I’ve moved three times during my career, and each time my family settled an easy commute from my job. We stayed in Bethesda after I retired, and for a variety of reasons, I decided to settle close to Cambridge. This column recounts my process for selecting my new home and what I’ve learned about my new environment since arriving in 2023. Overall, it’s proven to be a viable choice but I’ve encountered something about Cambridge that’s been mysterious, frustrating, and hopeful. Here’s my story. The hopeful part is what I most want to share with readers.
I retired and took up wooden boatbuilding in 2017. I signed up to volunteer at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation (ASF) on my first day of retirement. ASF had been building and renovating traditional wooden boats for several decades, and they ran a one-year apprenticeship program for at-risk young adults. Graduates got into the carpenters’ union and a few went on to boatyards or the marine trades. Older volunteers schooled me in boatbuilding, and I learned enough to build a 10’ sailing dinghy. It was in the water and under sail by 2019.
My search for a new home had three criteria: (1) Join a wooden boat community like ASF’s, on or close to the Bay, and continue my training as a boatbuilder; (2) Live less than a two-hour drive to my daughters and their growing families; and (3) Contribute to the success of that community and other non-profits near my new home. Having always lived in suburbs or cities, I wanted to live in a rural setting, with interesting towns and the essentials nearby, like a few good coffee shops.
After several months of exploring maritime museums on both sides of the Bay Bridge, I found the Richardson Maritime Museum (RMM). The volunteers I met were welcoming and eager to help me start on my second boat project. When I told them that I had been the curator of a natural history museum for eight years, they thought I could help with the museum’s collection and exhibit programs. Their enthusiastic welcome reminded me of the good experience I had in Alexandria. Cambridge and Easton both seemed like interesting towns so my realtor and I scoured the area between them. In 2023, I moved from Bethesda to a small neighborhood in Hurlock, about 20 minutes from Cambridge and Easton.
Learned about Cambridge’s long maritime history, its important leadership role in the civil rights movement, and its fantastic natural environments like the Blackwater wetlands. It also had a comfortable down-home feel, exemplified by Cindy’s Kitchen where I could have lunch and start a long and interesting conversation with people like a County Councilman.
I spent most of my first year focused on Cambridge, working on collections at Richardson. As I explored Cambridge, I saw evidence of unemployment, neglected neighborhoods, great wealth inequality, and racial tensions. I began reading about their causes and efforts to correct these problems. As I worked to reactivate the museum’s collections and exhibits, I found volunteers willing to pitch in but less enthusiasm by the museum’s leadership to help solve a lack of the necessary funding and workspace. The board was more focused on long-range planning than making short-term progress that would raise the museum’s activity level and visibility. There was great excitement when the Presidential yacht Sequoia arrived at RMM for renovation, but after two years the work hasn’t begun.
I saw similar things in municipal governance. The industrial and tax bases had boomed during World War II but contracted sharply afterwards. Attracting the Hyatt Hotel to Cambridge was a success and other attempts to attract businesses were chronicled in The Journal of the Four Horsemen of Cambridge, MD. The initiative to develop the Cambridge waterfront, inspired by Baltimore’s Inner Harbor could lead to great things. Unfortunately, its progress has been complicated by leadership that’s shared among the County and City governments and Cambridge Waterfront Development, Inc. (CWDI).
Toward the end of my first year on the shore, I learned about the Skipjack Nathan and signed up as a crew member in training. It was around this time that I learned about “the Committee of 100.” Many Cambridge residents will know the story. It impressed me as an important counterexample to the problems I described above.
George H.W. Bush gave “the Thousand Points of Light” speech at the 1988 Republican National Convention, at which he became the GOP’s nominee for President. He called on citizens to form volunteer groups to address local needs, and a group of about 20 successful businessmen in Cambridge responded. Their mission was to make Cambridge a more prosperous city that is successful in attracting businesses and visitors. [‘Committees of 100’ were not mentioned in Bush’s speech. They are civil rights groups whose name overlaps with the one in Cambridge, which I will call ‘Committee of 20’ here.]
The group’s strategy was to create and launch four initiatives that would be led by separate, independent community-based committees. The Committee of 20 did not finance any of the initiatives; it would act as an incubator, advisor, and cheerleader, using its community and business networks. The Committee stepped away once an initiative was launched and making progress.
The four initiatives had used different strategies and tactics from each other. The Richardson Maritime Museum was an early success, opening in a donated bank building 1993. Its exhibits were donated by local boatbuilders and collectors. It attracted many visitors but it has struggled financially since then. The second initiative was the Nathan of Dorchester, a full-size skipjack oystering vessel that was launched in 1994. It relied entirely on non-governmental support, including private funding and a dedicated army of volunteers and local businesses that built it from scratch. It is financially healthy and sustainable, thanks to its voluntary leaders. The Choptank River Lighthouse at Long Wharf (dedicated in 2012) is a replica of a Coast Guard lighthouse that was decommissioned in 1964. It was replaced, thanks to State funding and a generous private donation. The last initiative to be completed is a visitors center for Dorchester County (the “Visitor Center at Sailwinds Park,” dedicated September 2022.) It cost $3 million and was State-funded.
The Committee of 20 gave me a third view of Cambridge, in addition to the hopeful view based on the city’s potential and the feeling of resignation and powerlessness I described above. These four initiatives are evidence of Cambridge’s ability to launch, support, and complete meaningful initiatives led by grassroots groups of dedicated volunteers.
The first time I visited the Richardson Maritime Museum I was confused by a prominent blue sign for “Sailwinds Park” at the corner of Maryland Ave. and Hayward St. It had an arrow pointing to the Choptank River at the foot of Hayward. I had just left the Visitors Center at Sailwinds Park, also next to the river but a half mile away. The blue sign’s arrow wasn’t pointing that way.
I later learned that the sign was for Governor’s Hall, not the Visitors Center. The Hall was on the river where it meets Cambridge Creek, occupying one corner of the Cambridge Harbor development’s area. It had been a warehouse of the Cambridge Marine Terminal, and then a cold-storage facility for frozen tuna offloaded from large fishing vessels. When the tuna operation was moved to Mexico, the warehouse was outfitted and repurposed as a facility for events. Beginning around 1990, it was used for indoor and outdoor concerts, conferences, festivals, and a for-rent facility for meetings and weddings, among others.
I managed to find Archived Sailwinds Park website (July 16, 2007). This webpage documents a well-used facility with an active event schedule. Based on this information, Governor’s Hall seems like exactly the kind of place that would make a town special and worth visiting. Governor’s Hall seems to reflect a powerful sense of community, capable of bringing people together to create lasting memories.
The City of Cambridge and the Maryland Economic Development Corporation commissioned a feasibility study for either renovating or replacing Governor’s Hall. The Executive Summary of the resulting report was released at the end of 2013. When I requested the full report from the consultants who ran the study, I was told that it is not available to the public.
Governor’s Hall was demolished in June 2022.
CWDI included space for a public park with a performance stage in its preliminary plans for the Cambridge Waterfront. It seems unlikely that the allotted space can support activities like those that Governor’s Hall had offered.
A replacement for Governor’s Hall could raise Cambridge’s activity level, its visibility, and its tourism income by creating a shared space for public events. Cambridge has demonstrated its ability to create what it needs. I can’t help wondering if a new Committee of 20 could become an incubator capable of creating a new Governor’s Hall.
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