Nellie Crockett (Buy-Boat)
The Nellie Crockett is a Chesapeake Bay oyster buy-boat built for Andrew A. Crockett of Tangier, Virginia, in 1925. She is located at Georgetown, Maryland, USA, on the Sassafras River. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994.
The Nellie Crockett was built specifically to operate as a buy-boat, making the rounds of the Chesapeake Bay oyster beds to buy oysters directly from the harvesters, typically sail-powered skipjacks or oyster tongers. This allowed the oyster dredges to remain on the beds, avoiding the need to return to port when full. Buy-boats typically gave a lower price than a dockside sale, but most oystermen considered this a fair trade for not losing time on a run back to the dock.
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