If you haven’t been down to the Annapolis Maritime Museum (AMM) lately, you owe yourself a visit. For years, the little facility in the old McNasby’s Oyster House at the end of Second Street in the Eastport section of Annapolis has been surrounded by Bay-built boats in various stages of reconstruction and disrepair. Shards of wood and bits of caulking were everywhere.
When I stopped by last month, surprise, surprise—they were done! Well, as done as wooden boats ever get, which is to say never. But they look good, complete, freshly painted, and presentable.
Three shapely hulls grace the grounds outside—the Lydia D, a half-scale replica of a working skipjack; the Herbie Sadler, a 22-foot deadrise skiff donated by the owner of downtown’s late, lamented Sadler’s Hardware; and the Peg Wallace, an indescribably slender draketail workboat that’s 42 feet long and narrow enough to hop across from washboard to washboard in one easy stride.
Indoors sits a nearly immaculate 12-foot Trumpy rowing skiff in gleaming varnish and high-gloss white that looks ready to hit the water right now; next to it is the centerpiece of the inside exhibits, the threadbare Miss Lonesome, a humble, 1940s-vintage workboat that was a floating relic at City Dock Annapolis for decades before rot and ruin finally claimed her. At the museum, she’s been sliced into three sections, the better for visitors to poke around and see what life was once like inside.
Many hands contributed to the revitalization of these fine old craft, but one name stands out—Tom Cagle, the super volunteer who has poured 1000 hours a year and more into bringing AMM’s exhibits to life.
Cagle, a short, sturdy Baltimore native with an easy grin, popped up at the museum one day half a decade ago when he retired from his state job overseeing construction projects, including the new Senate Office Building off State Circle. With a good pension (he’s under the “old system” for those who know what that means) and no immediate family to worry about, he threw himself into volunteer work around home in Eastport, and the biggest beneficiary was the little museum.
“He showed up during my tenure, looking for something to do,” says Jeff Holland, former museum director and now Rhode/West Riverkeeper. “He was good with his hands, and I never found anything I could ask him to do that he couldn’t figure out.”
“We’ve had a lot of good volunteers,” adds Holland, “but to find someone who is capable, available, and so eager and skilled, that’s rare.”
As head of the museum’s six-person boat restoration team, Cagle has spent much of his energy digging out rot, replacing planks, fiberglassing decks, and whopping on paint. The boat work came naturally—he spent summers as a kid with his Uncle Walter, a waterman in Berlin on the Eastern Shore, and had his first boat at age 10. He’s been boating ever since.
Cagle also found time to oversee construction of many of AMM’s indoor exhibits, which meant rebuilding bits and pieces of the oyster harvesting, shucking, and marketing operation that made McNasby’s an Annapolis fixture for most of the 20th century, from 1918 to 1986. He also helped restore the old barge house that now serves as AMM’s conference center in his capacity as volunteer director of maintenance and buildings and grounds.
Sounds like a lot of volunteering, right? It’s the tip of the iceberg. “I’ve been a safe boating instructor for the Maryland Natural Resources Police for 18 years,” Cagle says, and on busy summer weekends he volunteers as a reserve patrol officer for the Natural Resources Police. He’s the lead docent and head of communications and safety for the volunteer group that maintains Thomas Point Lighthouse; and he’s head of logistics for the environmental group Annapolis Green.
He builds sets for the Annapolis Summer Garden Theater and occupies the grand titles “Minister of land logistics and head of homeland security” for the Maritime Republic of Eastport. One of his duties in that capacity is securing and storing the 1700-foot-long rope used for the annual Annapolis-Eastport Tug of War over the harbor in November. The rope weighs 800 pounds, he says, and its whereabouts when not in use are top secret.
As a longtime Harley-Davidson rider, he volunteers as safety officer for the Annapolis Chapter of HOG (Harley Owners Group) and leads rides in the summer. He does the same for the local chapter of the Christian Motorcycle Association and drives a Sunday school bus for his church, the Chesapeake Christian Fellowship in Davidsonville, where he serves as a trustee. He also teaches country and western dancing and, for walking-around money, drives a truck for Homestead Gardens.
They say if you need a job done, give it to a busy person. Tom Cagle, super volunteer, is walking proof.
--by Angus Phillips
