STONINGTON'S PORTUGUESE FISHERMEN

By Donald Lewis

(From Historical Footnotes, August 1965)

A native-born Stoningtonian, Mr. Lewis is the Staff Correspondent in this area of The Westerly Sun.

A Stonington draggerman prepares to pull the rope
which will spill the contents of the net onto the deck of the boat.
Photo courtesy of Joseph Meringolo.

Over 300 years ago, in 1649, William Chesebrough and his family settled at the head of Wequetequock Cove and thus began the history of the Town of Stonington.

About 100 years later Edward and John Denison built a home in what is now the Borough, and the history of Stonington village started.

From the time the Denisons first settled in the Village, a span of more than 150 years, its history included exploring and such names as Fanning and Palmer; shipbuilding, Sheffield and Crandall; sealing, Pendleton and Dunbar; whaling, Wayland and Williams; government, Miner and Smith; railroading, Phelps and Trumbull; and industry, Collins and Wilcox. While the activities recorded are varied, the names are not. Those who lead the Village of Stonington through its first 150 years had one thing in common, their "Yankee" background.

In the middle 19th century, however, two men came here from the island of Fayal in the Azores, that group of islands which lies off the coast of Portugal, where the customs, traditions and language are Portuguese.

One of these, Frank G. Sylvia, was born in the Azores in 1824 and arrived in the early 1840's. Shortly after his arrival he acquired land at what is today called Sylvia's woods and lived in a large, white farmhouse which is now the home of Walter Cole. Sylvia took as his wife, Helena DeCastro, who had been a teacher in the Azores.

Joseph A. Vargas, Sr., the second of these men, was born in 1841 and in the 1850's came to the United States, first heading for the gold mines of the West. After sometime on the west coast, he returned and served on a cutter patrolling the east coast after the Civil War.

Meanwhile, in Stonington, Mr. and Mrs. Sylvia had been blessed with seven children: Ellen, Mary (Mrs. Manuel Amaral), Clara (Mrs. Manuel Perry), Josephine (Mrs. Joseph Rose), John who married Harriet Harvey, Manuel who married Mary Duffy, and Frank who took Bridget Quilty as his wife.

Vargas, after his cross continent travels came to Stonington where he learned his former school teacher had become Sylvia's wife and through this acquaintance met and married the Sylvia's oldest daughter, Ellen. He and his wife made their first home in the Sylvia's Woods farmhouse and he became associated with his father-in-law in the ice business which remained in the family until 1947.

The Six Vargas Children

The Vargas had six children: May, who married the late Joseph Mendonca; Clara, wife of Matthew T. Leahy, and Miss Ann Vargas, a retired school teacher, all of whom now live in the "Vargas home" on Gold Street in the Borough; Frank A. of Westerly, Joseph A., Jr. who died in 1964 and Helena who died in 1915.

After living for a time in the Sylvia farmhouse, Vargas acquired land of his own, extending from what is now called Vargas Corners, at the intersection of Route 1 and 1-A, westerly to Collins' Brook and north on Flanders Road; several properties in the Borough to one of which he eventually moved to be closer to the Stonington schools which his children attended; and also the "Mosquito Farm" in Wequetequock, now owned by the State of Connecticut.

Wrecking the Wadawanuck Hotel

Getting back to Frank G. Sylvia, he still has a sort of physical immortality in this New England village. By the 1890's, he and his family owned more than a score of homes in and around the village. In 1893, he and his sons took on the job of tearing down the old Wadawanuck Hotel, on the site of the present library, and with the lumber they built several more houses, including the present Main Street home of Dr. Frank A. Castaldi and Paul Previty, and rebuilt and repaired many others.

Many years earlier, in 1851, Mr. Sylvia had helped to build the first St. Mary's Church in Stonington, replaced recently by the modern brick church which now graces the corner of Main and Broad streets. About 1895, Mr. Sylvia gave the church the land which is now St. Mary's Cemetery on Route 1, overlooking Stonington Harbor.

Meanwhile, gradually after 1850 and more frequently toward the close of the last century, immigrants from the Azores were locating in Stonington.

