棕色树林的蒸汽船

It appears I’m writing a series on excursion steamboats! Who knew? I suppose it’s the working from home, the inability to go anywhere, that makes me long to board a steamer and head for a waterside amusement park!

但我知道为什么我正在写一下这个。我想帮助保持our president Howard Hoege’s pledgethat we would work hardto “awaken in every corner of our communities a sense of a shared maritime heritage that transcends race, ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomics, and all of the ways in which we sometimes feel different from one another.” So I’ll focus on a rather special excursion steamer, owned and operated byCaptain George Brown，这取代了巴尔的摩地区的非洲裔美国人到布朗的树林游乐园。特别的，因为在1910年代到棕色的树林burned in a tragic 1938 fire，这是非洲裔美国人完全拥有和运营的唯一游览汽船和娱乐公园组合。布朗说这是只有美国的这种组合。

The Captain and his steamers

拥有蒸笼和树林的企业家，乔治布朗于1893年来到巴尔的摩。他设法省钱，而只是一个学徒，在1906年或1907年，他的想法来了由吉姆乌鸦法迫使，从东岸的铁路行李乘坐回到巴尔的摩。他想为非洲裔美国人创造一流的交通经验。从那里，他建造了一个持续数十年的蒸汽艇线。其中一个是阿瓦隆那a side wheeler he bought in 1929. Here are some architectural renderings of her, built by Harlan and Hollingsworth and held here in The Mariners’ Museum Library. We also have her spec book from the builders. In 1937 she was renamed联邦山那also pictured below.

Brown owned other steamers that went to the Grove on Rock Creek besides阿瓦隆. Here is also a picture ofStarlight那for example, and of the same ship when she was named花岗岩城市，也拥有棕色。

Not pictured here is the first steamboat Brown ever chartered, theDr. W. J. Newbill. That boat had been owned byanother black steamboat entrepreneur, Hansford C. Bayton,拥有5轮船在接受河上。But that is another story.

Brown’s Grove Amusement Park

我知道棕色的树林很少。由于它在1938年被摧毁，那些有一手回忆它的人现在已经非常多了。乔治布朗在20世纪的1900年代从巴尔的摩河距离帕尔尼科河畔的Anne Arundel County县约13英里。从我读到的是，它有一个过山车，澡堂，野餐树林，旋转木马，旋转木马，中途和茶点等等。在隔离期间，这不是唯一的非洲裔美国人唯一的公园。我已经阅读了关于其他地方 - 麻雀海滩，高地海滩，Carr的海滩 - 无声响起如此完整，优雅像棕色的树林。然而，真正的新奇是汽船！

There are some pretty hilarious stories about how Brown on his steamboats and other African American park owners kept order among the huge crowds (observers have said that阿瓦隆‘s capacity was between 900-1500 people). Apparently布朗本人拍了顾客并去除武器，并将滚轮锁定在蒸笼中的甲板上！另一个老板明显地制作了扬声器公告，警告任何麻烦制造者they’d end up so flattened they “would need a stepladder to look over the end of a dime!“他们没有废话。

A great legacy!

非洲裔美国人can be justifiably proud of this part of their history! What a wonderful community they created in the shadow of the despicable Jim Crow laws! What a beautiful thing they did for themselves, to board a steamer owned by one of their own, to visit a beautiful park in which they could feel safe, and totake that steamer back home under the stars, dancing on the deck！