{"nrhp_refnum":"86001081","name":"LITTLE JENNIE (Chesapeake Bay bugeye)","other_names":[],"category":"structure","location":{"address":"Centerport Harbor","address_restricted":false,"city":"Centerport","county":"Suffolk County","state":"NY","lat":40.89355587500006,"lon":-73.37410164299996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-05-12","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Maritime History"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Little Jennie is a two-masted, plank-on-frame Chesapeake Bay bugeye, 86 feet long, built in 1884 by James T. Marsh at Solomons Island, Maryland. She is now docked in Centerport harbor, Suffolk County, New York.","why_significant":"The nomination argues she is a rare, largely intact bugeye, one of the oldest known survivors and among the earliest extant plank-on-frame examples. She is also the only known survivor of the twenty bugeyes built by master shipbuilder James T. Marsh. Her working life from 1884 to 1930 reflects the rise and decline of Chesapeake Bay oystering.","narrative":"Little Jennie is an 86-foot Chesapeake Bay bugeye, a two-masted oyster-dredging sailboat built in 1884 by James T. Marsh at Solomons Island, Maryland. She has a shallow, double-ended hull of white oak frames with yellow pine planking, a raking rig, and the duckbill stern platform Marsh introduced in 1880. She dredged oysters and carried wheat and watermelons to and from Baltimore for about thirty years, then was converted to a motorized sailing yacht after 1930. Bugeyes were built by the hundreds, yet fewer than eight are believed to remain afloat, and she is the only known survivor of the twenty Marsh built. Her later life as a yacht, though it brought alterations, helped preserve her lines and rig while most contemporaries became buyboats or were abandoned. Abandoned in Huntington after a failed 1975 rehabilitation, she was acquired in 1984 and is being restored at Centerport, where her hull has been strengthened and her rig is to be rebuilt.","period_of_significance":"1884-1930","architect_builder":"James T. Marsh","architectural_style":"Chesapeake Bay bugeye (historic marine architecture)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Undergoing restoration; hull strengthened 1976-1985, masts and rigging dismantled and expected to be restored in 1986.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:45.732773-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/86001081.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75322162","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Jennie_(bugeye)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6650504"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/suffolk-county/little-jennie-chesapeake-bay-bugeye-86001081/"}