Mary Van Deusen
live life creatively

Ben White's Oyster House

oil on canvas, (24 x 30) NFS

The first time I saw Ben’s oyster house I was coming up Reeve's creek (Jacob’s crick to the old timers) in Bob Bourguignon’s garvey in 1986. The sight of that old building with well-worn workboats lined up at the water’s edge struck at my heart. I had to capture it on canvas!

Ben was in his late 80’s and the oyster and scallop processing had long ago become only a memory at this location. Ben told me of the early days when hundreds of bushels of oysters were shucked and processed and there were a dozen or more boats at the dock.