Museum craftsmen are restoring this historic skipjack, which was built in 1955 to dredge oysters from the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.Why is this skipjack important? The celebrated Dorchester County boatbuilder Bronza Parks built Rosie Parks in Wingate, Maryland, side-by-side with two other skipjack, Martha Lewis and Lady Katie, part of the last wave of skipjack construction in the decade after World War II. Bronza’s brother, Orville Parks owned Rosie and named her for their mother. Orville Parks took immense pride in his boat and raced here in the annual skipjack races at Deal Island and Sandy Point, winning more often than any of his rivals. He worked Rosie every year until his health forced him to sell the boat in 1975, and he died less than a year later. Since then, Rosie has been in the collection of the museum and today is perhaps the skipjack least altered from her original construction.
“I know I can’t quit. I couldn’t lay home with these boats out in the river. When I quit, I’m going to move away from Cambridge so I can’t see the dredge boats”.
—Capt. Orville Parks, 1967,
(Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
