Page 8. MAINE COASTAL NEWS October 2016 Waterfront News Passed over the Bar: Glover, Robbins and Smith
open spit, leaving no one off the guest list. Ed had a special place in his heart for
animals, especially his 120-pound black Labrador retriever, Little Guy, who was anything but small. Ed and Little Guy were constant companions. Predeceased by his father, Sam; Ed is
Ed Glover - Rockland
OWLS HEAD — Edward R. Glover, 50, died unexpectedly on Sept. 11, 2016, at his home.
Born in Rockland on Jan. 26, 1966,
he was the son of Grace and Samuel Frost Glover Sr. He was a 1984 graduate of Camden-Rockport High School and earned a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from the University of Maine at Orono. Ed spent 15 years in yacht sales, man-
agement and consulting, traveling to the Caribbean and Europe. He was a commer- cial lobsterman during the summer and fall, fi shing from his 34-foot Calvin Beal lobster boat, Gracie, based out of Owls Head. He also had a fondness for racing his boat in several of the lobster boat races in his area having won Diesel Class B this year. He was also a real estate agent for Megunitcook Real Estate, taking clients out on Gracie to show them coastal and island properties. Ed was an avid and accomplished skier,
challenging himself on the slopes in New Zealand, the Alps, the Rocky Mountains and, of course, Sugarloaf. He learned to ski at the Camden Snow Bowl as a kid and could still be seen there on sunny afternoons, mak- ing telemark turns on the downhill courses. Ed was always on the quest for new
knowledge, devouring any book he could fi nd. He also enjoyed painting, creating many beautiful pieces. Ed will be remembered for his gener-
osity, and outgoing personality. He loved nothing more than cooking hundreds of lobsters for family and friends. He threw epic parties, roasting pigs or lambs over an
survived by his mother, Grace R. Glover of Camden; his siblings, Nancy Glover of South Portland, William Glover and his wife, Jill, of Rockport, and Samuel Glover Jr. and his wife, Allison, of Hope; his neph- ews, Joshua Glover of South Portland, Mat- thew Dailey and Josiah Glover, both of Cam- den, and Samuel R. Glover of Rockport; his niece, Lindsay Guttery of Aurora, Colo.; as well as countless other family members and friends. Ed will be sadly missed by all who loved him. A memorial mass was held September
20, at 1 p.m. at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Camden. The Rev. Suzanne Colburn will offi ciate.
Those who wish may make memorial
donations to Pope Memorial Humane Soci- ety, P.O. Box 1294, Rockland, ME 04841.
James Robbins, Stonington 104 years old
This is from an interview done in 2001
STONINGTON - When you head over to Billings Diesel and Marine in Stonington you pass over a causeway. Well on the shore end of that causeway is a small lobster shack that has had models of lobster boats surrounded by a few Friendship sloops in the window. The shack is owned by James Robbins who stays busy after a long career of fi shing Penobscot Bay making these models for anyone interested. Over the years he has experienced a lot. Robbins was born 12 January 1912
and has lived within a 20-mile radius all his life. He originally lived between the two big hills, known as Southeast Hills, and went to school there. In the 1920s the family moved into town. His father, Freeman, was a fi sh- erman. ‘During the Depression they fi shed for everything’, said Robbins. ‘Anything they could get a dollar out of you know. At that time there was some fi sh. You could get a fresh fi sh to eat then but now you can’t do it.’
