THE SEAPORT EXPERIENCE: Of Whaleships and Taverns If the interesting thing about hi sthe Venetian ambassador (those tory is people, as we have made always-informed Venetians!) to bold to assert elsewhere in this be amoldering wreck only a little Sea History-people with their ove1 a generation after she had swirling feelings about things, been planted in the Thameside quick flashes of brilliance, deepmud. running allegiances and murky The Regina Lies at Claudio's inscrutabilities-then winter is the pier on the Greenport waterfront. time to get out and about, to places Claudio's has been a town fixture likeMysticSeaportMuseum. The since 1870. Our honorary trustee cooper fitting staves to make a Briggs Dalzell lives in that part of barrel has a good deal more to say the world, and he remembers with about his job, the wood he works considerable joy riding the ferries with, and how (or why) he or she across from the sleepy precinct of got into thi s line of work than he Shelter Island (the island that lies has amid the hurrying, onwardlike an apple caught in the open pressing crowds of summer. So jaws of eastern Long Island) to ¡ k-ed-in_fi_o_r_t~he the more animated pleasures of does the figurehead carver, the T~h-e_w_o-od_e_n_w_h-al-e-sh_i_p_C_h_a_r_le_s_W_._M_o_r-ga-n-tu-cship smith working bright, glow- winter at Mystic Seaport Museum. Photo by Mary Anne Stets. the former whalermen 's home of ing iron at his forge, or the guides Greenport-family trips that alaboard the world-travelled whaleship to the wider distribution of Sea History. ways ended with ice cream at Claudio's. Charles W. Morgan. Excellent viands are served up by a Bill Claudio is a jovial host to young and Besides, the tempo of life in general spirited staff and the walls are adorned old, and is a mainstay of the Regina restois slower and, perhaps, a bit more in- with one of the finest collections of steam- ration. drawn and reflective than in summer boat prints in North America. Patrons of Story telling is a winter's pursuit and with its dreamy distractions. No, winter the bar are generally boating people and it is much followed around the open is the time for museums by day and include bold individuals like my friend hearth in Middleton 's Tavern in Anstory telling by night. Clark Thompson, who at a dinner meet- napolis,Maryland,agreatgatheringplace Get to Mystic in the snow, if you can, ing last summer, rose to dance away for historians, sailors, and people like or failing that, the worst available winter across the barroom floor with the lead themastershipbuilderMelboumeSmith, weather. It is helpful to one's inner un- vocalist of a quite good folk music group who lives nearby. When we have meetderstanding of things to close a door that was singing there that night. ings in that part of the world, we meet behind you, shutting out howling winds But you'll find your own adventures there, where the flame of hospitality and icy sleet, and positively rejoice in there, particularly in winter when the bums clear and bright, and the memories the heat of a log fire. All at once you darkness closes down early, the ice groans soaked into the walls of the place go understand why the word "hearth" has on the nearby riverfront, and the singing back over three centuries. Again, excelsuch resonating value in the language we and story telling go on and on. Guests lent food is served by a high-spiri ted speak; it 's not just the physical warmth are no longer segregated by sex, and in staff, and the sure touch of the owner, (though surelythatmatters!) butthesense place of the barrack rooms of old, there Jerry Hardesty, is felt everywhere. of communion, or at least community, are a series of small apartments, each *** * with those others gathered around, though with different furnishings-guest rooms Well, I could * go on, but I've used up my they be wayfaring strangers like your- in a friendly house. space, and likely your patience, talking self-perhaps, in a way, better if they Down the Connecticut River and just of these seaport taverns and pubs that are, since mankind is surely doomed if it across Long Island Sound from the keep the flame burning against the long can't feel community in common cause Griswold Inn at Essex, is Claudio's Res- winter nights and gathering cold. Years with strangers, even ifthe cause is just to taurant at Greenport, Long Island. ago Norma Stanford, Joe Cantalupo and get in out of the cold. Greenport! Home of whaling ships and I founded the Pub Preservation Society, Seaport inns come to life in winter whalermen, and today of the Regina whose purpose was to explore odd cortoo. Just twenty miles west of Mystic, Maris, the great wooden barkentine ners of the seaport world where you Bill and Vicki Winterer carry on the which the late George Nichols rode to could find the real thing and the story warm-hearted traditions of Frank Ladd glory in the 1970s and early 80s, when telling that defies the chill silent depths in running the Griswold Inn of 1776 in with young people in the crew, he sailed of long winter nights-nights when one Essex , Connecticut. I knew the inn in the Regina to the far reaches of the Atlantic feels the force of Pascal 's confession: mid-1930s when Frank ran it. Families and Pacific, studying the far-ranging "The silence of these infinite spaces split up when they went to bed, women ways of whales, while the ship's com- scares me." Perhaps if this sort of thing in one room (which, of course, I never pany made their own voyages of discov- is of interest to readers, I could give saw inside), men in the other. That was a ery of themselves and what they could do some accounting of that noble society, chi lly room with painted iron bedsteads in life. Such a man deserves remembering half of whose members have left the lined up in a row as in an army barracks. forever, and the ship he rode should, like earth ly shore, half of whom still walk the I have had frequent occasion to visit Francis Drake's Golden Hind, be en- streets and tell tall tales in seaport tavthere since on matters ranging from the shrined-with longer life than Drake 's erns, when indeed one feels that the preservation of the oyster sloop Christeen, ship, we may hope, which was reported by whole gang is sti ll together. PS
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SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92