By Gail McCarthy
Staff Writer
—
1Morris, a graduate of Gloucester High's Class of 1959, grew up hearing the stories about his family, especially about his grandfather, Steve Olsson, among the last dorymen who went down.
Even on land, his heritage was connected to the fishing industry. His father, of Portuguese descent, was a fish cutter; his mother, of Swedish descent, was a fish packer in factories all along the waterfront.
"As a boy, I remember watching gurry chutes shooting out fish guts into a truck — and I would know that my father would be bringing home money," he recalled.
This rich heritage embedded in the local fishing industry would lead Morris to devote 10 years of research for what he planned to be a social narrative on the industry in Gloucester as well as its people. The result is a 448-page book titled "Alone at Sea: Gloucester in the Age of the Dorymen (1623-1939)." And he will launch the book with a reading Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Sawyer Free Library at 7 p.m.
A researcher by profession, he read more than a century's worth of local newspapers from 1820 to 1939, when dory fishing began to be replaced by the trawling method of fishing. Morris also interviewed dozens of people and traveled to the sister ports where Gloucester dorymen would go to fully appreciate the life of these fishermen.
Now a walking encyclopedia of names and dates and juicy tales of the dorymen at sea, Morris' fascination with the topic snowballed over the years. The director emeritus for the Institute for Aging in Boston, his career involved research on geriatrics and aging.
"So I was very comfortable doing this kind of research," said Morris, who now lives in Tyngsboro and holds a doctorate in gerontology.
Among those he interviewed were two of the last dorymen — Billy Shields, a Gloucester doryman who died a couple of years ago, and Brandon Daley, a Newfoundland doryman who fished out of Gloucester.
Gloucester historian and author Joseph Garland described Morris' book as a "masterpiece that's been waiting for generations to be told."
Garland, who read a version of the manuscript, said Morris' work is thorough and sticks to the subject.
"I think it's the most brilliant piece of work on the dories ever done," he said.
In a recent interview, Morris shared some highlights of Gloucester's fishing history, which began when the area was first settled in 1623 by 14 Englishmen who set up a fishing station in the shelter of the area's inner harbor.
That business enterprise only lasted three years, and only a few settlers stayed. But in the 1640s, the community was essentially re-founded by new English settlers and called First Parish, which would later be named Gloucester.
"It was toward the end of the 1600s as the community begins to get larger that they started to make vessels and go fishing," said Morris. "The dory fishermen were largely of English extraction until about 1830."
From the 1700s on, the fleet grew bigger and bigger, even with the intervening wars — the French and Indian War and then the Revolutionary War. By the 1800s, the mackerel hit Georges Bank, a rich fishing ground.
By 1840, other European immigrants arrived on the scene, beginning with the Portuguese, many of whom arrived on whaling vessels that sailed from New Bedford.
"They took the train to Boston, and by 1846 we have a train to Gloucester — which is about the time the Gloucester fisheries take off," said Morris, who still makes weekly visits to the oldest seaport in the nation, a hometown he will never leave behind.
Other immigrants to Gloucester came from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Azores and Sweden.
By the end of the Civil War, Gloucester has a large fleet and two innovations made an impact. One was seining to catch mackerel with nets for the fish that are close to the surface.
The other was trawl-based dory fishing, in which fishermen would bait a mile-long line with some 500 hooks to catch groundfish, like halibut, cod, hake, haddock, cusk and pollack.
During the 20th century, the last large group of immigrants who are drawn to the fishing are the Italians, who start arriving here around 1905 and settle the Fort area of the city. Many are Sicilians who are coming up from Boston's North End, said Morris.
Each dory could hold more than 1,000 pounds of fish. The schooners could bring back anywhere from 100,000 pounds to more than 600,000 pounds of fish depending on the length of trip and the size of the vessel.
But the risks of dory fishing are apparent when one looks at the Gloucester Fishermen's monument and cenotaph on which are inscribed the names of the more than 5,000 fishermen lost at sea. It is some of their stories that Morris tells along with a historical narrative of the city that unfold among the chapters.
Then with the innovation of a motorized trawler, the dory fishing industry would begin to wither:
By 1936, there were only four halibut dory fishermen left.
By 1942, Archie McLeod made his last halibut dory fishing trip.
By 1953, the Adventure made its last dory fishing trip.
"This was very personal to me," Morris said of his journey through history. "We're (Gloucester) a unique community in that fishing has been our only major industry.
"We're not a farming community, though we did some scratch farming, and we built some vessels — but we're a fishing community."
Gail McCarthy can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3445, or gmccarthy@gloucestertimes.com.
