Deadly 1939 squall preyed on bay's watermen

Those who sail or make their living on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries know that the water is no stranger to sudden and freakish weather conditions.

Such was the case in February 1939, when a squall swept across the bay and up the Choptank River, catching the oyster-dredging fleet unaware.

And in a matter of minutes, the quickly moving storm left nine watermen dead while sending several skipjacks and bugeyes to the bottom.

The forgotten disaster was resurrected in Christopher White's recently published book, "Skipjack: The Story of America's Last Sailing Oystermen."

The weather forecast published in The Sun for Friday, Feb. 3, 1939, offered no hint of the havoc that would come later that day, offering only a prediction of "rain today and probably tomorrow; colder tonight,"

White interviewed two survivors: Daddy Art and Jimmy Daniels, who were crewing onboard the Robert L. Tawes.

"We were working on a bar called Under the Cliffs between Annapolis and Solomons. It had been raining all morning, drizzling and blowing northeast-like," Daniels told White.

It was afternoon and most of the oystermen were heading home, when "all of a sudden, the sky above the cliffs to the northwest turned dark - black as tar," Daddy Art said.

It was nearly 3 p.m.

Suddenly, the light breeze turned deadly as the squall hit full force with winds in excess of 65 mph, recalled Daniels, who said the vessel's crew was able to get the jib down but the mainsail only halfway down.

"Bringing the boat up into the wind was like hitting a wall. We threw two big anchors into the water to steady her," he said.

The Tawes heeled over in the tempest, with waves crashing over the struggling vessel and its crew. Daddy Art said it was the weight of the 150 bushels of oysters resting in the Tawes' hull that helped keep it from capsizing.

The ferocious storm ended in 10 minutes, then raced across the Chesapeake Bay, heading directly for the Choptank and the unsuspecting dredgers.

"The black squall and its waterspout - essentially a tornado - traveled across the Bay, spinning like a top," White wrote.

"Within minutes, the twister, with winds in excess of seventy miles an hour, entered the Choptank. It bypassed Tilghman Island and carved a course right up the river, lifting water into its funnel," he wrote. "It literally dug a trench through the water."

The bugeye Agnes, sloop J.T. Leonard and skipjacks Geneva May, Annie Lee and Ethel Lewis, along with seven other vessels, were picking their way homeward in a drizzling fog.

"We were spared," Daddy Art told White, "but the Cambridge dredge boats, working in the river, had no idea what was coming. They were caught in a fog. We didn't have radios back then so we couldn't warn them."

The watermen couldn't even see the storm that was about to destroy them.

"The leading wind - from the northwest now - grew fierce, topping sixty miles an hour. And the twister had not arrived," White wrote.

And when it did come, White described the wind as looking "like black smoke over the water. No whitecaps. The wind was faster than the waves. Then it rolled right over the fleet."

By the time the wind slammed into Howell Point, White wrote, it had reached hurricane force.

"The storm bore down on us like a rushing freight train," Willie Parks, a crewman, told a reporter.

The wind now assumed a weird squealing sound as it made a direct hit on the Annie Lee, Agnes and Nora Lawson, which was pushed onto a shoal off Howell Point.

Capt. William Bradford, 77, who was "believed to have been the oldest oyster-boat captain on Chesapeake Bay," reported The Sun, was swept to his death from the Agnes, along with four of his African-American crewmen.

The Annie Lee's captain, Theodore Woodland, and his crew of four were initially luckier. As the howling winds spun the skipjack around and it laid over, all hands were able to make their way to a trailing skiff.

From the small skiff, they watched as their vessel sank off Howell Point bar.

But luck quickly abandoned them when the skiff rolled over in stormy waters, spilling its human cargo.

They were quickly pulled to the bottom - some 20 feet down - by the water that filled their waders. Free of their boots, they made their way to the surface.

The weary crewmen and captain, now beginning to experience hypothermia, tried to reach the overturned skiff; but when they got there, waves washed them off.

Eventually, all of the men perished with the exception of George Wheatley, who kept treading water at the stern of the skiff.

"I saw Captain Bill [Bradford] once a few feet away from me," Wheatley told a Sun reporter. "I grabbed his hand and tried to hold it, but he couldn't stay up. It was too rough and too cold."

Capt. William Hubbard of the Geneva May came to Wheatley's rescue.

"Hold on for your life, George," he yelled, according to The Sun's report. "If you don't, you're done for."

Once safely aboard the Geneva May, the nearly frozen Wheatley was grateful to be alive.