Image of George Washington Creef (Barfield 1995:182)
George Washington Creef was born January 10, 1829, to a family of English immigrants living in East Lake. Creef’s father was a boat builder along the Alligator River, specializing in kunners, dugout canoes made from three large cypress or juniper logs (Still and Stephenson 2021:194). In 1860 the census had him listed as married to Margaret Howard with three children. A year later, Creef moved to Roanoke Island to work with his brother “in repairing vessels and fishing” (194). In 1870, Creef is listed as a carpenter but his son was listed as a farmhand so it is presumed that Creef was both a farmer and a carpenter. In 1880 George Creef’s job once again changed to ‘mechanic’, which may be in reference to Creef’s Machine Shop in Manteo that he had erected a small railway for. This decade also saw Creef working as a boatbuilder so it is possible he was a carpenter, boat building, and repair at this time (O’Neill 2016:52).
During his time as a boatbuilder, Creef designed the vessel that would be known as the shad boat. The shad boat was a combination of dugout canoe designs and planked-based designs. Some state that Creef’s planking was influenced by the Bahamas dinghy, which he encountered on a trade voyage to the Caribbean. This Caribbean boat had “more sweeping lines and it was built using ‘plank-on-frame’”(Conoley et al. 2007:35). Whatever the origin, Creef created a vessel that was wide in the center, which allowed more fish to be carried, but still shallow enough to sail through the shallow inlets. These features led to the vessel becoming popular all along the North Carolina coast (Alford 2004:18-22).
George Washington Creef’s Roanoke Boatyard (Kidder 2005:53)
Researchers have since identified the shad boat as the only native designed watercraft from the state of North Carolina. This fact, coupled with the economic and historical value that the shad boat has to the state, led to the state government listing the shad boat as North Carolina’s state boat (Alford 2004:18-22).
Original Post by Caleb O’Brien and Updated by Alex Owens