News Archives 2006 - December

CBMM Acquires Robert Burgess Collection

ST. MICHAELS, MD—The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum announced its acquisition of the Robert H. Burgess collection. Burgess’s collection is believed to be the largest and most comprehensive private collection of Chesapeake maritime artifacts. Its acquisition strengthens the Museum’s already significant collection of Bay artifacts, photographs, and vessels.

“This is the most important acquisition in the history of the Museum,” says CBMM curator Pete Lesher. “Our interest in the Burgess collection dates back to the beginning of the organization, when founder Vida Van Lennep courted Bob Burgess in hopes of bringing him or his collection to St. Michaels. It’s been a long time in the making.”

Lesher cited the scope and documentation of the Burgess collection as primary reasons for its significance.

“What makes the Burgess collection so extraordinarily valuable is how well documented it is,” says Lesher. “For a museum, the importance of these types of objects is their context, which Burgess documented meticulously. So many artifacts lose their context, their story, when they go through the marketplace.”

Robert H. Burgess (1913-2003) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a Bay sailor and steamship engineer. After graduation from Baltimore City College, he shipped out for three months on the four-masted schooner Doris Hamlin, taking photos of this vessel and other Chesapeake bay sailing craft and steamboats. He joined the staff of the Mariners’ Museum, in Newport News, Virginia, in 1941, and except for a wartime tour of duty on a destroyer escort in the Pacific, remained with the museum until his retirement. Burgess published numerous books and articles on the Bay, and was known as the “Dean of the Chesapeake.” He also served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

At the heart of the collection is a group of about 100 nameboards and trailboards, in addition to billetheads, figureheads, and other carvings from Chesapeake Bay schooners, pungies, bugeyes, and skipjacks. These range from simple utilitarian nameboards from cross-bay ferries to elaborate trailboards with patriotic and floral motifs carved in high relief. Burgess purchased or salvaged these items from bay vessels at the end of their working years along with interesting pieces of hull, rigging, and ironwork.

The level of documentation for these items is remarkable, with tags identifying the vessel of origin and other details. Burgess’s collection of photographic prints, which are also part of this collection, further support the documentation of these objects. He often photographed the hulks at the time that he salvaged artifacts from them, and each print is labeled in pencil. His collection also shows the fruits of his partnership with Baltimore artist Louis Feuchter, with a large portfolio of the artist’s sketches and paintings, as well as hundreds of prints from Baltimore pictorialist photographer A. Aubrey Bodine.

Private collections like the one that Burgess amassed could support a stand-alone museum on their own. Its addition to the Museum’s collection, though, is a natural fit.

“The scope of the Burgess collection so neatly meshes with what the Museum already has, as well as with the scope of what we are trying to collect,” says Lesher. “It couldn’t have found a better home.”

CBMM President Stuart Parnes added: “We are honored that Bob Burgess’s children, Janet Burgess Loyd and R. Bruce Burgess, want to have their father’s collection reside at CBMM. The collection itself is magnificent, but it cannot be separated from Bob Burgess the man and consummate collector. Both Bob and his legacy have indeed found a good home.”

The Museum is in the process of developing a new exhibition to display key parts of the Burgess collection, as well as related programs, including a March lecture series focused on the passion of collecting. The exhibit will be open to the public later this winter.

On-going funding for this acquisition comes from generous contributions of CBMM members and friends, including a $100,000 challenge grant from the Grayce B. Kerr Fund, Inc. of Easton, Maryland. John R. Valliant, President of the Fund (and former President of CBMM), knew Bob Burgess well. “Bob was a collector’s collector. His house was filled with invaluable Chesapeake artifacts, and he knew the stories behind every one of them. They were like family to him. The Grayce B. Kerr Fund is pleased to make this challenge grant to encourage others to support a critical strategic acquisition in the Museum’s history.”

HOME | ABOUT US | WHAT TO SEE & DO | VISITOR INFO | EDUCATION & OUTREACH
MEMBERS & SUPPORTERS | NEWS & MEDIA | Copyright 2003, The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.