Media Inquiries
For information about Historic St. Mary’s City, the Dove of 1634, or the current Maryland Dove, please contact:
Sharol Buck, External Relations Manager, Historic St. Mary's City, at sharol.buck@maryland.gov
For information about the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum or the construction of the new Maryland Dove, please contact:
Eric Detweiler, Communications Specialist, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, at edetweiler@cbmm.org
The Star Democrat I November 1, 2023
Tale teller Michael Connor from the replica of the Dove told guests, “The Ark was a 400-ton capacity cargo ship hired by Cecil Calvert to transport about 140 colonists and their equipment and supplies to Maryland. The Dove was a much smaller 40-ton capacity cargo ship purchased by Cecil Calvert and investors so that the colonists would have their own ship to use once Ark had sailed for England.”
WMDT - TV I September 3, 2023
Sailing from port to port to provide a learning playground for youngsters, Mariluz Fermaint Gonzalez said the modernized replica of the 1634 Maryland Dove is the real deal when it comes to ships.
“The Maryland Dove creates a very unique opportunity to take the history of the first capital of Maryland and take it all around the Bay,” Fermaint Gonzalez said.
Historic St. Mary’s City | April 19, 2023
Maryland Dove will be sailing to different ports-of-call around the Chesapeake Bay in 2023, thanks to a grant from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority
During the Bay Tour, Maryland Dove will be open to the public for free deck tours at each of the heritage areas for one to three days at a time. “We look forward to partnering with fellow heritage areas,” said HSMC Director of Education, Peter Friesen, “to help connect the traveling exhibit with communities further away than our typical audience.”
WJZ - TV NEWS Baltimore I June 21, 2023
“Where's Marty? Learning about the historic Maryland Dove Tall Ship docked in Fells Point”
Marty Bass from WJZ-TV news Baltimore joins the Maryland Dove crew during their Bay Tour.
Maryland Public Television | April 14, 2023
Maryland Public Television (MPT) will premiere its original documentary Discovering the Dove on Tuesday, April 18 at 8 p.m. during its 19th annual Chesapeake Bay Week®. The half-hour film will debut on MPT-HD and will be available to view live and on-demand using MPT’s livestream, online video player, and the PBS App.
In Discovering the Dove, the centuries-old story of Maryland’s founding enters a new chapter as a team of shipbuilders endeavor to recreate a 17th century British colonial ship by following a trail of historical clues.
WMAR2NEWS Baltimore I June 20, 2023
"Being able to hear the ship and the windlass, and the lines move, and the wind move through the sails, to smell the different types of wood and varnishes that are used in constructing a vessel like this. It just gives you a whole different experience of learning then you can get in any kind of classroom," said Marlee Putnam, Publics Programs Coordinator at the Maryland Dove.
Chesapeake Bay Magazine | August 29, 2022
It was a sail five years in the making. The new Maryland Dove made a journey up the St. Marys River to her permanent home of Historic St. Mary’s City. This Dove is the most historically accurate version yet of the ship that brought the first European colonists to Maryland’s original capital.
Cheryl Costello was aboard one of the estimated 50 boats that ushered the vessel into port for a welcoming ceremony Sunday.
The Star Democrat | May 31, 2022
“The new Maryland Dove is a recreation of a 1634 ship that was the smaller of two ships that brought the first English settlers to Maryland. The public is invited to come and see the Dove in St. Mary’s City at the end of August,” Captain Will Gates said.
Fox 45 | May 19, 2022
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, in collaboration with Historic St. Mary's City, marked a major milestone in the construction of the Maryland Dove at the end of March.
The Star Democrat | March 30, 2022
Pete Lesher is the chief curator of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
“The public has been here from the laying of the keel through the framing, up through planking and calking and everything. We have been telling the story all the way through," Lesher said. "As a historian, I am part of the interpretation team that is developing that. We can learn from archives but we can also learn from objects and that is what museums are all about.”
Chesapeake Bay Magazine | March 29, 2022
After five years of planning, funding, research, and building, the new historical interpretation of the Maryland Dove is officially lowered into the water by crane. It’s one of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s largest projects ever, with nearly two dozen employees taking part in construction a their working shipyard. Bay Bulletin was there as the Dove was splashed in the Miles River and got to peek inside the historic reproduction. Cheryl Costello talks with shipwrights and their families about what this milestone means to them.
WBOC | March 28, 2022
The crowd cheered as the 84 foot Maryland Dove finally hit the water on Monday.
