by Larry Chowning
The log hull buyboat F.D. Crockett (1924) is a century old this year and still going strong!
The Deltaville Maritime Museum (DMM), 287 Jackson Creek Road, Deltaville, will host a 100th birthday party June 15 and 16 to celebrate the life of the boat and to establish an endowment.
F.D. Crockett and Old Point (1909), owned by the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md., are the last two large log hull deck boats alive that were built specifically for motor power. The Old Point plans to attend the birthday celebration.
When the first English settlers arrived on the bay in 1607, Native Americans were moving about in dug-out log canoes. The dug-out was the start of an American boatbuilding era that spanned over three centuries of building boats out of logs culminating in their use as primary vessels for travel and commerce on Chesapeake Bay.
The F.D. Crockett was built near the end of the log boat era and it is believed to be one of the largest ever built specifically for an internal combustion engine. The launching of the F.D. Crockett on Chisman Creek in York County in 1924 was the grand finale of the log canoe era….
