What looked from a distance like a tool shed on stilts, the Marion Harbormaster office was transported Friday morning by a giant forklift into a new location toward the end of Island Wharf where it is up and running.
Long considered outdated in terms of functionality and capacity, the push for the facility’s replacement is being realized with the ongoing construction of the new Maritime Center in the northeast corner of the property.
A permanent future for the old office has yet to be determined, but word is that especially given recent updates inside, it would make sense to extend its useful life perhaps at Old Landing.
Planning Board member (and former Marion Fire Chief) Jon Henry recalls a photo in the town’s Spring Street Fire Station that displays the first horse-drawn piece of fire apparatus received by the department, a pressurized hose from which emanates a stream of water. In the background of the photo is part of what was to become the Harbormaster’s headquarters at Island Wharf.
“It was like a place to sit and relax, no changing rooms … that is now where the bandstand is,” said Henry.
Before World War I, the town’s Village Improvement Association was appointed by volunteers to modernize and improve the area with the planting of grass and flowers. They also built a bandstand circular in shape. That version of the bandstand was damaged in the 1938 and 1953 (Carol) hurricanes, the second event sealing its demise.
To the east near the water was the development of what is now the remaining, ground-level construction housing bathrooms. Its initial, open-sides iteration goes back to WWI. The facility was built up in phases.
“I think the biggest part was the WPA section,” said Henry, alluding to the Works Progress Administration program enacted in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a recovery tool following the Great Depression.
“The WPA put people to work,” said Henry, remembering the Serpa teenagers who built concrete revetments to stabilize the area. Then there was a small public beach. “The more boats got into the harbor, the less desirable it become to swim there.”
The Harbormaster at the time was William Coulson Jr., who also worked at Barden’s boatyard and was married to Elizabeth (Barden) Coulson. Henry recalls Fred Barden’s grocery in Marion village and how his son-in-law took it over and ran it at the beginning of WWII.
The Harbormaster office did not get its bathrooms until Henry was serving in the Army. He estimates that the town built the now-old office during George Jennings’ tenure and recalled work done through CETA, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act enacted by President Richard Nixon in 1973.
Jennings retired from the phone company and became harbormaster.
“Everything that was modernized was done during George Jennings’ tenure,” said Henry, recalling the installation of new docks and improved boats and communications. “It made life a lot nicer for the boating community, both local and the people who came to visit.”
The phased structure eventually became the elevated office and accompanying, ground-floor, public bathrooms that remain amidst the new construction across the lot.
Mike Cormier was subsequent Marion harbormaster whom Henry considers “equally efficient,” having made crucial updates to the service. It was during Cormier’s tenure that Isaac Perry joined the department as assistant harbormaster and shellfish officer, a role that would be assumed by Adam Murphy during Perry’s tenure as harbormaster. Perry is now Mattapoisett’s harbormaster and Murphy is Marion’s harbormaster.
Thanks to their efforts and that of the Marine Resources Commission, grant funding was secured from the state’s Seaport Economic Council, appropriations were made at two town meetings, and a new harbormaster headquarters is less than two months from its grand opening.
The old office, meanwhile, is suddenly a fish out of water, still useful and looking for a new home.
By Mick Colageo