Finding Friendship: Interviewing
Lobster Fishermen
Finding Friendship is a collaborative Oral History project of the Friendship Museum and Friendship Village School in Friendship, Maine. It seeks to preserve the history of Friendship, a traditional seafaring community on the coast of Maine, by recording and preserving the voices of the past and present as they recall everyday life and the traditions that have shaped and nourished the community. Sixth grade students, under the co-direction of language arts teacher, Gaylea Hynd, and Friendship Museum volunteer, Sally Merrick, interviewed friends, family and neighbors to create this year's project.
Winfield
Lash
Shawn and Steven, 6th Grade
Winnie Lash was born on July 5, 1918, and has lived in Friendship nearly all of his life. He and his wife Barbara have been married for 63 years and have seven children, 17 grandchildren, and 13 great grandchildren. After working at the Camden Shipbuilding Company and Bath Ironworks, he worked at the W. S. Carter Boat Yard, which was owned by his uncle, Scott Carter. When his uncle died in 1946, he and Charles Sylvester bought the yard. Two years later, Sylvester sold his share to Winnie’s brother Douglas, and the yard became known as Lash Brothers. At one time or another, all of Winnie’s brothers worked there. The original boat shop burned down in 1987 and was replaced by a building on Route 97, where his son Wesley continues the Lash Brothers tradition.
Q: When did you start building boats?
A: I started building boats about 1946.
Q: Why did you decide to build boats?
A: I like to build them; the family had been in it some.
Q: Is boat building a tradition in your family?
A: I think around here it’s in everybody’s family a little.
Q: How many boats did you build?
A: I’ve been in charge of the building of about 100.
Q: What are the different kind of boats that you built?
A: Sloops, fishing boats, lobster boats, pleasure boats.
Q: Did you build power boats, lobster boats, pleasure boats?
A: All of them. When I say “we,” I mean the whole crew. I didn’t have much to do with it.
Q:
Did you build any sailboats?
A: Friendship sloops. My brother Doug left the boat yard and went up to Sid’s store.
Q: Describe some of your favorites in each category.
A: A boat’s a boat to me, if you want one built. I like fishing boats the best, I guess, draggers.
Q: What is the biggest boat you’ve ever built?
A: The biggest would be 71 feet. The biggest one I’ve designed is 100 feet. I designed most of the boats that I built.
Q: Were all of the boats you build wooden?
A: All wooden.
Q: How many people worked in your shop?
A: Thirteen is the most we ever had.
Q: How long would it take to build a boat of different sizes?
A: The longest one took a year and a half. The shortest one, three months.
Q: Can you briefly describe the steps in building a boat?
A: I don’t know how brief it would be. I don’t
have the answer to that one.
Bring some wood in and make a pattern is how we build it.
Q: Are any of your boats still being used?
A: A good percentage of them are still being used.
Q: Of all the boats that you built, which ones do you remember the most?
A: I can’t answer that very well. I go by the people more than the
boats.
Gordon
Murphy
Douglas, 6th Grade
Gordon Murphy was born on November 23,
1931, and has always lived in Friendship. His family has lived here for
at least five generations. He has four children and seven grandchildren.
Now retired, he was a lobster fisherman from the time he was in the seventh
grade. The focus of his life is his love of the Lord and his church.
Q: When did you start lobstering?
A: Since I was a little fellow, probably seventh grade.
Q: Why did you become a lobsterman?
A: Must have been kind of foolish, and nothing else to do.
Q: What was your job on the boat?
A: Oh, I did the whole thing, from steering to hauling — the heavy thing that needed to be done, and I went alone.
Q:
Is lobstering a tradition in your family? Explain.
A: I guess you could say so. My father and my grandfather were both local
fishermen, my children are, and all of my relatives.
Q: What was the name of your boat? And why did you name it this?
A: The last boat I had, it was named Grace, and that was because of the
grace of God.
Q: What was the length and the kind, and was it fiberglass or wood? What
was the color, and how much horsepower did you have in the motor? Was
it diesel or gas?
A: My boat was a fiberglass one, 30-feet long, and the motor was gasoline
— a 292 Chevy.
Q: How often did you pull your traps?
A: I divided my string up into three days--that would be every third day.
Q: How do you tell your traps from someone else’s?
A: The color of the buoys. Mine were white with a black tail.
Q: Did you use toggles? Explain how they work.
A: I used a few toggles, but just for fishing on the rocks. When they got off on the mud lay you don’t need them. Toggles are to help hold the rope up off the bottom, so it won’t get caught on the rocks.
Q:
Describe what you do when you catch a lobster. What lobsters did you have
to throw back? Explain notching lobsters.
A: Well, when I catch a lobster, the first thing you do is see if it’s big enough or not, or too big. Once in awhile it’s too big. And, of course, band it, and put it in a circulating water tank to keep it alive. As far as the notched lobsters, I just throw them back. I never bother to punch them myself.
Q: What is a normal haul for a day, on a really bad day, and on a really good day?
A: Well, quite a bit less that a pound a trap would be a bad day, I would think. A good day would be a couple of pounds to a trap.
Q: What did you like the most about lobstering?
A: Collecting the money (chuckle).
Q: What did you like the least about it?
A: Oh, I think bad weather. I just didn’t like to go out when it’s bad weather — cold weather, too.
