Elva C

Elva C. . , The Elva C was built in 1922 by Gilbert S. White in Westland, VA. near Windmill Point for Capt. Lee Abbot of Foxwells. NAmed after his daughter, Capt. Abbot used the Elva C for pound net fishing and freight until his retirement in the 1950's. She was then bought and fished by Capt. Phillip Somers of Urbanna. In 1963 Capt. Ira F. Swift of Reedville purchased her, and with his two sons Marvin and Francis, used her for pound netting and haul seining. In 1989, the Swift family donated the Elva C. to the Reedville Fishermen's Museum., At the beginning of a fishing season the Elva c. would be loaded with trap poles 55 feet or more in length. At the site of the pound net these poles would be hoisted up by the boom and driven into the bottom, approximately 150 to a net, and then the net hung. During the season, she would leave the dock at or before dawn with up to seven crew on board and go out to the nets. The fish would be hoisted out of the pound by a dip net lifted by a line running through pulleys on the boom to a winch on deck and dumped into the hold. If the catch was a good one, fish would also be piled up on the deck until it was almost awash. The catch would then be sorted and unloaded at the dock, with the herring processed at local packing houses and the food fish shipped directly to Baltimore., In the off-season the Elva C. was used for any purpose that would generate income. She is remembered as a freight boat running watermelons from North Carolina to Baltimore and as a buy boat for hauling oysters from the tonging boats to the shucking houses.