Deltaville became known as the boat building capital of the lower Chesapeake Bay thanks to the hard work and skill of several pioneer boat builders. In the late 1800s, William Wright moved to Deltaville, Virginia from the Eastern Shore. He brought with him his family, his boat-building expertise and a strong work ethic which soon became recognized and sought after. His boats soon defined the Chesapeake Bay’s deadrise boats’ design. Linwood Price started building buyboats and deadrise boats, and John E. Wright began crafting flat-bottom skiffs and larger commercial boats in his backyard on Jackson Creek around 1910. Lee Deagle opened Deagle’s and Son Marine Railway in 1934. Their tools and their stories are preserved at the Deltaville Maritime Museum.
Most of the tools on display were actually at one time used by legendary local boat builders like Edmund Harrow, Williard Norris, John Wright, P.J. Green, Lewis Wright, Alvin Sibley, Ed Deagle and others. Resident shipwright John England carries on the tradition of wooden boat building to this day at the museum’s boat shop.
In the early days before electricity was in use everywhere, boat builders relied on the broadaxe. Its razor-sharp hardened steel blade was used to turn a log into a beam, keelson, rib or plank. Unlike a common axe or hatchet, the sharpened edge was beveled like a chisel. The handle was also bent in such a way as to keep the user’s knuckles from being scraped as he chipped away on a log. In order to shape a rough log into the various shapes needed to build a boat, the shipwright would hew the wood, chip by chip, until he had the smooth square surface desired. It was a task that required incredible patience and skill.
Certainly, the second most important tool used by shipwrights and carpenters alike was the adze. The adze, a type of axe, features a curved blade that is perpendicular to the handle. Shipwrights use it for finer shaping. They can control the cut more accurately. It is also commonly utilized in woodworking and timber framing for shaping wood, such as carving or hollowing out logs. There are a variety of shaped adzes. It is one of the more popular tools used by early boat builders and is on display in the museum. The adze is a unique tool that has endured. It is very valuable to boat builders and is in use even until this day.
High on the list of favorite tools used by early shipwrights is the draw knife. The draw knife is an ancient, versatile woodworking tool featuring a blade with two handles. It is used for rapid wood removal by pulling it toward the operator. Long before they built boats in Deltaville, the Egyptians, Vikings and Romans were using draw knives to shape wood. Coopers, wheelwrights, and timber framers used draw knives to shape curved or straight wood.
A shipwright would not be able to accomplish much without the wooden screw clamps used to hold planks and frames together until they can be glued or screwed in place. The museum displays many different types of clamps used in boat building.
The plumb line is by far one of the simplest yet most essential tools any carpenter or shipwright can use. It dates back to medieval times yet can surely be found in any present -day craftsman’s toolbox. It consists of a string which is attached to a plumb or pointed weight. It is known that Romans used a plumb line to keep their walls straight and their aqueducts in the best shape. Shipwrights use it to keep components properly aligned.
The collection of wood planes on display at the Deltaville Maritime Museum is vast. Shipwrights, cabinet m
akers and carpenters generally made their own planes. There are flat planes, angled planes and planes that are specially shaped to make curved moldings. Many of the planes on display at the museum were donated by the families of shipwrights mentioned earlier. Essentially, a plane is used to shave wood to make a perfect edge. It holds a sharpened broad chisel- like steel blade at a precise angle to shave off strips of wood.
Wood expands when soaked in water, a fact the shipwright uses to his advantage when installing planking on a boat. To fill the seams so they are watertight, the shipwright installs tarred fiber, oakum or cotton between the planks using a caulking mallet and a caulking iron. When the wood has soaked for a while, it expands and squeezes the tarred fiber providing a watertight seal.
A tool called a spokeshave is invaluable for shaping a log into a mast or a curved rail. It is a specialized woodworking hand tool used to shape and smooth curved or rounded surfaces, such as chair legs, canoe paddles, wheel spokes and masts. Very much like a small hand plane, it features a much shorter “sole” (bottom surface) and two wing-like handles on either side of the blade, which allow for easier handling on irregular contours.
A slick is a large, specialized chisel used for smoothing, paring, and finishing joints. Unlike a standard chisel, a slick is not struck with a mallet. Instead, it features a very long handle designed to be pushed using body weight (often against the hip) for precise, thin wood removal. Slicks typically have wide blades (two-four inches) and are characterized by a long, often bent or curved socket handle that keeps the user’s hands away from the workpiece. They are used to achieve a smooth finish, replacing the need for a plane in hard-to-reach areas. Unlike chisels, they lack a striking ring on the handle, because they are not meant to be hit. They are crucial for clean joinery and can remove thin ribbons of wood, making them perfect for fine-tuning.
The spirit level is a vitally important tool for anyone working with wood or building anything. A spirit level (or bubble level) is a tool used to determine if a surface is perfectly horizontal (level) or vertical (plumb). It features a sealed vial containing alcohol (the “spirit”) and an air bubble. When the bubble is perfectly centered between marked lines in the vial, the surface is aligned. Measuring tools and spirit levels come in all shapes and size. Many are on display in the museum. Interestingly, the level evolved from the plumb line. The level used to this day was invented by a French writer and inventor named Melchisédech Thévenot in 1661. It was invented for use in surveying instruments and telescopes.
There is wall full of various types of augers and hand drills at the museum. An auger is a specialized drilling tool designed for boring deep, clean, and precise holes in wood, often used with a hand brace. Characterized by a screw-like tip that centers the bit and a helical twist that removes shavings, it allows for efficient drilling without needing heavy downward pressure. A hand drill, often called an “eggbeater drill” due to its shape, is a manual tool used for drilling precise, small holes without electricity. It features a crank handle that turns bevel gears to rotate a chuck, which holds the bit, offering high control for woodworking and delicate projects. A hand drill is used for smaller, precise holes, while an auger is designed specifically for boring deep, clean, and large-diameter holes. Augers excel in woodworking for deep holes. In the days before electricity was available, the auger was the best way to bore a hole. Augers have become a mainstay of boat building since the Romans. At the museum, there is an auger used to bore a hole for a drive shaft into a keel. That auger is several feet long.
There are many unique boat building tools displayed at the Deltaville Maritime Museum. A visit to the museum is the best way to fully appreciate this vast collection of maritime tools.
If the tools displayed on the walls at the museum could speak, they would tell tales of deadrise boats large and small, skipjacks, skiffs, log canoes, bugeyes, pungys, shallops, and buyboats, hand made by local shipwrights toiling in cold dimly lighted sheds, backyards and open fields for thousands of hours. The skilled craftsman turned crude logs into marvels of marine construction often without plans, modern electrical equipment or comfortable working environment. It took a unique combination of hard work, ingenuity, skill and determination to be a successful boat builder in the glory days of wooden boats and iron men.