William D. Watling, born in 1918, wore many hats in his life. As an all-star athlete growing up in New Bedford, he wore both a football helmet and a baseball cap. He also shined on the soccer field and the basketball court. Baseball stayed with him. He played semipro ball in Canada prior to WWII. For World War II, he donned a different type of headgear as he flew at least 22 missions from England to the continent to bomb the enemy. He was a top turret gunner in a B-24 bomber where his task was to fend off attacking enemy planes.
In 1946 after his war service, Watling moved to Rochester when he married Louise Hartley. He worked at Morse Cutting Tools where he transferred his baseball skills to softball. It was said that he hit a softball further than one of his fellow workers had ever seen. During these years, he ran a small group in town, known as Rochester’s Boys Club. Wearing the hat of club leader, he organized projects, many of which were sports related. For one project, he approached area businesses for donations to build a boxing ring in the upstairs of the Grange Hall. Once the ring was built, he taught the boys how to box. That lead to boxing matches, which townspeople paid to attend. Bob Sherman remembers that the money made was used by Watling to take the members of the Boys Club to watch a hockey game at Boston Garden. About that experience, Sherman said, “It was a place I’d never seen in my life and I thought it was the greatest thing.”
As a Rochester resident, Watling took on many roles. Over the years, he wore the hats of Park Commissioner, Sealer of Weights and Measures and Cemetery Commission. Working as a self-employed carpenter and painter, he also found time to maintain the grounds around the First Congregational Church and Town Hall, as well as town athletic fields. Watling was also a regular performer in shows at the Grange Hall, sometimes as a comic chef attempting to make stew in a magic pot. He borrowed Santa’s hat to play the part of old St. Nick at town Christmas activities.
Perhaps the proudest hat Bill Watling wore was that of Herring Inspector, a post he held for almost 40 years. In the 1950’s, the job was appointed by the selectmen and often, according to Watling, “treated in a sort of off-hand matter.” After accepting the position, he worked to have the Herring Inspector elected rather than appointed. At this time, herring were a lot more plentiful in the area rivers and there was a pond on Rounseville Road where they would go to spawn. However, the herring faced many obstacles, including a lack of fish ladders and debris choking the rivers. Any clearing of debris was done to help boaters rather than fish and with little attention paid to their spawning patterns. In time, the clearing of the river debris also benefitted the herring on their journey.
Protecting the herring became a passion for Watling, as he with others founded Alewives Anonymous. He introduced innovative electric fish counters and herring ladders. He took on the job of maintaining the rivers, and he worked to preserve herring whose numbers had begun to dwindle. He felt that if area towns would all agree to ban fishing for a year, it would help to increase herring counts. This idea (adopted in later years in some towns) was, unfortunately, not supported by Rochester’s neighbors.
Alewives Anonymous is still active today, and there are fish ladders on the Sippican River as it enters Hathaway and Leonard’s Ponds. The problem that Watling tried to prevent has come to pass as fewer and fewer herring make use of those fish ladders. Watling said in a 1991 newspaper article, ” I think we should treat herring like sacred cows for awhile, let them run, let them propagate.” It is too bad for the herring that his words weren’t heeded. Because of his work with the herring, river and boat race, Watling , who passed away in 1993, was honored with a sign near the start of the boat race at Grandma Hartley’s Reservoir. You may have seen it this weekend. The new sign proclaims the William D. Watling Memorial Waterway.
By Connie Eshbach