Q: What kind of problems have you experienced at sea?
A: I guess probably the most common thing would be some trouble with the engine, the engine stopping or something, and having to get towed in. And I have been on some of the rocks around, bumped around, but not enough to cause any severe damage.
Q: What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you while you were lobstering?
A: Well, I don’t know that anything big sticks out in my mind. I always had pretty good luck, I guess. I can’t seem to think of anything too severe right now.
Q: How often do you eat lobster? Do you have a favorite way of preparing it, like recipes?
A: It don’t seem like we had lobsters too awful much; I guess we
got tired of looking at them. Just boil the lobsters and pick them out,
have plenty of butter on them; that’s the way I like them.
Bernard
& Marie Wallace
Steven and Shawn, 6th Grade
Bernard Wallace was born on December 3, 1929. For 17 years he lived on Friend-ship, Long Island. He has two sons, both lobstermen, and four grandchildren. He was a lobsterman for 60 years. His wife, Marie, was born on November 9, 1932, and moved to Friendship from Gardiner, Maine. She has two sisters. At one time she worked at Hoods, and she considers her main occupation being a housewife. Her hobby is drawing. Steven, the interviewer, now lob-sters with his brother on Bernard’s boat.
Q: When did you start lobstering?
A: I started when I was 13 years old.
Q: How long have you been lobstering?
A: I’ve been lobstering for 60 years.
Q:
Why did you become a lobsterman?
A: Probably because of my grandfather; he took me on Allen’s Island. I went crazy about lobstering.
Q: What was your job on the boat?
A: I guess I was the captain.
Q: Did you have someone that lobstered with you?
A: I use to have a my two boys that went with me; then I had Old Faithful.
Q: What did Marie do?
A: She was a helper, and she filled the bait bags, banded the lobsters.
Q: When did you start lobstering, Marie?
A: I guess when I first got married. When it was a good day, I would go out with Bernard. And when the oldest boy was born, when he was just a little baby, I used to put him in the clothes basket, put him up in the bow of the skiff, and we’d go out on sunny days.
Q: Why did you become a lobsterwoman?
A: I was living with a lobsterman; I just automatically got into it.
Q: Bernard, name all the boats you’ve had.
A: I started with a dory. It was 12.5 feet long. Then a 5-horse outboard. Then a 25-foot lobster boat. Then a 26-foot. Then Herald Benner built me a brand new 30-foot lobster boat. Then I went to Beals Island and got a 35-foot wood one built. And the best one I had was a 32-foot glass.
Q:
What were the names of your boats? Why did you name them that?
A: The first boat I had was named Vixen. The second boat was named Dana R. The new 30-foot one I got was Dana R also. The 35-footer was named after my wife, Marie Helen, and the 32-foot glass one was also the Marie Helen. They’ve always had gasoline engines in them.
Q: Describe a typical day of lobstering.
A: Well, we get up in the summer time about 2:30, and by the time we get ready to leave the house, it’s about 3:30. And we have to run way down river, and the time we get down there summertime, the days are long, and it’s usually about daylight before we get there.
Q: How has lobstering changed since your beginning?
A: Oh, when I started fishing, and the shedders were out, I got 20 cents a pound. But my father had even got 12 cents a pound, and this summer they’re fellas that got $3.25 a pound. And we used to use wooden traps, and now everything’s all wire. There’s been quite a big change in the fishing. The same way with lobster boats. They were always wood, they had caulking seams, and now they’re all glass.
Q: What do you like most about lobstering, Marie?
A: I like the early mornings when the sun comes up, and it’s nice and warm, and I like getting home early, and getting my work done early. And I enjoyed it.
Q: What kind of problems have you experienced at sea?
A: Well, I guess a little bit of everything. Probably the Lord was with
me the biggest part of the time. He had to be because one time there I
got my oil coat button caught in a wooden lobster pot where the lath went
together, and I went to push the trap overboard, and then I went out another
morning, and I got in a breaker, and the breaker broke the front of my
house out, and I went ashore, stove the boat up. The day I got ashore,
I said goodbye to my wife ‘cause the breakers were going sky high,
and I was right in the rocks, and when she laid down, I got out and crawled
over the rocks on my hands and knees. I didn’t think I was hurt
any, but the next morning I was all black and blue. Another boat came
in, and they put a line, my boy put a line to another fellow’s stern.
He got in, and my boy’s helper, he got ahold of my hand and said,
“You’re comin’ in over the bow of the boat,” and
he got me in, and they brought me to Friendship and got me home and got
me in a hot tub of water. And from there on, why, we had to haul the boat
up, and we hauled her up to Sonny Lash’s shop, and that was a $6000
job.
Q:
Marie, how do you eat lobsters?
A: Well, I think mostly we just have them boiled and dipped in butter because that’s what Bernard likes, and I like it, too.
Q: Thank you for letting us interview you.
Courtesy of the Friendship Museum and the Friendship Village
School.
The interviews you see here have been modified to include additional pictures.
The complete student project is available in a two CD format at a minimal
cost. If you would like a copy, please contact Margaret Gagnon—
phone: 207 832-4852
Back Yard Yacht Builders
A non-commercial association of amateur boat-builder enthusiasts.
All our wooden boats are Stevenson designs.