Oyster Sloop Nellie

Built in 1891 at Smithtown, New York, the oyster sloop Nellie was a 32-foot 4-inch sailing oyster boat with a 12-foot 9-inch beam and a 2-foot 4-inch draft, representing hundreds of similar vessels used in New York and Connecticut waters. She fished from Port Jefferson and Patchogue on Long Island for 10 years before John Ryle bought her to dredge for oysters near Stamford, Connecticut. In 1900, she was one of nearly 350 sailing craft licensed to work Connecticut’s natural oyster beds, where oysters had accumulated over thousands of years. Dredges were the most productive tools for catching oysters, but Connecticut barred dredging under power on natural beds from 1881 to 1969 to protect them. As oyster demand increased, oystermen developed undersea private beds for spawning seed oysters from natural beds and for growing oysters to market size, and powered vessels could be used on those private grounds. After Ryle equipped Nellie with a gasoline engine about 1914, she would have worked as a dredge boat on his 78 acres of private oyster ground. The Friends of the Nellie A. Ryle purchased her for Mystic Seaport in 1964, and later restoration work restored her sloop rig and replaced her entire deck, most of her ribs, and some of her hull planking during major projects in 1970–71 and 2001.

Mystic, Connecticut · United States