Rachel Spaulding
Rachel is the author of the book In Search of Ellen Marie. Inspired by an Arthur Moniz painting of a fishing boat’s wheelhouse and captivated by the colors in the painting, Rachel decided she had to buy it. She then began on an adventure researching the boat’s history. Meeting many people from the fishing industry along her journey, Rachel discovered the name of the boat, where it was built, and the success the boat had with a skilled captain and crew. Rachel also learned about the fateful end of Ellen Marie’s fishing days. With newfound knowledge of the fishing industry, Rachel began volunteering at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center when the Center opened in 2016. She is a valued member of the Center’s volunteer crew to this day.
“I did this walk on that beautiful day and ended up in the Arthur Moniz gallery and looking around, there was a specific version of the painting that I then bought. It was on the floor, and it just grabbed me. The colors in it grabbed me.”
“The artist Arthur Moniz told me that it was the Ellen Marie. Something strange happened. I felt like the boat was mine and it’s my boat. I started researching online. Research sent me to a place where they built boats up in Maine. There was a boat builder named Harvey Gamage, and I learned that most of the boats in ’50s, ’60s in New Bedford harbor were built by the Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol, Maine.”
“Well, what was I going to do? I’m on an adventure, right? I want to find out about the boat, so I’m going to talk to some of the people who were on the crew.”
“The research felt like an internet ride. I felt like I was on a boat going someplace, just gleaning all this stuff from the internet. I came over here to New Bedford and went on the Harbor Tour. Oh, this was the exciting part for me, going on the harbor tour. We are waiting for the vessel to take us on the tour outside the Wharfinger building, that little brick building on Pier 3. They had the building open and at that time it was set up as a little museum. I almost screamed out when I saw what was on a big blackboard there. It was set up as if it was a fish auction of the of the day, and I saw the name Ellen Marie. “Marie!”, I’m calling my friend who was with me, “Marie! It’s the Ellen Marie! I started asking questions of the people that worked there, and they suggested I go to the Harbor Master’s office.”
“I went over to the Harbor Master’s office, and I met a woman named Shelly Miranda. I said, “I’m looking for a boat named Ellen Marie”. I asked her if she came from a fishing family, and she says, “Yeah, my dad was a fisherman. My kids are fishermen. My brother’s fishermen. But I lost my dad when his boat capsized.” I said, “Oh, my God.” I went out to the car. I was devastated, because the only way I had been connected to New Bedford was when I was a kid, my mother would bring me to buy school clothes at the Star Store. I was oblivious to what was going on at the waterfront.”
“I took a ride over to Fairhaven to a little, tiny place where you can get fishing clothes and Norwegian foods. The woman who was manning the shop, was a Norwegian woman. Her last name was Sovik, and we started talking. She was a big help, a big help. She looked up Woody Bower’s telephone number. Woody Bowers being the first captain of Ellen Marie. Oh boy, I’m shaking in my boots! Because I had this idea, you know, he dressed all in black and he’s captain, captain of a fishing vessel. I’m gonna talk to him. I called, and his wife answered the phone, and I said, ‘I’m trying to find a boat named Ellen Marie and I thought maybe Mr. Bowers might know where she is.’ ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘Well, I better let you talk to him.’ I remember so clearly sitting at my desk with pen in hand saying to myself, ‘I am going to talk to Woody Bowers!’”
Photo of the Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol, Maine
“One of my trips up to Maine. I met a man named Edward Gamage, nephew of the owner of the place where they built the vessels. I had the best visit with Edward and Bunny Gamage. Edward said that Joseph Perry, who had purchased Ellen Marie for Captain Woody Bowers, had traveled to Maine for the launching.
According to Edward, ‘It was a hell of a snowstorm. Mr. Perry stayed over at the New Castle Inn, and he got so far as the golf course, and he got stuck in a snowbank. Well, it comes time for lanching. (that’s how Edward pronounced launching) and Harvey Gamage launched the boat. So, Mr. Perry, who bought the boat for Woody, got down there about an hour after the boat was in the water. ‘He come down through the yard. I can see him coming now in through that shop, and Harvey was standing there. He says, Mr. Gamage, he says, This is not like buying a can of beans. Why did you launch that boat? Harvey looks at him and says, Well, I tell you, he says, time and tide waits for no man. That was that the argument was over right there.’
Then Edward announced that he was going out to his shed to get something. A few minutes later, he returned with a roughhewn oak wedge like those that had lifted Ellen Marie ‘Here’ he said, ‘You can say that this lanched the boat’.”
Photo of the wedge given to Rachel by Edward Gamage.
“You know, when you go on these adventures, it’s like turning over rocks and you look, and you might get a clue. Or you talk to somebody, and somebody knows this little piece of information, so you pursue that, and then it goes someplace else.”
“Alan Cass, who skippered Ellen Marie for a while, became a great friend. When I was doing my adventure, he took me aboard fishing vessels, and was explaining to me the details of the fishing process so I could understand it even better than I did.”
“I was over at Pier 3 one day. I had a purpose, but there was a fella getting on and off a fishing boat, and I said to myself, ‘He’s going to wonder, what the hell am I doing?’ So, I went over and introduced myself and told him why I was there. He said, ‘Oh, you should go down the boneyard and see the Rianda.’ I went and there’s the Rianda. It all brings emotion up for me. This whole story captures a period in time, and it was moving in front of my eyes just like this. You know, this harbor was full of wooden Eastern rig fishing boats. Full! Now you can’t find one, and that is often the demise. They take everything of any value off and then they go sink them.”
“A woman came to the Fishing Heritage Center. She was so excited because her father was one of the Ellen Marie’s owners. She gave me a painting that had two fishing vessels in it, one Ellen Marie and another vessel. She took a picture of just the Ellen Marie part and framed it for me. You know, things like that mean a lot.”
Back of framed photo reads:
“Your extraordinary story was so well written…if she could speak, Ellen Marie couldn’t have told it better herself! Thank you, Rachel.
– Erin Calnan Toolis, Daughter of Donald Calnan (4th Boat Owner).”
Scallop shell with sketch of the Ellen Marie drawn by Bob Bowers, son of Captain Woody Bowers.
