Today, the Maryland and Virginia State Quarter Coins remember when the governor of Virginia asked the state’s legislators for more laws for the oyster business.
From his letter to the legislators, Maryland oystermen had not only exhausted their supply but had also destroyed the habitat. Now the Maryland men came into Virginia’s rich oyster beds to make their living.
From the Journal of the Senate for the Commonwealth of Virginia:
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GOVERNOR’S OFFICE, Richmond, VA., February 20, 1894.
To the General Assembly of Virginia.
As the present session of the Senate and House is drawing to a close and no legislation has yet been enacted to protect our great oyster interests from the depredation of non-residents of the State and maintain the law in her waters and sustain her dignity therein, and fearing that in the press of matters incident to the closing days of a session of the Legislature the importance of such legislation may be overlooked, I deem it my duty to call special attention to the same, and earnestly urge action before adjournment.
The Tangier and Pocomoke Sounds, as is well known, lie partly in Maryland and partly in Virginia. On the Maryland side of the boundary line the oyster beds have been practically exhausted, while on the Virginia side the beds are rich and productive.
This condition seems to have rendered the citizens of Maryland residing in the vicinity of the Sounds, and who follow oystering for a living, desperate. Having dredged and worked the Maryland beds until their yield is no longer remunerative, they seem determined at all hazards to take possession of the Virginia beds and cart away their rich products, and by dredging destroy the natural rocks, and render the Virginia beds as poor as the Maryland beds.
At present our interests are actually at the mercy of these marauders. We are powerless to defend our rights, and daily and hourly these desperate men are found in our waters plying their vocation and carrying away the property of the State which she has declared should be preserved for the use of her own citizens.
We have in each Sound a vessel, in form a schooner, but in fact perfectly useless for the purposes for which they are intended. They are there to protect our waters from the incursions of non-residents, to maintain the law and sustain the dignity of the State, but they have no capacity for police duty, and to refer to them in that connection is to treat a serious matter with levity.
Their cost to the Commonwealth annually is about $5,000, which I regard as money absolutely wasted. They are mere playthings with the reckless men with whom they have to deal, and they and their crews only float and live because the marauders have not considered them of sufficient importance to destroy.
Their sailing capacity is insufficient, while their armaments carry us back to the days of the Howitzer of the revolution.
They have no means of protecting their crews from the fire of the rifle of the present day, and an engagement between them and even a fleet of fishing smacks of modern build would soon end in the defeat of the former and their capture as well unless they could escape by flight.
Within the last few days there was an engagement between the schooner Tangier and a number of dredging boats which resulted disastrously to the schooner, as I learn.
On Sunday morning last about 1:30 I received the following telegram:
Governor Charles T. O’Ferrall: Send Chesapeake. Dredgers about to get best of us. Ammunition out.
R. J. Reed, Captain Police Schooner Tangier.
I have no information as to the whereabouts of the steamer Chesapeake, but at 2 o’clock A. M., and again at 6 P. M., I endeavored to reach the commander by wire with orders to go at once, and speedily, to the assistance of the Tangier. About 12 o’clock on yesterday I received the following telegram:
Fort Monroe, February 19, 1894.
Governor Charles T. O’Ferrall:
Have just received your telegram to Mr. Booker. Will proceed to Tangier sound immediately.
[Signed] W. E. Hudgins.
Fort Monroe, February 19, 1894.
Governor Charles T. O’Ferrall:
Captain Hudgins here. Have just secured from Colonel Frank two hundred fuses for him. He will proceed at once.
[Signed] George Booker.
I have no further information, except that I read in the State that the police schooner Tangier, after a stubborn defense, was driven off by a fleet of Maryland dredgers, who swept her decks with their Winchester rifles.
To be frank, this statement is true, and I do not doubt it. It is very humiliating to me, and I am sure it is to your honorable bodies, and it is enough to arouse the pride of any Virginian and lead Virginia’s Representatives to a determination to protect her territory against marauders on land or water, let it cost what it may.
Our oyster interests, in my opinion, are worthy of more consideration than they have had at our hands. Our oyster beds, and our citizens engaged in the trade, are entitled to more protection than is now extended to them. Our men who compose our oyster police force deserve better treatment than they now receive, and should not be required to risk their lives on such vessels and with such armaments as they now have.
We should either determine to protect our waters absolutely, or abandon all police surveillance over them, and cease our efforts to raise revenue from their products and allow them to become the common ground of the citizens of the Commonwealth without restriction, and the preying ground of every predatory craft that may please to enter them.
