"Old Stock, New Generation," Jenn Hall, Edible Jersey
2014 Hurley Conklin Award Winner
John Joseph Maxwell started on the water as a young boy in 1963 – and the last summer he had off was 1962. “I’m a fifth-generation bayman,” he said. “Goes back a long time; it’s in the blood.”
As he good-naturedly tells it, at age seven his family tied a rope onto him, put him on a boat, and his fate was sealed. “Man, you could get arrested for something like that now!” he said with a laugh.
“I got the bay bug really bad as a kid. I used to sit around in a box and pretend it was a boat.” He would daydream about being out on the water, duck hunting or trapping while pouring over the pages of Field & Stream and Sports Afield. Before long, by age 11, he was pulling oysters with his grandfather Curtis aboard the A.D. 2, a Navy Admiral’s Launch converted to a dredge boat.