For generations, Mattapoisett thought it knew who carved the wooden swordfish weathervane that became one of the town’s best-known symbols.
A century-old letter found inside the historic fish tells a different story.
The letter identifies the carver not as Manuel R. Perry Jr., the Mattapoisett craftsman long credited with making it, but as a Hyannis carpenter named Harrison Delano Doty.
Mattapoisett Museum Curator and Administrator Connor Gaudet described the discovery following the Museum’s annual meeting September 3, during a presentation on the history — and continuing mysteries — surrounding the swordfish.
“Before this year, most of what we knew about the weathervane had come from descendants” of F. Gilbert Hinsdale, his family and people who worked on the Hinsdale estate, Gaudet said. Those accounts had identified Perry as the swordfish’s creator. That changed when the swordfish was opened earlier this year to remove moisture before it came to the Museum.
Inside was a time capsule placed during a major 1995 restoration. Among its contents was a torn and badly faded letter written by Hinsdale when the weathervane was completed.
A partial transcription was made in 1995, but much of the writing had faded from exposure to moisture. Gaudet was able to make a nearly complete transcription this year using a jeweler’s loupe, high magnification and ultraviolet light.
The letter named the maker as “H.D. Doty of Hyannis, Mass.”
Gaudet’s research led him to Harrison Delano Doty, a house carpenter who settled in Hyannis after marrying there in 1902.
The discovery surprised Gaudet, who said he too had always believed Perry made the weathervane.
There was plenty of reason for that belief.
Perry began working for Hinsdale around 1919 and remained with him for more than 20 years, eventually serving as groundskeeper and caretaker of the estate. He was also an accomplished artist and craftsman who created ship models, paintings, carvings, figureheads, animal statues and other weathervanes.
And, as Gaudet discovered, Perry actually did make a giant swordfish weathervane.
After the Museum’s “When Swordfish Fly” exhibit opened this summer, a couple visiting the Museum brought in a copy of a 1960s Standard-Times article about Perry. The article was based on an interview with Perry and described an approximately 8-foot wooden swordfish he had carved as a weathervane for a family in Marion.
Gaudet said it is possible that over the years, the story of Perry making a swordfish weathervane became attached to Mattapoisett’s much larger and more famous fish.
Whether that is how the mix-up occurred remains unknown.
“It’s possible people knew he did this one in Marion. So, ‘Oh, probably did this one over here,’” Gaudet said.
Doty’s connection to Hinsdale presents another mystery.
Gaudet’s research found that Doty worked for L.K. Paine & Son, a prominent Hyannis contracting company that built summer residences throughout Cape Cod and the Buzzards Bay area. Gaudet believes the swordfish was made sometime between 1920 and 1929.
He has found possible connections that could explain how the Hyannis carpenter came to work for Hinsdale, but not enough evidence to say definitively how Doty received the commission.
“We really don’t know,” Gaudet said.
The original swordfish is now permanently housed at the Museum as the centerpiece of “When Swordfish Fly: The Unlikely History of Mattapoisett’s Iconic Weathervane.”
While the original has found its permanent home, its replacement has yet to take flight over Long Wharf.
Town Administrator Mike Lorenco said a replica is being constructed by Jim Broadwater using $12,500 in Community Preservation Act funding approved at the May 2022 Town Meeting.
A mold was cast from the original swordfish, and Broadwater has completed substantial work on the body of the replica, Lorenco said. There is not yet an estimated completion date.
“I just know it will be as soon as possible,” Lorenco said.
The project is being overseen by the Mattapoisett Community Preservation Committee.
The Museum’s annual meeting also highlighted a busy year. Gaudet reported an estimated 2,386 community “engagements,” a figure that includes visitors as well as concerts, school programs and other activities. Of those, 391 were student engagements through educational programming.
The Museum has added 43 acquisitions since last year’s annual meeting, including glass-slide negatives, photographs of Angelica Point following the 1938 hurricane, family scrapbooks, materials relating to the nation’s 1976 bicentennial and items connected to swordfishing and the weathervane. The Museum is also nearing a complete collection of Mattapoisett annual town reports from 1860 through 2026.
Another major project is about to get underway.
Construction of a new accessible entrance is expected to begin around mid-September. Museum President Kim Randall said the current accessible entrance is at the rear of the building and normally locked, requiring visitors who need it to contact someone to be let inside.
“That did not feel like us being very inclusive of our community,” Randall said.
The construction will cause the Museum to close earlier than its usual end-of-September seasonal closing, although two scheduled concerts will continue.
Gaudet said the Museum has raised approximately $83,000 toward the roughly $93,000 entrance project, including two rounds of Mattapoisett Community Preservation Act funding and grants from other organizations.
For now, the original swordfish has found its permanent home even as Mattapoisett waits for its successor to return to the sky above Long Wharf.
And after roughly a century of believing Manuel Perry created the town landmark, another question remains: exactly how did a Hyannis carpenter named Harrison Delano Doty come to make Mattapoisett’s swordfish?
That part of the tale is still waiting to be found.
By Jeanne Hopkins