But I most earnestly insist that not only do our material interests and justice to our own citizens demand prompt and vigorous legislative action on our part in the direction of protection, but the honor and dignity of the Commonwealth demand it.
It has been demonstrated that with proper management a considerable revenue can be raised from our oyster beds, provided they are reserved and those who engage in planting can be made to feel that their capital and labor will not be taken from them by thieves.
So that, from a revenue standpoint, we shall have more effective legislation, and the more effective the protection the more persons will engage in the business, and consequently the more revenue will be raised.
Again, under the present system of renting, the renter has the right to look to the power that requires him to pay rent for greater security. His privileges, like the tongers’, should be carefully guarded.
But above all other considerations, is the honor and dignity of the Commonwealth. These waters belong to Virginia absolutely and unqualifiedly.
Every foot of them is within the ancient boundary of Virginia. She has declared that they shall be preserved for the exclusive benefit of her citizens , that non-residents shall not enter them. This is her solemn declaration, and her past history is resplendent with her firmness of purpose and fidelity to resolution.
Will she now depart from the course which she has thus so long illumined? Will she by inaction allow her rights to be trampled upon by bands of reckless and desperate men? Will she tamely submit to the incursions of those whom she has expressly excluded? Will she quietly submit to the defiance of her laws and the invasion of her territory by lawless men, with arms in their hands ready to murder her law officers if they dare resist them in their schemes of lawlessness and plunder?
She takes care to enforce her laws against wrong-doers on her land; will she not on her waters? She stops not to enquire the cost of suppressing a mob in any of her cities or quelling a disturbance in any of her rural districts—will she withhold her strong arm from her rivers, sounds and bays in times of similar troubles?
Is the violation of her laws and the commission of crime less reprehensible in the Tangier and Pocomoke sounds than in her capital city? Is not one portion of her domain as sacred in her estimation as another, and the peace and welfare of Tidewater as important as the peace and welfare of the Valley or any other section? Her past answers all these questions.
As the executive of Virginia, sharing her glory with all her sons and proud of her fair name, and commanded by her to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” I feel deeply my helpless condition and my inability for want of proper means, the result of inadequate legislation, to obey her command, and execute the high trust reposed in me. I listen daily to the account which reached me of the violation of her laws and the defiance of her lawful authority with feelings of abject humiliation.
In conclusion I most respectfully but earnestly recommend such immediate action upon the part of your honorable bodies as will enable me to guard effectively the waters of Tangier and Pocomoke sounds, and the property and rights of Virginia therein, arrest violaters of her law and sustain her dignity.
To this end I would respectfully recommend the passage of an act authorizing and directing the construction or purchase of two steam launches of modern and strong build, light draft and rapid movement, and the equipping of each with two guns of improved pattern and long range.
I am not able to state definitely the cost of the vessels and their armaments, but from the best information I have, it will not exceed fifteen thousand ($15,000) dollars, which will be inconsiderable in comparison with the purposes to be attained and the immense benefit to be derived.
With these two launches, in my opinion, it will not be necessary to maintain in the service one schooner. Of course more vessels would give more protection, and if in your opinion the two schooners should be retained it will meet with my approval. I have simply stated the least number of vessels which I believe can be relied upon for effective work.
What I earnestly urge is action and vigorous legislation. Let us not dally with this question, it is too important. Let us no longer expect a boy to do a man’s work. It is too serious a matter.
I would further recommend that another bill be passed creating a commission of two to be elected by the General Assembly or appointed by the executive, as may be deemed best, to be known as the Oyster Commission, and invest it with general control, direction and management of the oyster interest of the State.
This, I think, is absolutely necessary if we hope to make our oyster industry a source of revenue to any considerable extent. I refer only to the general features of the bill. I shall not discuss its details. The power of removal of the members of the commission should be vested in the Board on the Chesapeake and its Tributaries or the executive, for malfeasance, misfeasance, inefficiency or neglect of duty.
With implicit faith in the patriotism and wisdom of your honorable bodies, I shall now submit these hastily prepared views and suggestions. But before concluding, I would be much pleased if there could be such reciprocity between Maryland and Virginia as will allow the law officers of one State to pursue violators of the law in the Tangier and Pocomoke sounds into the other, and there make arrests. The relations of the two States have always been so cordial, and their interests so closely allied, that I indulge the hope that some legislation to that end may at no distant day be secured.
Chas. T. O’Ferrall.
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The Maryland and Virginia State Quarter Coins show with an image of oyster dredging, circa 1890.
