By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page B01 The awning of Capt. Billy's was draped in black yesterday, and for once, there were no crabs to be had inside the darkened restaurant. Watermen stood at attention beside their trucks outside the Charles County crab house on the shore of the Potomac River as a procession of more than 200 cars rolled slowly by, a last tribute to the captain himself.

George William Robertson Sr., 69, a restaurateur and waterman better known as Capt. Billy, and one of the best-known links to the old Southern Maryland of crabbing, slot machines and pleasant living, died Friday of cancer.

"He was Southern Maryland," said Louise Hatcher, a former Capt. Billy's waitress. "He's a dying breed."

Yesterday's funeral, the largest in Charles County in many years, according to Sheriff Fred Davis, drew politicians, watermen and longtime customers from across the area. The family held the funeral at Sacred Heart in La Plata, the largest church in the area, even though Capt. Billy was not Catholic. The church seats 1,000, but that was not enough for the overflow crowd. Current and former employees of Robertson's two crab houses filled an entire section of the church. Latecomers watched on closed-circuit television in the basement.

"I'm sure Capt. Billy would want people to celebrate, to eat the best crabs in Southern Maryland, maybe anywhere in the world," Pastor Matthew Siekierski told mourners. "He'd want us to celebrate life."

Traffic on Route 301 backed up a half-mile as the procession, accompanied by Maryland State Police troopers and Charles County sheriff's deputies, traveled south from La Plata to the cemetery in Wayside, detouring a few miles to bring the hearse past Capt. Billy's for a final visit, and traveling through farmland along the route a fleeing John Wilkes Booth took after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

The crab house has been a Southern Maryland landmark for years, both for locals and for travelers who would take Route 301 from Richmond to Baltimore solely to stop at Capt. Billy's, just upriver from the Route 301 bridge.

It was along these waters at Popes Creek--before the bridge was built and when the area was much more isolated--that Robertson began crabbing at age 9. "With the $21 he earned that summer, he bought his own rowboat and embarked on a seafood career," diners at Capt. Billy's read on their menus.

He built his first restaurant at 19, and the restaurant, Robertson's Crabhouse, eventually had walls lined by 100 slot machines, which were legal at the time in Southern Maryland.

"Crowds of people would come down from Washington, Virginia, all over, to play slots," Jimboy Jones, 67, a waterman who worked as a bartender at Robertson's in those days, recalled at yesterday's funeral. "And the crab cakes cost a quarter."

Billy Robertson, with his engaging manner and ready jokes told in a distinctive Southern Maryland brogue, was always at the center of activity. "I came down in 1964, and he was one of the first people I met," Sheriff Davis said. "He just touched a lot of people."

In 1986, Robertson bought a neighboring crab house, renamed it Capt. Billy's and launched a bonanza. On summer weekends, boats jockeyed for position at Capt. Billy's pier, the wait for a table could be hours, and bartenders served gallons of Backfins, a rum drink whose recipe Robertson resolutely refused to reveal.

Friends described Robertson as a generous spirit who was also a cagey businessman. "When people couldn't get crabs, Billy would get crabs," Davis said yesterday afternoon at a reception at the Bel Alton Volunteer Fire Department after the funeral. "He'd built these relationships. He'd pick the phone up, and he'd get crabs, because they respected him."

Robert Mitchell, a lifelong friend who delivered the eulogy, related how Robertson positioned mirrors at strategic locations in the restaurant so he could keep track of employees and warn them to "tighten up."

Over the years, Charles County was transformed, with large shopping malls and a population that has quadrupled to more than 120,000, but Capt. Billy was a constant, friends said yesterday. "He represented the old breed of Southern Maryland," Davis said.

"He was bull-headed in his way, but he was all heart," said Calvin Bowling, 62, of Newburg.

After Robertson was diagnosed with a rare type of gallbladder cancer in January 1999, he began radiation treatment at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. It was a 140-mile round trip and his hair fell out from the radiation, but he would make it back from the treatment in time to greet the lunchtime crowd at Capt. Billy's.

One of Robertson's daughters, Celine Graves, will continue to operate the crab house, friends said. "The only thing you won't see," said Chris Armbrester, a longtime Capt. Billy's bartender, "is his smiling face when you come in the door."

© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMSxedKrrWiPgJiusXuRaWdpZWBofHKCjmlpcKpdZYBygo9pZKKcqGO1tbnL