National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Ethnography Program Northeast Region A PLACE OF QUIET ADVENTURE: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE PEDDOCKS ISLAND COTTAGES BOSTON HARBOR ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK AREA SPECIAL ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORT 2 1 3 4 Cover photo credits: 1. View of the north-facing side of Middle Head, Peddocks Island, July 2013. (Cathy Stanton) 2. Former Middle Head pier with island ferry, undated but probably 1940s or 1950s. (Marlene Giammarco, née Simonds) 3. Manuel Silva and Peter Bettencourt in front of Cottages 21-25, 1932. (Collection of Frances Lopes, courtesy of Marijane Crawford and Nanci Xirinachs) 4. South-facing side of Middle Head with downtown Boston in the background, July 2013. (Cathy Stanton) A PLACE OF QUIET ADVENTURE: An Ethnographic Study of The Peddocks Island Cottages Cathy Stanton, Ph.D. Prepared under cooperative agreement with University of Massachusetts – Amherst Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area Special Ethnographic Report Northeast Region Ethnography Program National Park Service Boston, MA January 31, 2016 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study documents what is known of the history of the Peddocks Island cottages and their occupants from the late nineteenth century to the present day, drawing on archival and published sources and cottagers’ memories and records. Although the main focus is on the concentration of cottages on Middle Head, they are placed in the context of the island, the harbor, and the urban region as a whole. After a general overview of the island’s natural and cultural landscape and a chronological survey of land ownership and use over time, the chapters examine • Peddocks’ role within the emerging seashore recreational economy of the mid- nineteenth century • the movement around 1887 of a group of Azorean fishermen from Long Island, another of the islands in Boston Harbor, to Peddocks Island, and the subsequent growth of the small fishing village on the northwest side of Middle Head • the history of the three short-lived Peddocks Island hotels • the population of cottagers on the south-facing side of Middle Head up to the 1930s • the arrival of a number of Italian families who formed a community within the larger cottage community starting in the 1920s and 1930s • the post-World-War-II shift into more family-oriented multi-generational summer vacationing • changes and continuities in the community since the island became a public park in 1970, and • how the islanders’ sense of community is constructed in close relationship with the natural environment. Key findings of the study: 1. This study was able to document how extensive the Azorean/Portuguese presence has been within the cottage community as a whole. Although many ethnicities and origins can be found in the cottagers’ backgrounds, at some point nearly all of these connect through ties of kinship, occupation, or friendship with either the first-generation Azorean fishing families who came to the island after 1887 or the i Executive Summary more assimilated (and sometimes related) Portuguese-American families who also built cottages on Peddocks. Although never entirely separate from one another socially, there has historically been a sense of distinction that mapped onto different areas of Middle Head, with the “village” of the northwestern side more associated with a working-class, maritime, immigrant identity and the south side more with middle-class leisure vacationing. 2. The study also documents in much more detail than had previously been done the specific connections between the displaced Long Island fishing families and Azoreans on Peddocks Island, as well as some of the links between these families and mainland places like the heavily-Portuguese East Cambridge and some parts of the South Shore. 3. Stories of particular cottager families and uses of the island show that Peddocks has long been a recreational and social fringe of Boston Harbor, and that this “edge” quality has provided opportunities for kinds of people and occupations that were increasingly marginalized by moral, social, and commercial pressures elsewhere in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Boston. The multiple displacements of Azorean fishing families, a 1909 Chinese picnic on the West Head of Peddocks Island, and small-scale commercial activity on the island show some of the ways that islanders have long used this as a place for maintaining or expressing an ethnic presence, making a living, or creating a refuge. 4. The history of the cottage community after the state’s acquisition of the island in 1970 shows a combination of disjunctures, multi-generational continuities, and new arrivals (many of whom had some form of previous connection to the island through networks of kinship, friendship, or the South Shore’s maritime world). Stories of key island people, particularly the last year-round occupants and people with connections to the first generation of Azoreans, help to anchor community memory despite the changes in their population and circumstances over time. Although under the current life-tenancy agreement the cottage population is an aging one, with children and grandchildren of current lease-holders much less likely to invest time and energy helping to maintain cottages they will not inherit, the continuation of a shared annual celebration at the end of the summer remains a community touchstone. ii Executive Summary 5. More than anything else, the cottage community seems to be constructed through a strong and mutual relationship with the particular environment of the island. Within the “island way” practiced by the islanders, the many attractions of island living are interwoven with the hard work of existing “off the grid,” creating a kind of moral ecology shaped by collective experience and memory over time. These practices of inhabitation are quite different from the models of stewardship and environmentalism that inform management approaches to the island, but they nonetheless represent an island-specific environmental ethos and they are central to the cottagers’ sense of themselves as a group. Q iii iv TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................i LIST OF FIGURES ..............................................................................................viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................xiii CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY .................. 1 Islands and Seasonal Communities ...............................................................................5 Methodology and Research Design ...........................................................................11 Report Outline .............................................................................................................16 CHAPTER TWO: PEDDOCKS ISLAND IN SPACE AND TIME ..........................21 Location, Topography, and Non-Human Species ....................................................21 Human Occupation, Ownerships, and Uses ............................................................ 24 Features of the Cultural Landscape .......................................................................... 46 CHAPTER THREE: THE “VACATION HABIT” COMES TO PEDDOCKS ISLAND .................................................................................53 CHAPTER FOUR: AZOREAN CONNECTIONS .................................................61 Azoreans and New England ........................................................................................62 The Long Island Fishing Colony ................................................................................ 67 Azoreans on Peddocks Island ..................................................................................... 76 CHAPTER FIVE: THE PEDDOCKS ISLAND HOTELS ...................................... 85 The Willows, West Head Inn, and Island Inn ........................................................... 85 The 1909 Chinese Picnic ............................................................................................. 96 CHAPTER SIX: EARLY SOUTH-SIDE COTTAGERS (1910S TO 1940S) ...........103 CHAPTER SEVEN: PORTUGUESE PEDDOCKS ISLAND ............................... 121 The Goularts: The Space to Breathe ....................................................................... 122 The Gills: One Boot in the Boat and the Other in the Field .................................127 The Ferdinand/Lewis Families: Connections with the Mainland ...................... 132 Peddocks Genealogies: Community and Interconnection .................................. 140 CHAPTER EIGHT: ITALIANS ON PEDDOCKS ISLAND ................................. 149 Before the War ............................................................................................................ 150 Peddocks Island during World War II ..................................................................... 158 v Table of Contents CHAPTER NINE: THE FAMILY ERA (1945-1970) ............................................ 167 Bridging Past and Present: Mabel Pinto .................................................................. 167 Island Caretakers: Perrys and McDevitts ...............................................................173 Newcomers, Celebrations, and a “Modern Thoreau” .......................................... 179 Flounder-Fishing and Harvey Boats ........................................................................187 CHAPTER TEN: THE PARK ERA (1970 TO