Exodus from the Azores

These people of the islands were not only sea-farers, but farmers as well, and in Stonington they found a coastal community bathed by the same ocean which caressed their homeland isles with soil and climate which could produce the same foods they had grown in their native land.

They came to Stonington -- and they stayed.

Their family names were Pont, Medeiros, Madeira, Souza, Luiz, Arruda, Silveira, Pacheco, Clay, Moniz, Amancio, Santos, Furtardo, Serrano, Almeida and Narcizzi, to mention a few.

The Title Is Misleading

The title of this article is apt, but a bit misleading, for all Stonington fishermen are not Portuguese and all Portuguese are not fishermen. Since the settlement of "Long Point," fishing has been important to many families, in many cases as the source of their next meal, and since the early settlement of the coastline, men have harvested fish from the sea but the methods and the catch have changed.

Newspaper accounts bearing 1900 dates report the following:

January 7 -- The smack Mary, Capt. Smith, returned from Block Island Sunday with 1,300 cod and haddock, the result of two days' fishing.

January 11 -- Capt. Frank Lamphere of the smack George B. McCleilan is arranging to engage in trawl fishing.

Another 1900 newspaper account reports: "The following shipment of fish was made by the trawl fishermen yesterday: M. H. Morris, 20 barrels; Mary, 23 barrels, and Copia, three barrels."

Shipped by the Barrel

The eastern shoreline of Stonington Point as it was in 1900,
long before the fishing boats, requiring deeper water, moved into the Harbor on the west side of the village.
Photo by the late Edwin Ripley.

At the turn of the century smacks were the backbone of the Stonington "fishing fleet." These small, but seaworthy sailboats have been aptly described as overgrown one-masted sloops. Some ran up to 30 feet in length. In these craft, Stonington men went to sea, albeit none too far from home, and with hand-lines and by trolling, landed their day's catch, usually cod and haddock. These boats were also used to bring in lobsters.

Hundreds of Hooks on One Line

Hand-lining was not as simple as it sounds. A hand-line to the fisherman of 1900 was a long line from which literally hundreds of hooks extended, each baited with herring or mussels. After trolling, the line would be hauled in, the fish taken from the hooks and thrown into the well of the smack, brought to port, and shipped to New York, first by steamer and later by train. Twenty barrels of fish for a day's work was not unusual.

Another method of fishing was by "shore seines," a long net, one end of which was made fast ashore while the other end, aboard a smack, was carried in a great circle stretching the net 'behind. When the tow-boat returned to the starting point, the net was drawn in and the fish harvested.

Still another method was the use of "barrel traps," a method still used today in Narragansett Bay and along the New Jersey coast. Similar to "shore-seining," this involved the stretching of a long net across the water. The bottom of the net was held down by anchors and the top held up by floating barrels. At one end of the net was a corral with a small opening. Swimming along the net, fish entered this enclosure with only a few finding their way out before fishermen arrived to reap their harvest.

Enter the Lathrop "One Lunger"

About 1906, the Lathrop single-cylinder marine engine arrived and was gradually installed in the local fishing smacks. These "one-lungers" developed eight horsepower and while they made the fisherman's work easier, they did not substantially change his methods.

About two years later, however, the Lathrop gasoline engine was expanded to a two-cylinder, two-cycle motor developing 16 horsepower. Increased power did bring about changes in fishing. This engine made trawling standard operational precedure which had previously been possible on only a small scale.

The "beam trawl," so named because of the wooden beam which kept the top of the front or open end of the net afloat, came into regular use about 1908 in Stonington. The bottom of the funnel-shape net was submerged by heavy chains and hauled over the ocean floor. After each dragging operation crew-members hove to and pulled the net aboard.

Modern Trawl Developed

The beam trawl was quickly followed by the "otter trawl," the same basic net used by fishermen today. This was improved with the addition of dragging boards, which insured the opening of the mouth of the net at all times. The "balloon net," which followed, differs only in a large balloon-shaped sack at the end of the net, increasing the capacity of the catch.

