From Dandy to the White House
Mr. Lesley Dawson
86 year old resident and Waterman of Dandy, Virginia

We met Mr. Dawson at his home in Dandy - #314. He was born and raised in this house. As we looked around the living room and front room, there were wonderful old photographs of his grandparents, parents and relations. A picture of his father's boat, the Louise, was hanging in the front room. We could see damage around the house from Hurricane Isabel in 2003 where the water came up 15 inches (33 cm) above his living room floor.

How old were you when you first started out as a Waterman?

I fished with my father on his boat, the Louise. It was a 53-footer. I first went out with my father when I was a senior in high school. We had vacation and I went out. That was in December 1934. My mother didn't want me to work on the water. She wanted me to go to College. She said it was too much effort for the return.

I fished with my father on his boat, the Louise

What did you fish here on the Bay?
My Grandfather and father fished Crocker, Spot and Trout, Bluefish and Flounder here on the Bay. We also fished Crab. The first day I went fishing with my dad, we dredged for Crabs. We went out in the Louise, a dredge boat. We caught 50 barrels of crab one day. That's a lot of crabs. In the summertime, we used a 38- footer where we had trout lines and crab pots. We pulled them in by hand.

In the wintertime, the Crabs go offshore and hibernate, so that's when you use a dredge. It's like big rake on a chain. You drag it along the bottom and it picks them up off the bottom. Dredge season starts December 1. There's no season on crab pots, the weather takes care of that, but for dredging, its December 1 - March 31.

How many worked onboard the boat?
The Louise needed a crew of three - the Skipper and two deck hands. The guy that works forward is the Cook and the guy that works aft is the Engineer. I was the Engineer. A fellow by the name of Elmer Brooks, a coloured man, was the cook. He was about the age of my dad. Once in a while you'd catch something to eat, but by and large you brought it from home.

Did you process your own crab or did you sell it to other processing factories?
We built a Crab factory in '47 and we shut it down in 1972. At one time there was 3 crab factories on this creek. There were times when we didn't have a market for our catch. So we built a crab factory just next door. At one time, we had 50 girls pickin' crab. Crab-pickin' was something you had to do by hand, it took a lot of time. And at one point we were supplying 10 Ocean Liners that were sailing the Atlantic Ocean, we were also selling crabmeat throughout the United States and we had the privilege of serving the White House with crabmeat. President Johnson was in office.

Looking out across the bay in front of Mr Dawson's Home

Where did you get your supply of crabs?
Dad had two boats and my Uncle Paul next door had a boat, so between the two of them, we caught all the crab we could handle, in the wintertime. In the summertime, we bought crab from 7 or 8 boats that came in from Gloucester.

How did you process the crabs?
We had a kettle that would hold 10 barrels of crabs and we had baskets that would hold 3 and half kettles. We would put those baskets in the kettle, put on the cover and turn on the steam. We'd steam them for 18 minutes. We'd take the baskets out of the kettle and put them on dollies and roll them in the cooling room and let them cool off. Then we'd roll them into the cold room. We'd cook them today and pick them tomorrow.

What's your favourite way to eat crab?
Crab cakes, I guess.

Did you fish for oysters?
Oysters would grow in the James River and we'd call them seed oysters. They attach to the shells when they spawn. The James River was the most prolific seedbed in the country. My dad had 5 acres of ground in the Creek that you leased from the state. You'd throw the seed oysters overboard in the Creek and in about 3 years you'd have oysters. We would sell them by the bushel or you could shuck them. We didn't shuck any we'd just sell them by the bushel to the merchants - purveyors or fishmongers.

Is there anything you miss about being a Waterman?
Um, no… Not much.