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum President Kristen Greenaway says this ship holds a special place in everyone's heart.
"This is the epitome of everything we do as a maritime museum, as the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. It fulfills our mission in so many ways," she said.
Voices of the Chesapeake | Oct. 17, 2021
Celebrate a new partnership between CBMM and the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission. Maryland Dove is Historic St. Mary’s City’s floating ambassador and one of its most popular exhibits. The ship design is based on the original Dove that sailed to the Maryland colony with the Ark in 1634. The Dove was a small ship used in shallow waterways along the coast while the first colony and capital was being established. The two organizations will pool their expertise to design and construct the next iteration of Maryland Dove, a representation of the late 17th century trading ship that brought the first settlers to what is now Maryland. Lead Shipwright Joe Conner sets the stage.
The Star Democrat | Oct. 3, 2021
Imagine loading stones for ballast into a wooden ship and then sailing it across the perilous sea in 1633. It was a five-month journey. People died on the way. The Maryland Dove, at 40 tons, was small. This ship along with the larger Ark, which was armed, sailed forth to found Maryland. Cecil Calvert, as in Calvert County, owned the Dove. The black and gold Calvert coat of arms is now part our Maryland flag.
About 60 descendants of this voyage gathered at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum to talk with the head shipwright about the construction of a new Dove being paid for by the state of Maryland. It is a marvel of traditional boat building techniques. There is a team of master craftsmen toiling beneath the fifty foot mass of the ribs, keel and decking.
Neophyte Boatwrights | Sept. 11, 2021
In this Neophyte Bite! we visit the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) and meet with three of members of the CBMM team: Joe Connor (the lead shipwright), Frank Townsend (colonial-era shipbuilding guru), and Sam Hilgartner (rigger and spar maverick). We talk about their current reconstruction of the colonial-era pinnace the Maryland Dove, trenail fabrication, spar-making, and wooden boatbuilding in general.
Soundings Magazine | Aug. 9, 2021
On any given work day, the sounds of saws, mallets, chisels, sanders, drills and planers can be heard here. Near the museum’s restored 19th-century lighthouse, exotic and locally grown wood is stacked, waiting to be milled, dried and cut. Bellowing pipes of hot steam feed large, plastic sleeves that encapsulate wooden planks, allowing them to be bent to form the graceful, curved hull. Red-hot, molten metal is being poured into sand molds to make bronze fittings. Wood chips and sawdust are everywhere, covering the ground, the equipment and even the young apprentices, the experienced shipwrights and the highly esteemed graybeard masters. Together, they form a skilled, cross-generational team dedicated to utilizing as many of the 17th-century methods of construction as are practical today.
Maryland Road Trips | Aug. 11, 2021
The boat under construction at the CBMM will replace an existing boat of the same name currently on exhibit at HSMC. A fixture at its dock on the St. Marys River since shortly after her completion in 1978, the Maryland Dove offers a tangible connection to the past.
“People learn in different ways, but most people are very tactile and experiential learners, as opposed to just reading it in a book,” said Peter Friesen, the director of education at HSMC. “So this is a way for us to teach the public at large about life in the 17th century, specifically the voyage over and what life was like on the ship.”
Chesapeake Bay Magazine | July 1, 2021
It’s a fresh spring day at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum when I first meet the next incarnation of Maryland Dove. The build, started in 2019, is well underway. As lead shipwright Joe Connor guides me into the huge white tent along the museum’s bulkhead, the effect is straight out of Gulliver’s Travels. Her huge skeletal timbers dwarf the shipwrights who busily swarm, attaching planking, securing knees, breathing life into this sleeping giant. Once complete and splashed into St. Michaels harbor this fall, she will briefly tower over the deadrises and buyboats in the museum’s fleet before setting off for her permanent berth at Historic St. Mary’s City—a time traveler from the Golden Age of sail.
Fox 45 News | Jan. 29, 2021
“Most fourth and fifth graders learn about the history of Maryland and that incorporates the Dove, and they’ll now be able to use this vessel in place of the Dove that they’ve been using for the last 30 years to supplement they’re education of Maryland history,” said CBMM's Joe Connor.
“Like a lot of crafts there’s art and science combined and if you get both of them in harmony it comes out the way it’s supposed to be," said Shipwright Ed Farley.
Baltimore Shipspotting | Aug. 6, 2020
Photos from a summer 2020 trip to visit Maryland Dove, currently being constructed at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
This ship is a reproduction of the vessel that accompanied the first European settlers to Maryland in 1634.
