Part documentary, part nostalgic history, and part informational catalogue, Waterfowling on the Chesapeake, 1819–1936 explores a century of hunting on the Chesapeake Bay and its major tributaries—from the heyday of gun clubs and market shooting to the rise of conservation law. Drawing on oral histories and period documents and artifacts, C. John Sullivan, a longtime collector of decoys and hunting paraphernalia and a frequent guest curator of exhibits, looks at the effects of technological change, the relationship between hunter and dog, the recognition of decoys as folk art, and the history of hunting. He also introduces us to famous and lesser-known carvers and others who share an enthusiasm for this feature of Chesapeake cultural history and life.

The Outlaw Gunner is the colorful story of market gunning in both its legal and illegal phases, particularly as it was practiced in the great Chesapeake Bay, the Outer Banks, and the tidewater regions of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In more than 150 of the most unusual and rare photographs from the author's collection, the men with their guns, boats, and traps are shown in action. The market-gunning paraphernalia looks strange and fearful--and well it might, for it was devastatingly efficient and deadly. He describes baiting practices, gunning with tollers, trapping, gunning lights, punt guns, pipe guns, the sinkbox--the whole bag of tricks the outlaws used. This is a fascinating account of a period and of practices long gone. Throughout the unspoken "good ole days" feeling, and the nostalgia, runs a strong between-the-lines plea for conservation in our time. The appeal, placed in this setting, is hard to ignore.

Smith Island, the largest Maryland island in Chesapeake Bay, remains one of the most interesting communities on the Atlantic coast. Smith Islanders speak a sort of Tidewater English, are devoted to the Methodist faith, and maintain an intense relationship with the waters of the bay. For generations, they have relied on fishing, oystering, and crabbing for their livelihood and have developed workboats that reflect the conditions - both natural and cultural - of local waters. In The Workboats of Smith Island, Paula J. Johnson looks extensively at the remarkable variety of boats - documenting in fascinating detail their design, construction, and use - and the watermen who depend on them. Johnson identifies the three vessel types most common on Smith Island today: crab-scraping boats, deadrise workboats, and skiffs. Every Smith Islander, she notes, owns at least one workboat, and many have two or even three, requiring each for a different purpose - harvesting "peelers" (blue crabs in various stages of molting), oystering or crab potting, and providing basic transportation. Johnson talks with Smith Island's watermen and boatbuilders, as well as their families and neighbors, about the history and future of the island and about the boats that dominate the island's cultural landscape. She includes dozens of photographs and drawings of Smith Island's distinctive watercraft. The result is a singular portrait of a community inextricably linked to the water.

One man celebrates and laments his family’s connection to a disappearing paradise of natural wildlife and beauty on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. Between the Indian and Dividing Creeks, near the mouth of the Rappahannock River in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay, sits a parcel of land called Bluff Point. Like most bay-front villages, the bountiful resources and majestic landscape of this area that once sustained watermen and sportsmen alike have been depleted as over-harvesting, poaching, pollution and continued development have taken their toll, threatening the very legacy of its people. J. H. Hall’s family first settled on this land shortly after the Civil War, where they maintained a tradition of farming, fishing and crabbing throughout the twentieth century. Hall’s words flow as splendidly as the tides in this collection of personal reminisces and local and natural history honoring the lives of the watermen before him and the uncertainty surrounding those today.