Harboring: Archives (Still Growing)

Marshfield

Barnstable

Padanaram

Cataumet

Kingston

Fairhaven

Cohasset

Westport

Hyannis Port

Onset

Hull

Monument Beach

Hingham

Sandwich

Marion

Weymouth

Harwich Port

Swansea

Duxbury

Somerset

Buzzards Bay

Chatham

Plymouth

Harboring: Padanaram

Our series on local harbors takes us this week to Padanaram, a village in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Padanaram was bought, with most/all of Dartmouth, from the Wampanoag tribe in  1652. It was burned down by the former owners during King Phillips War, but it came back strong soon enough.

The British also took a crack at Padanaram in the Revolution, and may have feinted at it (my memory of this is shoddy) in 1812's squabble with John Bull. Padanaram may have hosted several privateer/pirate type ships which probably didn't have this paint job.

It went through a boom with the whaling industry, and when that played itself out, they gradually settled into a rich guy boat thing. As you can see here, the more vital rich men aren't afraid to climb into the rigging now and then, just like their ancestors did back in the proverbial Day.

...or he hired some laborer to do it while he had a few Bloody Marys at the dockside bar, and wondered why the shabby lookin' photographer was taking pictures of his boat. Ambitious divorce lawyers employ people who look like I do now and then, but my own ambitions were more of the "Cool! Some guy might fall to his death in front of me while I have the camera on."

I grew up in a wealthy seaside town, but I also served as a teacher in some pretty poor ghetto locales. A problem seen in Duxbury that is not seen in Dorchester, and one seen while my friend Hardcore Logo and I were strolling the mean streets of Panadram (I spell it wrong constantly, maybe I'll edit it later) involves "The guy towing the 50 foot yacht wants to make a left turn up a side street but someone parked a Range Rover on the curb of that street in a manner that prohibits the turn from being performed."

They were walking up and down the street asking people if that (the yacht-blocking SUV) was theirs. I heard a lady ask 3 different groups of people within earshot if that was their Range Rover. She came up to me, started the same question, looked over my attire (I dress constantly in a manner similar to how The White Shadow dressed, even when I get summoned to court), and amended the question to "Do you know who owns that Range Rover?"

The Boston Globe famously described Padanaram as "where life slows down." They were talking about the drawbridge, opened hourly, that cuts across Apponagansett Bay. They could have also been talking about piloting a Sea Cadillac down a side street of a town dating back to 1652.

The drawbridge in question sits behind this lovely work boat. Unfortunately for Logo and I, the drawbridge was being worked on when we visited.

Padanaram shares a trait with fellow rich-person town Duxbury that I have seen during our Harboring series... rich guys don't tend to get their boats into the water until July. Granted, this guy may stay in Florida until the 4th of July for all I know. By contrast, my friend Tony from back in the day would get his Boston Whaler wet every April if the weather gods allowed it.

Most of our Harboring series involves shooting at cool boats, especially if Access issues prevent me from getting a good panoramic shot at the whole harbor. I'll get a boat if you guys read hard enough and visit our sponsors, but for now, I'm a landlubber.

As you see above and below, we have an odd interest in Boat Naming. 

The little boats that you take out to the big boat, be you a yachtsman or a fisherman.

You could throw out the old fence, or you could could carve/paint it into a Tuna stairwell decoration... your call.

A better shot at the drawbridge, and the attendant who can now tell his grandchildren "I was in Cranberry County Magazine once! I was 2 millimeters high."

Not a lot of people know this, but you're actually looking at a cleverly disguised boat.

You thought we were kidding about that "rich people are slow to get their boats into the harbor" thing... 

I want to hate this guy, but I just can't bring myself to do it.... that's a nice boat.

I know a girl who waitresses here. She wants to quit, but the place has a Nonquitt policy, posted clearly for all to see. She's like Charlie on the MTA now...

You probably don't want to fish on a drawbridge, anyhow... well, maybe if you're Spiderman or something.

The Battle Off Fairhaven

The first naval skirmish in the American Revolution went down off Fairhaven on May 14th, 1775.

A seagull and an offshore lighthouse photo-bomb my shot of the battlefield.

I'm using these two boats going at each other to illustrate the story, but these two actually honked and waved to each other rather than board and kill each other.

After the Battle of Lexington/Concord, the British seized two ships (a transport and a sloop) from their Patriot owners. They rigged the sloop up for battle, put 11 men on it, and sent it off to Dartmouth to capture the boat of a smuggler named Jesse Barlow. Barlow got his goods ashore, but the Brits seized his ship.

I'm a landlubber myself, but I know enough fishermen to say that the one unforgivable sin among them is "f*cking with their boat." Stealing one is even worse. The patriots quickly put together a 30 man crew, armed a ship (the Success, a Dartmouth whaling sloop) and set off in pursuit of the "royal pirates."

They caught up to the two boats off of Martha's Vineyard. They took the transport without much difficulty. The sloop took off on the run, but they were overtaken and boarded off of Fairhaven. The patriots forced the Brits below deck after a brief squabble, and- just like that- the Americans won the first naval skirmish of the war. They won it against the world's best Navy, too. The POWs were offloaded in Fairhaven and sent inland to Taunton.