Brrrr! Bill Gosman recently donated this icy image to the Montauk Library Archives, along with 16 others depicting activity on the harbor as far back as the 1920s but primarily in the 1940s and ‘50s. Bill is, of course, a member of the Gosman family who over several generations built a popular harborside empire beginning with a humble food shack and fishing dock.
As the plaque on the photograph explains, it shows the “Alwa,” a fishing trawler, returning to the welcoming embrace of Montauk Harbor during a brutal northeast storm in 1959. Kenneth Edwards owned the boat, although Gil Parsons might more often have been at the helm, Bill said.
“He was a big burly guy … He had fingers like that,” he said of Kenny while encircling his own. “He was known to be one of the strongest fishermen.”
Which is saying a lot. In those days even young boys (like Bill) hacked at big blocks of ice, hauled heavy boxes of fish, slit swordfish bellies, worked on rooftops, and piloted boats. Fishermen stoically braved bitter weather, sometimes – like Dick Halliday (also in the photos) all alone, even surviving shipwrecks before returning to Gosman’s to defrost in front of a pot-bellied stove with a warming shot of liquor.
“Each dragger captain had different personalities,” Bill said. You can listen to more of Bill’s reminisces online in a recorded oral history interview.
Including the photos of the “Alwa” and Dick Halliday, six of the 17 mages were taken by a photographer, “Neil” from Greenwich Village, for whom we only have the first name. Do you recognize this photographer or have any memories from Gosman’s during this time? Leave a comment or drop us a line at archives@montauklibrary.org.
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