voc 2020 episode 19: Donald Shomette

Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay author, National Marine Sanctuary Archeologist

NOAA has designated an 18-square-mile stretch of Maryland’s Potomac River as the new national marine sanctuary. Mallows Bay-Potomac River will protect nearly all of the remains of the “Ghost Fleet,” hundreds of World War I-era wooden steamships. During World War I, a thousand wooden steamships were commissioned to support the U.S. war effort. However, the war ended before the ships could be used and hundreds of them were scuttled in the Potomac River. Many of them remain, now protected by the national marine sanctuary.

In addition to the Ghost Fleet, the sanctuary will protect archaeological and cultural resources spanning centuries. Evidence of Native American habitation of the area dates back 12,000 years, and Mallows Bay is important to the Piscataway Conoy Tribe and other Native Americans in the region. The area also contains artifacts from the Revolutionary, Civil, and both World Wars, as well as successive regimes of Potomac fishing industries.

“Designating the Ghost Fleet in Mallows Bay – the Chesapeake Bay’s first national marine sanctuary – is a fitting tribute to a unique cultural and natural resource that provides a tangible link to important chapters in U.S. history,” says Katherine Malone-France, interim chief preservation officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “We commend NOAA for taking this action to promote a historic place that conveys the rise of American industrialism, ingenuity, and a citizen war effort that heralded the emergence of our country as a world power. This designation will ensure that more Americans are able to experience this special place.”

https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/jul19/noaa-designates-new-mallows-bay-potomac-river-national-marine-sanctuary.html