New in Mattapoisett

Editor’s note: George Emmons is a gentleman who recently moved to Mattapoisett and is sharing his experiences as he gets to know the area.

My wife, Jan, and I have just moved in at Crescent Beach after 20 wonderful years in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.

We both were very involved in non-profits of Monterey, a small town near Lake Garfield; she as chairperson on the Gardening Committee of The Bidwell House Colonial Museum, and I was president of The Berkshire Hatchery Foundation, the only volunteer-run hatchery in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife system. I also wrote a monthly column in the local monthly paper about wildlife, nature, environmental awareness, and human interest profiles of local town personalities.

Getting on in years, we both wanted to be nearer to our youngest daughter. A big change in our lives. However, now, with a beautiful new sunrise at Crescent Beach, our day often starts out with the promise along a new road taken, especially going into town where at every turn and destination we are made to feel most welcome with hospitality as warm as we have ever known with our new neighbors, registering to vote at Town Hall, and especially at the library, becoming acquainted when I took out two books – Melville’s Moby Dick and Philbrick’s Heart Of The Sea – to immerse myself in the history of whaling era whose last iconic active vessel was this publication’s namesake The Wanderer.

Going into town one morning, a big surprise awaited me at the corner intersection of Prospect and Marion while driving by the Shipyard Repair Shop of David Peterson. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a nautical landmark with wonderful lines, but which had seen better days and was now mast-less like a swan sheared of its feathers. The empty hull rang a bell in my head and, acting on a hunch, I drove in and knocked on the workshop door. Like everyone else we have met, David was very polite being interrupted on a busy day, but was very pleased in my particular interest in one of his favorite charges of his collection.

It turned out to be a classic yawl named Buzzard’s Bay 30 (measured in as many feet) designed by none other than Nathaniel Herreshoff of Bristol, Rhode Island with others in the history here of fish boats, catboats, skipjacks, knockabouts, and schooners. David also kindly loaned me the treasure of a book, personally autographed to him by the author Edward F. R. Wood, entitled Sailing Days in Mattapoisett 1870 to 1960. On page 42, thirteen owners of Buzzard Bay 30s include the name of Robert W. Emmons of Tobey Island, who was my father’s second cousin. Also in the index, his name is listed three times as skipper of The Endeavor and Enterprise in the J-Boat America’s Cup races.

This nautical yarn of this adventuresome tale takes me full circle back to a sailing family heritage that includes my father, whose boat was The Quakeress around Jamestown Island in Narragansett Bay, and his uncle Arthur B. Emmons as commodore of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club in Newport. My next nautical article may find inspiration over the horizon from Crescent Beach to the whaling island of Nantucket, where my wife’s great, great grandfather was the first lighthouse keeper and who first charted the waters around Martha’s Vineyard and Block Island.

By George B. Emmons