Primary Research at Its Height: The Monumental Work of Ed Bosley on Gloucester Fishing Schooners by Nancy d'Estang n our work to restore Mystic Seaport's great Gloucester fishing schooner L. A. Dunton, now celebrating her 75th birthday since her launch from Story's yard in Essex, Massachusetts, we have come to rely increasingly on the work of Edward S. Bosley, a remarkable man whose name is familiar to all who study the Gloucester fishing schooners. From the 1930s to the 1970s, Bosley was an indefatigable researcher on the Gloucester, Massachusetts, waterfront, meticulously recording details of schooner construction, ironwork and rigging for the model he planned to build of the fishing schooner Columbia. The schooner was commissioned by a group of fishermen and businessmen in 1923 and built at the A.D. Story yard in Essex. The planned model was never built, but Bosley's research on the waterfront and in the warehouses and dory sheds of Gloucester is a testament to the era of the fishing schooners. For many years, the staff in the Mystic Seaport Shipyard has referred to some sixty pages of faded photocopies of Bosley's sketches and notes. We have come across his distinctive pages when studying at the Essex Historical Society and the Peabody Essex Museum, and with Charlie Sayle, Dana Story and Erik Ronnberg, Jr. The General Foods Corporation letterhead he used makes his pages immediately recognizable! We have talked with Mr. Bosley on different occasions, going over the hundreds of pages of his notebook filled with sketches, dimensions, and precise historical notation. Indeed, many sketches were made on board the Dunton when there was no staff at Mystic to document her. This material was not available when the Dunton's schooner rig was restored at the museum in 1964, but now she can be accurately rigged using Bosley's detailed documentation. In December of 1994, Mr. Bosley gave the results of his 40 years of research to the Essex Shipbuilding Museum in Essex, Massachusetts. All of the material is catalogued there and available for research. The Essex Shipbuilding Museum copied for us one document of particular interest: Bosley' s notebook spanning all the years of his research consisting of over 500 pages of docu-
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mentation. A typed transcription, cross references, and an index have been prepared by Mystic Seaport's Shipyard Research and Documentation staff. The detail, extent, accuracy and historical value of Bosley' s information is remarkable. For example, two pages with four renderings, dimensions and text describe the bowsprit band from the schooner J. J. Fallon. The text discusses, among other things: where the band was found on 19 July 1954 (3rd floor Plumbing Shop, Gorton Pew, Gloucester, Massachusetts); where it had been moved to by 14 May 1955 (to Dory Shed at Gorton Pew); a comparison of bowsprit dimensions with the Gertrude L. Thebaud's and Columbia's; the sources of those dimensions and related references (i.e. Underhill's Sailing Ship Rigs and Rigging); and a description of the methods for forging and rigging this band. On other pages one finds the name and profession of the man at Pew's who gave Bosley his information, with notes made years later to update this information. Bosley' s documentation does not simply reiterate previously available material. The details and dimensions he sought for Columbia were not recorded anywhere, or were tantalizingly unclear in historic photographs. There were no drawings of spars and ironwork forthese working schooners, for they were simply constructed to satisfy a vessel's owner, following traditional practice. Bosley' sis primary research at its height. As a kid, Bosley "got all steamed up" by Gloucester novelist and sailor James Connelly's books and spent all his spare time down on the wharves. Eventually, he "searched Gloucester from truck to keel." On holidays and most weekends, he drove from home andjobinScarsdale,New York, to Gloucester. Much of the iron he sought had L.A . Dunton
Edward S. Bosley
been sold for scrap, surely some to prepare Japan for war. "Everything was disappearing. It all went, I suppose, for a few cents a pound. And the same over at the foundry, where I found patterns and castings, and that stuff all went too. But I didn't have a place to store it." Attempting to stay one weekend ahead of trucks hauling history to the scrapyards, Bosley unearthed the treasures which were seen as trash by many owners of the dory sheds and warehouses in Gloucester and which were essential to his understanding of Columbia. With talents enhanced by training in the architecture and engineering departments of MIT, Bosley recorded his information on the rigging, spars and ironwork of these schooners with unusual professionalism. Bosley' s 17 April 1957 entry celebrates the 34th anniversary of Columbia's launching: "Oak grab or snatch hook to keep tack of stays'! stretched forward. The last item for fitting out a schooner which I had to find, but never could until today. I have looked for many days altogether, over the years, for one of these hooks. Have gone all over the dory shed from top to bottom with a flashlight but could not move all the stuff. Have searched every building on the Gloucester waterfront to no avail for years. This trip Dulong told me the Dory Shed was being tom down so I went there on the chance that such a hook would now be visible. Some of the lumber was piled up ready to be trucked away. There lay this hook and a windlass heaver (one of the pair I measured several years ago). Walt Davis said I could have the hook. When I went back there two hours later all the remaining lumber had been trucked away, and the hook SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996