The skipjack Flora A. Price was built at Chase, Maryland, in 1910. She was one of the largest skipjacks ever built. Flora dredged Chesapeake oysters for 70 years.
[See hundreds of photos and historic documents here.]
Flora probably at Fredericktown on the Sassafras River, possibly owner Bill Combs in the stern, with glasses on.
[Photo courtesy Megan Peterson]
Michael Gould and Jenny Walton Gould aboard Flora
[Photo courtesy Megan Peterson]
Michael Gould
[Photo courtesy Megan Peterson]
Probably owner Bill Combs
[Photo courtesy Megan Peterson]
In 1999, Capt. Doug West gave Flora to the now-defunct Old Harford Town Maritime Center in Denton. She arrived at Denton in February 2000.
[See hundreds of photos and historic documents here.]
OHTMC had earlier acquired the skipjack FC Lewis Jr. and funding to preserve her as a landside exhibit. Flora arrived at OHTMC about the same time as the skipjack Maggie Lee. OHTMC planned to use Flora and Maggie as living classrooms for a boatbuilding and maritime skills.
During spring and summer of 2001, OHTMC volunteers refinished her spars and re-stepped her mammoth 75-foot mast at Caroline Summerfest. But over the next several winters, it was hard for the small group of volunteers to keep the pumps running in Flora’s bilge, and there was no funding for professional repair and restoration.
In 2008, OHTMC handed over Flora A. Price to the Jim Richardson Foundation in Cambridge. At that time, she was the largest surviving skipjack in the Chesapeake Bay and had been recently named one of the 11 Endangered Skipjacks by Preservation Maryland. The Richardson Museum was working on a restoration plan and hoped to raise money for the restoration through grants and donations. Like OHTMC in Denton, the Museum expected to use Flora for tours and educational programs.
But it didn’t happen. Spinsheet and Last Skipjacks Project both reported that Flora A. Price had sunk in Cambridge Harbor, and in spring 2013 she was raised, broken up, and burned.
My father was friends with the Flora’s owner, Bill Combs, in the 1960s. We got to spend time on it. I have some photos from that time.
I took a couple of pictures of this boat in the 1970s if you’d like to see them.
Thanks for writing. It would be great to see these. I’ll email you with a reply address.
Don B.
I knew of Flora Price from her “yacht” days. She visited the Connecticut River in the 70s, while owned in partnership, by the late Dick Davidson, from Essex CT. It’s sad to know her end, But glad to hear more of her history.