All but forgotten, buyboats served for nearly a century throughout the Bay region as floating middlemen buying fresh catch off smaller workboats and whisking it away to customers on the shore. Chowning preserves a fading way of life, the vessels that powered it, and the voices of those who worked it.

During the 1880s, Chesapeake Bay boatbuilders began constructing small wooden open boats, referred to as deadrise boats, out of planks with V-shaped bows. As boatbuilders created larger deadrise boats, decks were installed to provide more work and payload space; these deck boats also had a house/pilothouse near the stern and a mast closer to the bow of the boat. Deck boats were powered by gasoline engines but also utilized sails and wind. From the 1910s to the 1940s, auxiliary "steadying" sails were raised to help steady the boat when encountering adverse seas. More deck boats were built in the 1920s than in any other decade. Over the history of the boats, several thousand worked the bay in the freight business, were used to buy and plant oysters, worked in the bay's pound net fishery, and dredged for crabs and oysters. Approximately 40 boats are left on the bay. A few still work the water. Some have found new life as recreational yachts, and others are education boats owned by museums and nonprofits. In 2004, boat owners formed the Chesapeake Bay Buyboat Association, which holds an annual rendezvous at different ports as a way to educate the public about this unique aspect of Chesapeake Bay maritime history.

In Deadrise and Cross-planked, author Larry S. Chowning takes readers on a journey into the history of wooden deadrise boat building, highlighting its role in Chesapeake Bay culture, and providing deeper insight into the builders who created these works of nautical ingenuity. More than 150 photographs complement this insiders view of the traditional watermens lifestyle and offer a glimpse of the history that spans the thousands of nautical miles of the Chesapeake Bay. Written by one of the most notable bay historians, Deadrise and Cross-planked is a must-have for all maritime and Chesapeake Bay enthusiasts.

Photographer Jay Fleming turned his attention to Smith and Tangier Islands - the Chesapeake Bay's last inhabited 'water-locked' islands. Fleming has made countless trips to the islands to document the unique way of life and environment that have been shaped by isolation and the waters of the Chesapeake. This collection of photographs will fill the pages of Fleming's second book, Island Life. This body work comes at an important time for the islands, as their populations continue to decline and the unrelenting forces of the bay threaten the working working waterfronts that have sustained the communities for centuries. Fleming hopes that his photography will immerse readers in the Island Life and capture a crucial moment in time for the Chesapeake's most unique communities.

"Tangier is a mere dot of land in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay situated just below the Maryland-Virginia line. This study is an account of the Islanders' beginnings in the late 1700s, a portrait of them as an isolated community under siege, and a description of the way they talk."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In the years since Larry Chowning's book, Harvesting the Chesapeake: Tools and Traditions, was published, the author has fielded many questions from readers about why he didn't include a particular fishery or tradition in his collection. Chowning answers these questions in this second volume relating to the fisheries in his continuing effort to document the heritage of the Chesapeake Bay. "The truth of the matter is," he confesses in his preface, "I like most watermen and I like what they stand for. I appreciate their tradition and their struggle to survive in an occupation that does not fit well in today's fast-paced urban society. Chesapeake Bay watermen are a carryover from earlier days when people had to be self-sufficient just to take care of their basic needs." It's easy to share this appreciation for those who make their living on or around the water when reading this volume. It is a treasure trove of little-known gems about life in the Chesapeake region: tales from the days of fishing under sail, reminiscences from women who survived in the waterman's world, recipes for salting herring and cooking muskrat, descriptions of distinctive fishing vessels from bygone eras and their modern equivalents, and even an account of a very special tradition--the harvesting of human souls through baptism by immersion!

The original 1912 news accounts of the Titanic disaster include the first-hand accounts of survivors as told to reporters who met the ship bringing them from where they were saved from lifeboats.The surviving crew describes the crucial moments after the ship hit the iceberg. A crewman testifies just three days after the sinking that the ship had a fire in its coal bunkers from the time it set sail.Teachers across America buy this book citing the original sources detailed that enable them to teach a lesson on the Titanic.