I was raised on a dairy farm and one of our large fields backed up to a lake. That field covered over 20 acres, and it had Indian arrowheads scattered all over the area. We did not know if it had been a village or a battle fought there. My father was sure that it had been a battle due to arrowheads scattered all over the field. As a boy of 6, 7, 8, I rode my horse through that field where I was chased, captured, escaped, and had many imaginary adventures. This inspired a lifetime interest and love of history.
During the Korean War, I enlisted in the Airforce and served four years active and four inactive as a S/Sgt on a RB36 in the Strategic Air Command [SAC] during the cold war. The commander of SAC was General LeMay, and we were at war with Russia. It was the atomic age, and our goal was Mutual Assured Destruction [MAD] with Russia.
From my SAC career, I joined a major airline and retired thirty-six years later. During my airline career I started a flight school and covered primary flight training, commercial, instruments, and multiengine training.
In 1962 I bought a 38ft Columbia sailboat and explored the Chesapeake Bay. In 1967 my sailing partner, Tom Latta, sailed from Annapolis to Cat Island south of New Providence. We commuted from our job to New Providence for a year and sailed back to Annapolis, Md. In 1976 My Partner bought a 60ft Trawler in Los angles, California. We sailed from Los Angles through the Panama Canal to Florida, then Annapolis, Md.
In 1985, I bought a historical site on the West River in Maryland called Norman's Retreat. It was historically recorded as a 19th-century farm. It wasn't long before I discovered Mr. Thomas Ford had been granted the property in 1659 and built a house where the foundation was still intact.
I learned that the site had extensive archival remains for an 18th-century shipyard. Shipwright Stephen Steward owned and operated the shipyard as the naval base for Maryland's navy during the American Revolutionary War. March 31, 1781, the British attacked and burned the shipyard. This excited my love of history again and soon led to extensive research: people, places, traveling the Revolutionary War battles, and researching historical persons associated with the Steward shipyard. This research led to the shipwright's son, who fought under Generals Washington and Greene from Brooklyn Heights to Yorktown. The grandson of the shipwright accompanied Francis Scott Key through the rescue of Doctor Beames and the bombing of Fort McHenry. After many years of research, many encouraged me to put it in print as a viable documentary of Maryland's history. Thus, I began the journey of writing this book.