Watermen

For hundreds of years, watermen of the Chesapeake Bay have made a living by harvesting oysters. In the last 50 years, the number of oysters has declined dramatically.

Graham Blake grew up on Sarah Creek, a tributary to the bay. His father and grandfather made a good living as watermen by harvesting, transplanting, fattening, and then re-harvesting oysters from the creek. It was an early form of oyster farming. In the 1940s and ‘50s his family could harvest 200 to 300 bushels of oysters each day. Blake says those days are long-gone.