Chesapeake Bay Magazine | Aug. 3, 2020
Shipwrights at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) are steadily working away at the new historic replica Maryland Dove, and now the ship will have a piece of St. Michaels to carry with her.
“Osage orange is both a beautiful type of wood and one that is incredibly useful in traditional wooden shipbuilding,” Joe Connor said. “We are very grateful for this donation and can’t wait to mill these pieces and put them to good use as we continue our work on Maryland Dove.”
Chesapeake Bay Program | July 30, 2020
In a world full of modern conveniences, a project like the Maryland Dove shines a light on the value of patience and precision—qualities that are not easily replicated. Shipwrights working at the museum preserve essential skills while experiencing how their ancestors would have worked on such a project.
"The people who are involved in building this, the skills and knowledge that they are going to have when they leave, it's something that most people just don't have." states Joe Connor, lead shipwright on the Maryland Dove.
WJZ TV | Feb. 13, 2020
At a shipyard in St. Michaels, a massive project takes shape.
“I’ve never built something of this size from the ground up from scratch” - Noah Thomas is part of the crew re-creating the Maryland Dove.
Good Day Delmarva | Jan. 23, 2020
Right now in the former colonial town of Historic St. Mary's City, there is a representation of the Maryland Dove. Grade school students tour the ship to learn what life was like for the first Maryland settlers. Today, Good Day Delmarva takes a look at a new Maryland Dove being worked on at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels.
Chesapeake Bay Magazine | Dec. 3, 2019
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s rebuild of the Maryland Dove is well underway, and its shipwrights are committed to historical accuracy.
How committed? The two men leading the state-funded, $5 million Dove project traveled to Denmark and Sweden just to see the techniques and materials historic shipbuilders used when the original Dove was new.
Telemundo Delmarva | 18, Septiembre, 2019
La artista y miembro de la tripulación del Maryland Dove Mariluz Fermaint nos muestra el histórico bote mientras visitaba el condado de Talbot como parte del proyecto de construcción de un segundo barco histórico en el museo de la bahía del Chesapeake.
WBOC 16 | Sept. 14, 2019
Experts and boat enthusiasts gathered this weekend at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum to discuss the project that aims to bring back to life a piece of Maryland's history.
"As a tangible reminder, a living classroom is an exciting place" says Will Gates, master of the current Maryland Dove.
Construction for the new vessel started four months ago and it's scheduled to continue through 2021.
Proptalk Magazine | Sept. 12, 2019
The front of the ship is largely represented with a massive live oak timber that makes up the stem and apron. Shipwrights have identified and roughed out all the deadwood and main components of the backbone and are now working to join these pieces together horizontally before the entire centerline structure is raised vertically.
The Enterprise | July 9, 2019
State officials, members of the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission and Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Board of Governors, staff from both museums and members of the public all gathered in St. Michaels on the Eastern Shore last month to help celebrate the beginning of construction of the new Maryland Dove.
Star Democrat | May 24, 2019
Maritime Day will serve as the official start of the museum’s construction of Maryland Dove.
All attendees are invited to sign their names to the new vessel’s keel, to see the lofting of its new design, and to help make trunnels, or large wooden nails, that will be used during its construction.
The World According to Steve | April 25, 2019
The Maryland Dove is currently in the beginning stages of construction. She will be built using Southern Live Oak from southwest Georgia – a material that is incredibly durable and rot resistant – from Cross Sawmill.
Chesapeake Bay Magazine | Jan. 28, 2019
The new Maryland Dove will represent the trading ships that brought the first European settlers to what we now know as Maryland. She’ll be home ported in Historic St. Mary’s City, and owned by the state, just as the current Dove is. The goal of the new ship design is to be as close to the 1634 original as possible, including features that were not known when Maryland Dove was built in 1978. CBMM will build the ship at its historic boatyard, on display for museum visitors to see.
Museum Publicity | Jan. 24, 2019
Principal architect and firm founder Iver Franzen’s 40-year maritime career has included work both as a naval architect and captain. He became a licensed captain in 1980, and now has a 500-ton Master’s License, with endorsements for auxiliary sail and 1600-ton OSVs. After earning his Bachelor of Arts from Union College in 1974, Franzen worked many years as a charter and delivery captain, and many more as a commercial passenger vessel captain, throughout the East Coast and Caribbean.
