A. J. Meerwald

A.J. Meerwald is the state ship of New Jersey. She is a restored oyster dredging schooner, whose home port is in the Bivalve section of Commercial Township in Cumberland County, New Jersey. Launched in 1928, A.J. Meerwald was one of hundreds of schooners built along South Jersey's Delaware Bay shore before the decline of the shipbuilding industry which coincided with the Great Depression. Today, A.J. Meerwald is used by the Bayshore Discovery Project for onboard educational programs in the Delaware Bay near Bivalve, and at other ports in the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware region. A.J. Meerwald was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 7, 1995. It became the state ship in 1998.