Ninety seven years ago, Manuel Perry made an 11-foot, 7-inch swordfish out of wood. His employer, F. Gilbert Hinsdale, wanted the craftsman to create a weathervane the same size as a real swordfish, attach it to a pole and put it on top of his boathouse on Water Street in Mattapoisett. The swordfish was hollow and built on a frame of native white pine strips.

Perry’s swordfish hung above the boathouse and stayed there. The boathouse, however, did not. After the New England Hurricane of 1938 the building was put back in place, but after Hurricane Carol in 1954, the boathouse found itself washed up in the middle of Water Street again.

Fed up with moving the building back to the waterfront, Hinsdale gave the swordfish to the town and sold or gave away the boathouse. Today, the building is the Mattapoisett Inn Bed and Breakfast on Water Street, not far from its original location.

“Over the years, it wasn’t looked at much,” said Bill Field, caretaker of the fish, which has no official name. “Maybe it was painted here and there, but after a while pieces of it were dropping off and both sides were rotted, so we decided to take it down and repair it,” said Field, who added that there isn’t much of the original wood left in the fish after 97 years.

At that point, six men again saved the life of the fish, which was in complete disrepair after years of neglect. Bill Field, Tommy Brownell, Johnny Clark, Phil Mello, Tommy Borges and David “Bi” Todd got together and decided to repair and reinstall it at the town wharf. Over time, others including Manny Costa worked on the fish and helped give it new life.

Tommy and Linda Brownell were caretakers and preservers of the fish for many years. The Brownells’, owners of Brownell Boatyard, started taking the fish down and storing it over the winter to extend its life.

Peter Costa, President of Triad Boatyard stores the fish in his shed for the winter, as Brownell Boatyard did for many years.

“The sun and rain raises heck with it and I use an epoxy to fill in the chopped out rotted areas…it’s a huge job.  This year a strip of fiberglass will be put on the top so that if it cracks, it won’t let water seep in,” says Field.

This year the fish will undergo routine maintenance and get a paint job. Last year a dorsal fin was completely replaced.

The fish is installed right before Memorial Day and is taken down after Labor Day. When spring comes, the fish is put in a warm shed, so Field can start the annual repair work. The fish is installed with a Triad Boatworks crane. Phil Kelsey is hoisted up in a bosun’s chair and carefully maneuvers the 200 plus pound fish into place.

“It’s more awkward than weighty,” said Kelsey, a boat builder and rigger.

Manuel Perry created another weathervane, of Daniel Boone, which was attached to the Hinsdale carriage house on North Street.  That particular weathervane has been donated to the Mattapoisett Historical Society and Museum and is presently being restored.

“Manuel Perry was quite a craftsman,” said Field. “He also did ship models and one of them is at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.” Another Perry ship model sits in the Provincetown Historical Society Museum.

According to Field, F. Gilbert Hinsdale was a collector of whaling artifacts and had a large room in his home filled with harpoons, scrimshaw and other items.

By Joan Hartnett-Barry

The garbage from generations of Marionites was piled high for many years at the town dump off Benson Brook Road. No longer an active landfill, the mound now sits dormant like a geologic anomaly in otherwise pancake-flat surroundings. A thick protective membrane, along with layers of soil and tufted grass, obscure the heap of trash and prevent leakage from the site. Nothing can be built there for fear of piercing the membrane. The hill is a useless wasteland…or is it?

This could be a case of one person’s trash becoming another person’s treasure. Marion’s Energy Management Committee is looking at the mountain of garbage in a whole new light — sunlight, that is.  The approximately 2.4-acre gently rounded crest would make a nearly ideal setting for a so-called “solar farm,” an array of photovoltaic solar panels. It’s out of sight, nothing casts shadows on it, access to the electric grid is nearby, a chain-link fence already encircles it, and leasing the site to a developer would bring new revenue to the town. Solar farms can be installed on concrete pads that sit atop the existing soil and membrane, with no harm to either. This is not an untested idea: over two dozen Massachusetts towns are giving their dead dumps a new lease on life by planting a solar garden where nothing else can grow.

Perhaps you’ve considered installing solar panels on your own roof, but the angle is wrong, or there’s too much shade, or you can’t afford the up-front costs, or you live in a rental. A community solar farm solves this problem by providing Marion residents with an option to purchase solar-generated electricity for their homes and businesses. Cooperative solar gardens are sprouting all over Massachusetts in response to our state’s progressive incentives to encourage renewable energy projects.  One was recently developed in Brewster, where participation has been so popular that they are already planning another. Read all about it here:  www.brewstercommunitysolargarden.com.  The shareholders in this project not only are reducing their electric bill, but they can also take pride in knowing the electricity comes directly from the sun rather than fossil fuels.

The next step toward a Marion solar farm is approval of warrant article No. 37 at Marion’s Town Meeting, which will authorize our Selectmen to lease the landfill for this purpose. Please come to Town Meeting on Monday, May 21 and help Marion turn trash to treasure and prevent our landfill from going to waste.