 In 1854 the Maryland legislature permitted the use of dredges in the waters of Somerset County, Maryland, expanding the use of dredges to the rest of the Bay following the Civil War.Opening the Chesapeake to oyster dredging after the Civil War created a need for larger, more powerful boats to haul dredges across the oyster beds.The first vessels used were the existing sloops, pungys and schooners on the Bay, but none of these types was well suited to the purpose; pungys and schooners were too deep in their draft to work the shallower waters of the Bay, the schooners and sloops had bulwarks too high to facilitate handling the dredges, the relatively complex rigs of all three types required uneconomically large crews of skilled sailors, and the vessels themselves were relatively expensive to build and maintain.