The Walter Adams -- Typical of the coal-burning "bunker boats"
which worked out of Stonington Harbor between 1910 and 1920.

From about 1910 to 1920, big "bunker boats," pioneered locally by the late George E. Allison, came into being, making their catches along the Rhode Island coast, in many cases, through the use of barrel traps. Among these bunker boats were the James W. Gifford, McKeever, and Nomad.

Returning to the harbor after fishing, the skipper would sound one long blast on his whistle followed by a series of short ones, and Joe Vargas would know exactly how much ice was wanted.

Clay's Dock Was Headquarters

Manuel Clay's Dock on Hancox Street in Stonington as it was in the early 1900's.
Fishermen are mending their nets with lobster pots stacked in the background.

During the early 20th century, shore operations of the fleet, were primarily on the east side of the Borough, where Manuel Clay, Sr., operated Clay's Dock, also known as the "Little Fulton Fish Market."

The bigger the boats, the farther they could range and the more fish they could carry and the first known diesel engine in our local fishing boats was installed in Lawrence Clay's Lena about 1923. This motor, built in Sweden, developed 25 horsepower, powering a 36-foot dragger.

In 1928 Harold McLaughlin's Marise and Hubert Lawrence's Mandalay, both in the 60-foot class were both powered by diesel engines. The Marise still fishes out of Stonington, still owned by McLaughlin. The Mandalay, subsequently sold to Antonio Longo, was lost several years ago.

Charlotte --
This schooner-rigged, diesel-powered dragger, built in Maine in 1929,
was one of the first such craft to operate out of Stonington Harbor.

In 1929 the 62-foot Charlotte was built in Maine for Lawrence Clay, she, too, was diesel-powered and since 1930 boats of 55 to 60 feet in length, all powered by diesel engines, are the backbone of the Stonington fleet.

One of the last smacks in local waters was the venerable Klondike, which over the years was continually modified, keeping pace with improvements in construction and equipment. The Klondike fished out of Stonington until only a few years ago.

Today, most Stonington boats are powered by 110-horsepower, six-cylinder engines. And most are New England rigged, with the pilot house and engine room forward. A few, among them the aforementioned Marise, and the Jane Dore, are schooner-rigged, the pilot house and engine room aft.

Bigger Boats Need Deeper Water

As the boats became bigger, waterfront operations shifted to deeper water and the west side of the Borough where John Bindloss set up a marine station following the failure of the Samuel Z. Chesebrough Fishing & Trading Corporation, located on what is now the south Bindloss dock and what was once known as the Pendleton Dock. The north Bindloss dock, once a coal wharf, also became a fishing boat pier. To the north, Nathaniel Avery operated a fish dock on what had been the former steamboat dock on land owned by the New Haven Railroad. During World War II, this property was acquired by Antonio Longo and today, the Longo and Bindloss docks are home for our fishing boats.

50 Years Bring Drastic Changes

Today's fishing is a far cry from what it was 50 years ago.

Manuel Clay, Jr., a retired fisherman, tells of the big differences in navigation alone. Years back, a skipper had a compass, a sextant, and depth-finder, the latter a long line with a lead-weight shaped like a big sinker, 12 to 16 inches long and weighing about 16 pounds. In the bottom of this sinker was a hole about two inches in diameter. Into this hole, the navigator crammed yellow soap and when the sinker hit bottom, material from the ocean floor would adhere to the soap. When the sinker was hauled up, the navigator had learned two things-the depth of the water and :the type of bottom, whether sand, gravel or rock. Today the draggers are equipped with fathometers, loran, radar, direction finders, radio-telephones and of course, a compass.

Eight Sons Follow Father to Sea

In 1907, Manuel Roderick and his family arrived in Stonington from Tercera in the Azores group. Mr. Roderick and his wife, Rose (Gill) Roderick, had 14 children: eight sons, who all followed their father to sea, and six daughters. The Roderick family saga is the story of Stonington deep-sea fishing for the past half-century. It is the story of men who have taken to the sea for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and -- tragically, 'till death do them part.

