One of the last of Maryland’s Potomac River “long-planking” dory builders, Creighton William Palmer, passed away in June at 89, leaving behind a legacy of building what some referred to as the “perfect” wooden boat.

“Creighton was never in a hurry to get a job done,” says Joe Scrivener of Drayden, Md. and owner of Maryland Seafood Inc.  “But what he did was perfect. He would pick up every board in a stack of 40 boards until he found the one with the just right curve or twist.”

When Scrivener, now 72 years old, was 18 he had Palmer build him a 22-foot skiff used to work crab pots and gill nets. The skiff came on the heels of Palmer building Jack Scrivener, Joe’s father, a 42’ x 13” long-planked dory that he used to run charters on the Potomac River.

“I remember watching Creighton use his wooden steam box to steam the boards to twist them to fit on the bottom and sides,” says Scrivener “Daddy recommended Creighton to me to build my boat. He told me that if I wanted the perfect boat, Creighton would come as close to that as any boatbuilder around. My Dad was right!”

Potomac River Dory

The most popular wooden Chesapeake Bay commercial fishing boat is the V-bottom, deadrise and cross-planked bottom boat, except on Maryland’s north shore of the Potomac River.

It is the home of the Potomac River dory.  The dory is a framed, fore-and-aft bottom-planked vessel that boatbuilders on the bay refer to as long-planked boats. It was a competitor of deadrise/cross planked bottom boats and was around during the same time period. Like the V-bottom Virginia deadrise, the modern dory started in the days of sail and was later modified to accommodate the internal combustion engine.

The forerunner of the dory was a flat-bottom sailing craft called a “Nancy.” The Nancy was sometimes referred to as a “Black Nancy” because watermen often painted boats black using pine tar pitch from pine trees abundant on the north bank of the Potomac. Like the dory, the Nancy had stem-to-stern bottom planking.

Palmer’s Railway and History

The July 2005 issue of National Fisherman mentioned the railway in the Around the Yard-South column. It stated that “Creighton Palmer’s Marine Railway in Abell, Md., on St. Patrick Creek, which runs into the mouth of St. Clements Bay on the Potomac River, would make a wonderful setting for an artist’s brush, as nautical artifacts dating from the Model-T Ford days are scattered about the rustic railway.

“This railway that caters mostly to commercial fishermen, and is typical of many marine railways that are located off the beaten track - if you don’t know about it, you don’t get there.”

Creighton and his father Wilmer E. Palmer, were featured in a book by Richard J. Dodds and Robert J. Hurry, “Boats for Work, Boats for Pleasure - the Last Era of Wooden Boatbuilding in Southern Maryland,” published by Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Md.

The book speaks to the railway’s history. Wilmer Palmer, Creighton’s father, and his mother Veronica Lucy Palmer started the railway in 1931. The railway was laid down near the 1896 family home where Wilmer was born. The railway is located at the end of Wilmer Palmer Road named after Creighton’s father. In 1933, Wilmer built a 26-foot boat for himself and after that started building workboats for others.

When he was only 15 years old, Creighton built his first boat, a 26-foot skiff with the help of his father. He went on to help his father in the business and started building  “handsome cabin cruisers.” By the early 1980s Creighton stopped building boats and concentrated on the railway business, the book stated.

The craft of building wooden boats on Chesapeake Bay is being carried on more and more by museum sponsored boat shops and less and less in private owned boat shops and railways. The death of Creighton Palmer is a sad reminder of a vanishing culture.