcended from an open trap boat to a deck boat.
The Peggy is one of just a couple dozen deck boats still afloat on Chesapeake Bay. Gloucester, Mathews, Middlesex, Lancaster, Northumberland, York and Suffolk counties were centers of Virginia wooden boatbuilding and many of these large deadrise boats were built in Middlesex.
At the event on June 21, the families and crew members who had owned and worked aboard the Peggy over the century were highlighted by the foundation. Members of the Burroughs and Grinnell families informally reflected on their memories of the boat — in their times. Emotions ran high as memories reflected that the Peggy of Newport was part of their family and will always be so in their minds.
Peggy was originally built for pound net fisherman Captain Walter Burroughs and named after Burroughs youngest daughter. The late Margaret “Peggy” Banks Burroughs Pierce was born in 1923 the same year Captain Burroughs and his brother-in-law commissioned the building of the boat. Hudgins delivered the boat in 1925.
The Burroughs family owned the Peggy for 36 years before selling her in 1961 to 23-year-old waterman Edward Grinnell. Grinnell used the boat in Virginia’s winter crab dredge fishery and in the pound net fishery.
He sold her in 2001 to Kim and Gretchen Granberry, who converted her into a yacht cruiser. The Granberrys donated the boat to the foundation in 2008 with the provision that she remain in Mathews County for the remainder of her days. The foundation converted her back to a workboat and has maintained her since.
The cost of maintaining and preserving a wooden boat the size of the Peggy is challenging. The foundation has set up an endowment fund and is seeking donations to grow the endowment to keep her alive for future generations. Anyone interested in donating to the preservation of the Peggy of Newport should contact the Mathews Maritime Museum Foundation, P.O. Box 1201, Mathews, VA 23109-1201 or call 725-4444.
OTHER BUYBOATS TURNING 100 YEARS OLD THIS YEAR
Happy 100th birthday to the buyboats East Hampton, Nellie Crockett and Peggy!
A birthday buyboat rendezvous party is scheduled in September to celebrate the three 100-year-old Chesapeake Bay buyboats. The three boats and other buyboats will be at the Poquoson workboat races on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 13 and 14, and at Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina in Port Haywood in Mathews County on Saturday, Sept. 20, at a birthday party for the Peggy.
The Nellie Crockett was built in 1925 by Charles A. Dana of Crisfield, Md., and the East Hampton was built the same year in Laban in Mathews County by Boney Diggs and Freeman Hudgins.
The Nellie Crockett was built for Andrew Crockett of Tangier Island and named after his daughter Nellie. Andrew Crockett used the Nellie Crockett as a buyboat to buy seafood on the water from watermen and in Virginia’s winter crab dredge fishery.
The boat was owned for many years by the late James Ward of Deltaville and was home moored on Jackson Creek in Deltaville. Ward used the boat to buy seed oysters from James River watermen and to plant seed on private oyster grounds around the bay.
For three years during World War II, the Nellie Crockett was pressed into service as a fireboat for the War Shipping Administration. Her name, between 1942 and 1945, was changed to a number: CG-6515F. After the war, she went back to her original name and purpose.
The boat today is owned by Ted and Mimi Parish of Georgetown, Md., who have converted the boat into a pleasure yacht.
The East Hampton is owned today by Barry and Jennifer Buckley of Chestertown, Md., and has been converted to a yacht. The East Hampton was originally built for Curtis Hudgins, a Mathews County pound net fisherman.
The East Hampton was like the Peggy in that she was built as an open boat, but unlike the Peggy had a V stern. She was converted to a deck boat with a round stern by boatbuilder Frank Smith of Gloucester County. The boat was owned and completely refurbished in the early 2000s by David and Trudy Rollins of Poquoson. Rollins comes from a longtime Poquoson family of boatbuilders.
The Poquoson Seafood Festival Workboat races is conducted annually at Messick Point and this year is on Sunday, Sept. 14. The races are conducted on Poquoson’s Back River with Chesapeake Bay deadrise boats and other working craft. The Port Haywood event will feature the buyboats open to the public and food, vendors and music.