Manuel Roderick, Sr., was a fisherman all his life, a good one according to the severest of critics, his fellow fishermen. His sons, too were all solid fishermen, among the most widely known on the east coast.

The sons and grandsons of Mr. and Mrs. Manuel Roderick, Sr., continue today to make their living from the sea. Three of their children, however, two of them fishermen, have passed on, Manuel, Jr., the oldest son, and George, who was fatally injured aboard the still family-owned dragger Luann, which he skippered for many years. The other six sons are Geal, William, Joseph, John, Frank (Sammy) and Edmund. The Roderick's living daughters are Louisa Rogers, Irene Debragga, Annie Suminski, Genevieve Fredella and Rose Warner.

Brave Rescue from Block Island Wreck

The elder Captain Roderick continued to go to sea until shortly before his death in 1945 in spite of the fact he had lost both legs. His last fishing trip was in 1945, aboard the Alice and Jenny -- when the dragger piled on the rocks west of Block Island. Capt. Roderick, tied to the wheelhouse chair, was cut loose and carried to safety, on the back of his son George, over rocks and through storm tossed surf. That they made it to safety still amazes waterfront story-tellers.

Since the start of the 20th century, the fishing industry in Stonington, and what remains of it today, has been the economic base of the Portuguese people here.

Holy Ghost Society is World-wide

In the years at the turn of the century, it was not uncommon to hear streetcorner conversations in the Portuguese language. As the Portuguese increased in numbers there was a need for social activity and this was filled with the organization, in 1914, of the local Holy Ghost society. The first officers included Manuel Luiz, Manuel Moniz, and Alavo de Costa.

The Holy Ghost Society is common in Portuguese settlements throughout the world and in addition to filling a social need, has religious significance. Each year, members commemorate the 16th-century feeding of the famine-stricken Portuguese people by Queen Isabella. The religious queen prayed to the Holy Ghost for relief from the floods which had inundated the land. The rains stopped and the waters receded, but the land was barren. Queen Isabella then sold her crown jewels to buy food for her people. Each year, the people of the Holy Ghost Society bear a symbolic crown to St. Mary's Church, recalling the generous act of their queen and offering prayer to the Holy Ghost.

Today the Holy Ghost Society, Inc. of Stonington owns its own club building on Main Street, and continues to serve the descendants of those who organized over 50 years ago.

Also, as a social animal, the Portuguese soon after their arrival became aware of their government and have participated in it.

First Portuguese Selectman

Joseph Vargas, Jr., is believed to have been the first elected town official of Portuguese ancestry. He served as a Democratic member of the Town's Board of Selectmen from 1921 to 1931. His father had served as a Borough Burgess in the early 1900's.

More recently, the late Jose Maria Faria confined himself to Borough politics, had an enduring political career. He was a native of San Miguel, the Azores, where he was born in 1897. He came to Stonington in 1920, and 16 years later was elected to the Borough's board of burgesses. He won further terms in 1938, 1940, 1942, tasting political defeat in 1944. He did not campaign again until 1950 when he was elected to the Borough's top administrative post -- warden.

He was reelected to successive two-year terms through 1958, but in 1960 he suffered his second defeat, losing out to Alfred Kupidlowski. Undaunted, Faria returned to the campaign in 1962, defeated Kupidlowski and then won again in 1964. He died in October 1964.

In the election to fill the vacant office, another Portuguese immigrant, another native of San Miguel, Alfred L. Lewis, Sr., was elected to the mayoralty of the Borough. It has become standard political practice for both parties to include a "Portuguese vote-getter" on their tickets.

Apple Pie and Pizza

While the Portuguese people in Stonington have not dominated the political, social and economic activities of the community, they have, nevertheless, contributed much to what Stonington is today and what it will be in the future. In a quiet way, they have assumed the responsibilities of their country, state, town and village and have become solid, respected citizens. They have made all of us a little richer with their native mores and folkways -- bringing just a bit of their Portugal to our shore, and at the same time absorbing our customs and habits and becoming first and foremost, good American citizens -- as American as apple pie, pizza, chop suey and massa de cevada.

Top