‘When I was 10 or 11 years old in the
summertime I used to go with him’, con- tinued Robbins. ‘He had a sloop and when
there wasn’t any wind he would take a row- boat and go haul our traps. The biggest part of the time it was a peapod and then there was what we called a square stern boat. I always went with him you know through the summer. During the winter when I was in school I had 34 traps out in the spring of the year. I’d go haul them in the morning and lots of times I didn’t make it back to school. We used to have a janitor up there and he’d come after me a lot of the mornings. If I had an idea when he was coming and I’d hide or something but I didn’t fi nish high school. I left my senior year when I was off ered an engineer’s job. I thought that what would be a future, biggest mistake I’ve made.’ The engineering job was aboard the
boat J. Douglas, which would go back and forth between the quarry. She had been bought down at South Bristol and her engine was below deck. She was run by Captain Ed Knowlton and Robbins went with her for three years. One day they decided that two did not need to make the trip since they could hook up controls in the pilothouse. After that the owners fi gured out that they did not need two men anymore and Robbins went back fi shing. One of Robbin’s fi rst boats was an open
boat with a spray hood. He said, ‘I went to a fellow’s funeral down to Swan’s Island and a guy had a new boat built down there. I went down with Ralph Barber and some of his friends to that funeral. We had to go look at that new boat that was being built. He had it pretty near fi nished. I wouldn’t say he ran out of money but he wanted some oak and stuff to start in the spring and he asked Ralph if he would buy his old boat. Ralph turned around to me and said, ‘Jim, would you like to have that boat?’ I said, ‘You know I don’t have any money’. He bought the boat and it just so happened I went with Shea Billings and in two weeks before they got the papers changed from him to Ralph I had the boat paid for. Those two weeks I was in debt $250. I didn’t know how I was ever going to ever get it paid. We got a batch of herring and things turned out so I paid off that loan. I used that boat until the ‘40s and the war broke out. Then I sold it for about three times as much as what I paid for it.’ His father also bought him a 2-hp make-
and-brake engine for this 17-footer, which he paid $30 or 40 for. Robbins used her for a few years and then the war broke out. He then went to work in the shipyard. He said, ‘I started out as a lead man you know. Father was pretty handy with tools and I learned a lot from him. I started on the planking and then I wound up marking the frames out, but I didn’t saw them. Riley Beal was a foreman in the yard and then there was Frank Libby. Frank was the overseer of the big boats and I worked along with him. They got a contract for some towboats and they put me into
those. I worked there, but I wasn’t content after the contract expired so I built me a 29- foot boat.’ Just about the same time he built his
home just across from the causeway to the shipyard around 1944. He fi shed his 29-footer for 29 years. He then had his last boat built. He said, ‘Ralph Stanley built it for me and anything he’s done is number one. It was a lot cheaper at that time to get him to do it than it would be for me to buy all the stuff , make the moulds and plane the wood and build it. She was a nice boat, but I sold her and my traps a couple of years ago and I miss it.’ How has lobstering changed over the
years? Robbins explained, ‘When I started a poor man could go because it cost him a dollar to get a license, but today the poor man can’t go. The Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries (Department of Marine Resourc- es) has got to survive now and it costs so much to run them. Today if a fellow wanted to set 50 pots or something you would have to pay a couple of hundred dollars to get a license and then I don’t know if he could get one. I can’t see if the Sea and Shore Fisheries has done a whole lot to preserve the fi shing. You can’t fi nd a groundfi sh, the fl ounders, pollack, haddock and codfi sh are all gone. If they’d still been hooking the same as they used to years ago there wouldn’t be a prob- lem. Now you’ve got them big draggers. They are ruining it.’ Robbins never went down and bought
a load of traps he built them. He said, ‘If you wanted a bundle of lathes nobody ever gave you credit you know you had to pay for it. You worked in the woods and you chopped some spruce limbs and bent them up and made bows and built traps. But today you have got to have a permit to go into the woods to cut on somebody else’s land. You don’t do that anymore, you just go to the bank and borrow a couple hundred thousand dollars. I built all of my own traps, knitted my heads and went alone all my life when I was lobstering.’ Lobstering was not the only fi shing
Robbins did, he also seined for 37 years. He had his own outfi t, which the factory lent him. He said, ‘I used to go down to Stinson’s, or one of the factories, and get a couple or 300 fathom of twine and they took a third out when you sold your fi sh. In just a few years you had it all paid for. ‘There would be three or four of us,’
continued Robbins. ‘My brother always went with us. He and I tried to work together. He had an outfi t that belonged to the Colwell Brothers and he fi shed that. He’d have a man with him and I’d have a man with me. We would double up and when I caught some fi sh he would come and help me and when
Continued on Page 24. Tiny Barge Transport, Inc.
THE NET RESULT: OUR EVOLVING FISHERIES 2016 HISTORY CONFERENCE
Saturday, November 5, 2016
University of Maine Hutchinson Center 80 Belmont Ave., Belfast, Maine
www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org
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Photo: Maine Sardine Council Collection
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