Chesapeake Maritime Museum to Build 17th Century Sailing Ship

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland, is being tapped to build a brand-new Maryland Dove, a representation of a late 17th-century sailing ship that brought the first European settlers to Maryland.

By Gary Reich

January 15, 2019

On March 25, 1634, two sailing ships arrived in what is now St. Marys, Maryland, carrying 128 settlers for the planned colonization of the area. Those two ships were named Ark and Dove, and their passengers were the first people to settle what would become the state of Maryland.

Nearly 350 years later, a replica of Dove, named Maryland Dove, was built by James B. Richardson in Cambridge, Maryland, and commissioned in 1978. She served the last 40 years as an ambassador for the state of Maryland, as well as a steward for Maryland’s historical roots.

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) on January 10 was picked to build the next Maryland Dove, a full recreation of the original Dove. She will be built using the methods of the period and will include details not known at the time her sister ship Maryland Dove was constructed. Design work will commence immediately, and construction should begin mid-year. Maryland Dove’s construction will be performed in full public view.

“We are thrilled and honored to have been selected to build a new Maryland Dove,” said CBMM President Kristen Greenaway. “Over the course of the next few years, our shipwrights and apprentices will build a historically accurate replacement to the existing ship, and we welcome guests to be a part of the construction and education experience.”