Background

Yankee Pedler is a small skipjack built by Curtis Applegarth in Oxford, Maryland, in 1967 for Alice and Steve Zalik, who then lived in Delaware.

The previous year, the newlywed Zaliks decided they wanted to buy a boat, although they didn't know how to sail. In front of Applegarth's Marine Yard, they saw one of his other skipjacks, Little Jack, and "immediately I knew I had to have one," said Alice. Applegarth built Yankee Pedler for them for $4,000, and the boat was launched on 4 July 1967. Little Jack, built in 1959 for Applegarth's daughter Cheri, was later given to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

 The origin of the name was described by Beth Schucker in an article for the Star Democrat, 14 October 2009:

"Steve chose the name Yankee Peddler simply because he liked it. But Alice worried because boats have been endowed with feminine gender for centuries. Would linking a lady to peddling suggest disrepute? Steve finessed Peddler would buck tradition and be a 'he.'"

The article continues, "Meanwhile as Applegarth painted the name on the bow sprit, he ran out of room, so he left a 'd' out of Peddler, a clever solution he thought. For the Zaliks, it personified 'Applegarth's endearing sense of Eastern Shore practicality.' They kept the name, giving Yankee Pedler the distinction of being miss-gendered and miss-spelled" to this day.

In 1987, Yankee Pedler went to St. Michaels for rebuilding by Jim Wagner, winning the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum's Best Restoration Award. That was the only time Yankee Pedler left the Tred Avon River, where the boat was kept at the head of Town Creek. There, Yankee Pedler became a holiday landmark, decorated with lights outlining the boat and sail plan each year. Living in Delaware and never around for the holidays, it was 14 years before the Zaliks realized their boat was being decorated by Curtis Applegarth every year and had become an Oxford holiday tradition.

Yankee Pedler eventually fell into disrepair again. No longer seaworthy, in 2009, the Zaliks decided to donate the boat to the Oxford Museum. Applegarth, who had by that time passed away, had been one of the founders of the museum and had served as president of its board of directors. The museum found a spot to display the boat in front of the Oxford Community Center, fittingly across the street from the Applegarth family home.

Campbell's Boat Yard has cared for Yankee Pedler since 1995 and worked with members of the community to prepare the boat for display at the community center, including building steps so children could climb aboard. Diane Flagler set up a memorial fund in the name of her late husband, Dr. Nick Flagler, an avid sailor who loved wooden boats, to take care of Yankee Pedler in perpetuity. Applegarth's daughter Cheri was in attendance at the boat's dedication at the center on 17 October 2009.

Since then, the community has continued to treasure and care for Yankee Pedler, with upkeep by local residents, and Campbell's Boat Yard still taking care of the inevitable toll that weather takes on wooden boats out of the water. And "he" still wears strings of lights for the holidays