Adams Oyster Company was an oyster farm and seafood cannery business headquartered in Suffolk, Virginia, and by the 1950s was one of the largest oyster farm businesses in Virginia. [1] [2] The company held over 300 acres of oyster farms in the Nansemond River, Battens Bay, Bleakhorn Creek, Chuckatuck Creek, Cooper Creek, and the James River. [3]
By 1870, oystermen had planted themselves and their families on the peninsula between Chuckatuck Creek and the Nansemond River and drew a livelihood from the water. Members of the Adams family were oysterman in the area by the late 1880s. The Nansemond River was one of the richest oyster grounds in the Chesapeake Bay, and seafood businesses in Suffolk were shipping approximately 75,000 bushels of oysters a year by 1900. [1]
In the 1920s, Charles Gray Adams I established an oyster company and oyster shucking house on the Hobson side of Chuckatuck Creek. Adams operated a fleet of over 30 boats out of the creek. [1] [4] Adams died in 1938. [5]
The Adams Oyster Company was formally established in the 1940s by Adams' son, Captain Charles Gray "Charlie" Adams II and later became a partnership with Carl Bagnell when they merged the holdings with the Nansemond Fish and Oyster Company. [6] [7] The Adams Oysters Company sold oysters at local markets in Norfolk and shipped them to locations throughout the U.S. East Coast. The company also canned and sold a packaged oyster product called "Saltaire Oysters" and operated a steamed crab business near the Chuckatuck Creek location. [3]
By the 1950s and 1960s, the "Saltaire Oysters" brand could be found in Kroger supermarkets, Fass Brothers, or Ballards. [8] [9] The company also sold directly to Colonial Stores and Campbell Soup Company for their canned oyster stew product, and was a certified interstate shellfish dealer. [10] [11] Charles Adams III worked for the company during this period, before being deployed to serve a tour of duty in the Vietnam War. In March 1968, Charles Adams III and three other watermen drowned when the oyster boat Klondike capsized with all four men on board. [1]
The business activity had slowed by the end of the 1970s due to the decline of the oyster population and the Army Corps of Engineers construction of a dam on Carter's Clove Creek, which closed Hobson's direct outlet to Chuckatuck Creek and the James River. [1] [12] From the 1980s to the 2010s, the business remained registered as an active oyster farm with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. [13]
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware. The mouth of the Bay at its southern point is located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km2) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states and all of Washington, D.C.
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Suffolk is an independent city in Virginia, United States. As of 2020, the population was 94,324. It is the 10th-most populous city in Virginia, the largest city in Virginia by boundary land area as well as the 14th-largest in the country. Suffolk is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. This also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, and smaller cities, counties, and towns of Hampton Roads. With miles of waterfront property on the Nansemond and James rivers, present-day Suffolk was formed in 1974 after consolidating with Nansemond County and the towns of Holland and Whaleyville. The current mayor is Mike Duman.
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The James River Bridge (JRB) is a four-lane divided highway lift bridge across the James River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Owned and operated by the Virginia Department of Transportation, it carries U.S. Route 17 (US 17), US 258, and State Route 32 across the river near its mouth at Hampton Roads. The bridge connects Newport News on the Virginia Peninsula with Isle of Wight County in the South Hampton Roads region, and is the easternmost such crossing without a tunnel component.
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The Nansemond are the Indigenous people of the Nansemond River, a 20-mile-long tributary of the James River in Virginia. Nansemond people lived in settlements on both sides of the Nansemond River where they fished, harvested oysters, hunted, and farmed in fertile soil. Today, Nansemond people belong to the federally recognized Nansemond Indian Nation.
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Hobson is in the independent city of Suffolk, Virginia, United States. It is located along State Route 628 southwest of U.S. Route 17, on the neck between Chuckatuck Creek and the Nansemond River.
Bennett Creek or Bennett's Creek is a 7.3-mile-long (11.7 km) tributary of the Nansemond River in Suffolk, Virginia.
The Virginia Marine Police is the law enforcement division of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States.
This page is a list of fishing topics.
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The 21st Connecticut Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
USS Smith Briggs was a Union Army gunboat destroyed during the American Civil War.
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Bevans Oyster Company is an oyster farm and seafood aquaculture company headquartered in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The company has been described as one of the largest oyster companies in the State of Virginia.