A group formed 26 years ago is doing its best to honor and keep alive the nautical heritage of Mathews County.
The Mathews Maritime Foundation was incorporated in 1999 by Wyatt and Amy Vrooman, Ned and Dia Lawless and Jim Wood.
“It was started by two young archaeologists. Wyatt Vrooman and Ned Lawless … Wyatt’s ancestors were shipbuilders and he had a whole truck full of stuff … ledgers and that sort of thing,” said Peter Hall, the foundation’s treasurer.
Vrooman and Lawless had set out to find all of the slipways in Mathews County. “The slipways would be where they would build the boats and then slide them down to get them in the water,” explained Hall. “They succeeded in locating 12 of them, but then they got onto other things and us Yankees, we got into it. It’s evolved from there, you know. People started calling us with relics.”
The foundation was fortunate to lease its building from the county (which formerly housed the Mathews County School Board) in 2006, though it took a bit o...