After surviving its last ice encrusted winter on Oyster Bay Harbor and a summer waiting for attention Frank M. Flower and Sons, Inc.'s "Queen of the Fleet," Ida May, was hauled to safety by The Waterfront Center as the fall season of hurricanes and nor'easters approached. The hauling of the Ida May onto land (near the Western Waterfront bulkhead opposite Beekman Beach) is a significant milestone in the long process to preserve this important piece of Oyster Bay's history.

After more than 75 years of harvesting oysters for the Frank M. Flower and Sons company, co-owners Dwight Relyea, Joe Zahtila and David Relyea decided she had served them well and was time for her to retire. Dwight Relyea commented, "Frank M. Flower and Sons decided to donate Ida May to The Waterfront Center because she is more than just a reliable work boat, but an important symbol in our community. In fact during the 1970s and 1980s, Butler Flower had a relationship with one of the physics/earth science teachers at Oyster Bay High School who took scores of Oyster Bay Science students out for lab work on the water. In the 1990s Ida May was a regular at the annual Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club outing at the Coudert's in Cove Neck and at the Town of Oyster Bay's Marine Education Day."

Fritz Coudert, president of The Waterfront Center said, "We are so very grateful to the oyster company for donating the Ida May to us. The Ida May has a special place in my heart for her many rides around the harbor given to the children of the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club during my annual outings. Preserving the Ida May at the Waterfront Center provides a wonderful opportunity to share this piece of history with the community."

"We are thankful that The Waterfront Center will be able to preserve and utilize this significant piece of the local oystering industry," said Tom Kuehhas, executive director of the Oyster Bay Historical Society.

Construction of the Ida May was begun by Frank M. Flower, son of the founder of the 116-year-old oyster company, in 1925 after he thought he lost his three sons (Allen, Butler and Roswell Flower) on a small oyster boat on a routine two-day winter trip to the Fulton Fish Market in New York City. According to an excerpt from Cooking with Oysters and other Shellfish; in celebration of the 1985 Oyster Festival, by George and Marianne Preston, the late H. Butler Flower described the adventure by saying, "At about that time a cloud of fog started to cover us while my father was on the beach watching. He never did see us after that. The water was so rough that we had bricks in the bilge and the bricks were sliding around and knocked the plug out. The water came in almost to the top of the boat. I found out where the water was coming in and then I stuck my finger into the hole like the boy in the dike. Rossie found another plug and put it in there."

When they arrived in New York it took them three days to start the ice encrusted motor. Three days during which Frank M. Flower thought that he had seen the last of his boys. With the motor running and the weather clearing they headed back for Bayville. Their arrival into port was greeted with great joy. Said the late Butler Flower, "When my father found out that we were safe he went into the woods and cut down a big oak tree. He started to build a new oyster boat. That was the Ida May. He named it after my mother."

Ida May was built near the site of the current shellfish hatchery in Bayville and she is the only existing oyster boat that was built here, worked her whole life here, still exists here and has been continuously in service with only a single owner. Ida May has a length of 45 feet and a beam of 15 feet, a depth of 4.3 feet and a gross tonnage of 16. In the years since her construction, Lindbergh took off from Long Island's Roosevelt Field and flew over the Atlantic Ocean, and other resident Long Islanders built a ship that took men to the Sea of Tranquility on the surface of the moon.

Franklin Flower, former owner of Frank M. Flower and Sons Company and son of Butler Flower remarked, "Glad to see a boat that is named after my grandmother and that has been used continuously for 75 years in local shellfish cultivation through many changes in the industry preserved."

New York State Senator Marcellino who has been leading the transformation of the Western Waterfront said, "Ida May will be an integral part of the public's waterfront park. Whereas the oyster sloop Christeen tells the story of sail powered dredges of 120-years ago, Ida May will be a hands-on, landside exhibit for children and adults to learn how 'modern' machine powered dredges harvest shellfish today."

For more information about Ida May or to support her restoration as a landside exhibit, contact The Waterfront Center at 516-624-7900.

Editor's Note: The history of the Ida Mae is credited to Centre Island resident Gregory Druhak.