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Against the Tide: The Turbulent Times of a Black Entrepreneur
One of the Steamboat Era Museum’s most poignant exhibits is in a room that tells the story of Hansford C. Bayton. He was an African-American entrepreneur whose rise to from impoverished beginnings to the owner of five Rappahannock River steamboats during the Jim Crow period is a story of extraordinary ambition and success—and a tragic end.
The idea for the exhibit came when Steamboat Era Museum Executive Director Barbara Brecher was contacted by Bayton’s great-granddaughter and writer Julie Sullivan. “Julie was looking for a photograph of one of her great-grandfather’s boats, the J. W. Newbill, for her book, Against the Tide: The Turbulent Times of a Black Entrepreneur. She shared Bayton’s incredible story with me.”
“My immediate reaction was this is a story that must be shared,” said Brecher.
Featuring a life-size mannequin of Bayton, the exhibit documents in riveting fashion Bayton’s life and his successes. It also charts in heart-wrenching detail his descent into destitution during the Jim Crow era, leaving visitors to draw their conclusions about whether the fires that destroyed his steamboats one by one were accidental or caused by arson.
“This is what the museum should be,” Brecher said.“Because we’re telling the whole story.”