It was a dark and stormy night. The winds were whipping, and the lightning was flashing like a neon sign over a cheap hotel. The weathervane at the end of the dock was spinning like a rabid raccoon. By morning the storm had passed. The churning ocean had become calm as a mill pond. The iconic swordfish weathervane had vanished, disappeared, missing from its perch overlooking our picturesque harbor. Gone and nobody knew where.
No. No. No! A good mystery starts that way but not this one. No storm surrendered our famous fish to Mother Nature. It had presided high above Long Wharf for over one hundred years, but where has it been the past two years? Two summers missing. A fixture of my youth now disappointing residents and visitors alike. Nobody seems to know when it will again rise majestically above anglers of all ages.
To answer the many questions I have received recently (Why people think I know everything about our historic village is beyond me, but I digress.) I have decided this is a job for a real detective. Lacking one, this intrepid investigative reporter will have to suffice. I will don my dusty deerstalker hat and polish my ivory handled spyglass to get to the bottom of this mystery.
First, was it stolen? Who would steal it and why? Was it a high school prank? Did nimble seniors shimmy up the pole and abscond with the eleven-foot-long sea creature? Maybe it was our former selectperson, the famous captain star of the TV series Harpoon Hunters on the Discovery Channel. Was he using it for target practice? Not likely, as he is busy running for higher office and the theft would have been two years ago. Not him.
Or was it our harbor master himself? After all, he oversees the cameras that scan the wharf. He could have easily turned them off in the dark of night and whisked the fish away for reasons unknown. After carefully combing the scene of the alleged crime for evidence, none of these scenarios fit a heist.
Okay, off to the official source for all things townish, the local social media page. Sure enough, one contributor said they knew someone who knew someone who talked to the harbor master who said a new swordfish facsimile was being created and wouldn’t be finished for two more years!
Next stop town hall. Surely someone there would know where the big fish is. (Hey, this landmark needs a name like Salty the Seahorse. I can’t keep calling it “the fish”.) My confidential source did reveal that the Selectboard had appropriated a sum of cash to build a new weathervane… back in 2024!
On a hunch I talked to the curator of our museum, the place for all things historical, who coincidently is about to stage a major summer exhibit about the history of our iconic swordfish weathervane opening on July 9th. Bingo! The original swordfish will be the centerpiece of the exhibit, and the new one currently resides in a shop at a local boatyard where a meticulous craftsman has been recreating the fish in modern materials, able to withstand any dark and stormy night. It is rumored that it may be returned to its rightful place above Long Wharf by mid-August.
There you go. Mystery solved. Another notch in the belt of this super sleuth, gumshoe, investigative reporter and columnist. You’re welcome.
Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and happily retired writer. His newspaper columns appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.
By Dick Morgado