Adrian Coulby was born in 1933, and spent most of his life in Newburg. His father, Edgar Coulby, owned and operated the Potomac Fishing Oyster Company, an oyster house at Rock Point. As a young boy, Adrian spent a significant amount of time at the oyster house, where he developed a fondness for the bustling environment filled with crab pickers, oyster shuckers, and fishermen. Although his memories of this time are somewhat vague, he recalls helping with tasks such as cleaning the oyster house and interacting with the workers.

Donald Mattingly, also known as "Duck," was born on May 4, 1944. He was raised in the seventh district, in a place he refers to as his home place. His father, Joseph Olin Mattingly, was one of the biggest seafood dealers in St. Mary’s County. Donald grew up in a community where oyster shucking was a common occupation, with many people, mostly people of color, working in the shuck houses. He recalls his father going as far as Piney Point to pick up shuckers to bring down to shuck oysters.

subject: Fishery processing plants--Maryland, Southern; Oyster fisheries--Maryland, Southern; Maryland, Southern--History.

George R. Baily (1925-2009)

subject: Fishery processing plants--Maryland, Southern; Oyster fisheries--Maryland, Southern; Maryland, Southern--History. 

At that time, you didn’t buy the oysters.  You bought the man and the boat.  Now, the white man got from five to ten cents more on a bushel than the colored person got.  Same oysters, but that’s the way they worked the system.

John "Tucker" Brown, born on July 25, 1938, is a lifelong resident of Avenue, Maryland, a small fishing village. He comes from a lineage of watermen, with both his father, Frank Brown, and grandfather, Sam Brown, being watermen. Brown began earning his own money at the age of eight, crabbing in the creek. He worked with his father until his father fell ill, after which he briefly worked for American Airlines before returning home to care for his family. Brown took over his father's fishing crew and has spent his life oystering and clamming up and down the bay.

Mary Ridgeway is a lifelong resident of Tompkinsville, a location situated between Newburg and Rock Point. She is the daughter of Emma M. Jackson and Sankston Walter Jackson, and she grew up in a family of six children, with three brothers and two sisters. Her father was a farmer and a skilled carpenter who also worked the river, while her mother was a homemaker. Ridgeway graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and soon after began working at an oyster house at Rock Point, which was established by Mr. Coulby.

"Well, it's a true story.  And it kind of makes me kind of feel sad about it.  But the truth sometimes make you feel sad." 

Interview with Sarah Briscoe

"They paid the shuckers and the employees with scrip. Of course, the only place they could spend the scrip was in the store."