Soundings Online | Jan. 15, 2019
“We are thrilled and honored to have been selected to build a new Maryland Dove,” said CBMM President Kristen Greenaway. “Over the course of the next few years, our shipwrights and apprentices will build a historically accurate replacement to the existing ship, and we welcome guests to be a part of the construction and education experience.”
Museum Publicity | Jan. 11, 2019
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has officially been selected to build a new Maryland Dove, a representation of the 17th-century trading ship that accompanied the first European settlers to what is now Maryland.
Talbot Spy | June 10, 2019
“We are honored to host Maryland Dove,” said CBMM President Kristen Greenaway. “The ship is an important piece of maritime and American history—especially Maryland history—and we hope everyone will visit to experience it for themselves.”
Spinsheet Magazine | May 13, 2019
“Building the new ship will also include a ground-up review of the current design. A great deal of historical and archaeological research has been accomplished since the 1978 Dove design, with CBMM working jointly with Historic St. Mary’s City to ensure research is incorporated in the new Dove.”
Star Democrat | March 29, 2019
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum will host a new event in June, Maritime Day, to help celebrate the start of its construction of a new Maryland Dove and, more generally, the traditions kept alive in its working shipyard.
Talbot Spy | Jan. 25, 2019
“Given the various excellent efforts around the Chesapeake Bay to research, interpret, teach, and preserve the fabric of the Bay’s history, maritime and otherwise, and, indeed, the history of this country’s early years in general, it’s a real honor to be chosen as the designer of one of the new flagships of those efforts,” Franzen said. “I’m impressed with the commitment by HSMC and CBMM to re-create the best example possible of one of our early founding ships, while also realizing that incorporating certain modern details necessary for U.S. Coast Guard certification will actually allow an even better experience and understanding for all of this very important vessel.”
WBOC 16 | Jan. 17, 2019
A historic ship that once set sail in Maryland waters and across the world is making a homecoming of sorts. It's called the Maryland Dove - a 17th century merchant vessel that once brought the first European settlers to Maryland. A replica of the ship is usually docked on the Western Shore and used for educational purposes nowadays.
Chesapeake Bay Magazine | Jan. 14, 2019
If you grew up in Maryland, you’ll remember the Ark and the Dove from history class: the two ships that sailed over from England to start the Maryland colony in 1634. A reproduction, Maryland Dove, was built forty years ago and has been homeported in Historic St. Mary’s City ever since, representing the state’s colonial history.
Talbot Spy | Jan. 11, 2019
“HSMC and CBMM are natural partners in this project,” said Regina Faden, Executive Director at Historic St. Mary’s City. “It fulfills both our missions and delivers a new Dove to tell the story of (early) Maryland.”
ChesaDel Crier | June 6, 2019
Maryland Dove will arrive at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum on Friday, June 28, and can be seen out on the Miles River and dockside through Sunday, June 30, 2019. A reproduction of the 17th century trading ship that accompanied the first European settlers to what is now Maryland, the vessel will be open for boarding to all CBMM guests.
Talbot Spy | May 1
Joe Connor and his crew of shipwrights at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum have either restored or built dozens of classic work boats since he joined the CBMM staff in 2013 but he’s the first to admit that heading up the reproduction effort for the Maryland Dove might be the most professionally challenging project in his career., 2019
Bay Weekly | Jan. 31, 2019
The Dove sailed with the Ark to land English on New World soil in 1634. The original Dove was lost at sea during a return voyage to the motherland. The Maryland Dove most of us have seen at Historic St. Mary’s City’s is a popular reimagining. Built in 1977, it has hosted some 500,000 visitors, allowing them to better envision how the first English settlers lived at sea.
Shore Update | Jan. 20, 2019
“Achieving the most appropriate design for the new Maryland Dove is of the utmost importance,” said CBMM President Kristen Greenaway. “We have full confidence in Franzen, thanks to his impressive background in designing historical reproductions, and to U.S. Coast Guard standards.”
Star Democrat | Jan. 15, 2019
Iver C. Franzen Maritime LLC, an Annapolis-based firm specializing in historic vessel naval architecture services, has been chosen by the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum to design the newest iteration of 17th century pinnace Maryland Dove.
Kent County News | Jan. 12, 2019
“This is incredibly exciting news for the Eastern Shore of Maryland,” CBMM President Kristen Greenaway said. “It’s phenomenal.”
Star Democrat | Jan. 11, 2019
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum on Thursday, Jan. 10, announced it has been awarded a $5 million contract from the state of Maryland to build a new Maryland Dove.