The old schooner was built in 1891 and had spent a career hauling timber from North Carolina to Baltimore and returning with fertilizer. The three-master had squat lines, like a barge. Shallow draft, with a centerboard, the Marvel was also very slow. It belonged to a class of boats built in Bethel, Delaware, called “ram schooners.”
As trucks and trains became a faster and more economical option for transporting most cargoes, the freight schooners on the bay needed to find other work. Many were unceremoniously dismasted and converted into diesel powered freight boats, hauling oysters or produce from rural areas to city markets. Fate had very different plans for the Marvel and its sister, the Edwin and Maud. The big schooners were sold to Herman Knust, a former B&O Railroad executive who had a good idea for a new line of business.
He bought the boats for $18000 each in 1944 and took them to the shipyard and had them overhauled as passenger cruise vessels. The spacious cargo holds were piped with running water and built out with 17 staterooms, each with a porthole and sink. There were heads built in and a dining saloon. Knust correctly intuited that there was a market for windjammer cruises on the Chesapeake on the rustic old boats. The idea was a “dude cruise,” with passengers getting a taste of the seafaring life by helping out lines, enjoying evenings on the deck and visiting historic ports of call like St. Michaels, Maryland, a tiny fishing village, now home to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
Chesapeake Bay Vacation Cruises had a successful run. Knust sold the Edwin and Maud to a windjammer operator from Maine, who changed the name to Victory Chimes. This vessel, with its long history, is still operating today as a passenger cruise boat in Rockland, Maine. It is on the National Register of Historic Landmarks and enjoys a popular following. We will report more on the Victory Chimes later this summer as the blog will be posted from the deck on the anniversary of the Marvel’s foundering.
The Marvel was not as lucky as the Victory Chimes…Knust laid her up in Salisbury, Maryland, far up the winding Nanticoke River and there she was mothballed until 1954, when John Meckling purchased her for $7500. He had dreams of reviving the dude cruises.
By then, the Marvel was in quite rough shape. Meckling and his silent partner, short of working capital, made enough repairs to the hull to get the ship back in service. Getting to Booz Brothers Shipyard Baltimore was quite a trip in itself…stay tuned for that story.
Levin J Marvel 