Austin Strong

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Austin Strong at the Wharf Rat Club with one of his many friends, ca. 1945 Photograph by Louis S. Davidson From the NHA collection

by his niece, HELEN WILSON SHERMAN

He had a habit of looking at you, as if to bore into your very soul. His blue eyes examined you from under huge cliffs of eyebrows which were as black as his straight, gleaming hair. His cheeks were ruddy, his skin very white, and in all the years I knew him, I never remember him with a tan like most sailing enthusiasts. He had a small, permanent frown between his brows, but he smiled often, and his teeth were very white. Austin Strong was my uncle by marriage to my father's sister, Mary Holbrook Wilson, a dowager lady who never got near the sun if she could help it. "Uncle Austin," as we called him (I was eldest in a family of seven who all adored him), never wore business suits while in Nantucket. He wore either sailor pants, cotton shirts of navy with a blue and white bandana at his throat and sneakers, or a navy jacket with brass buttons, white flannels, white shoes and a yachting cap with the Nantucket Yacht Club flag button on it. The yachting cap, at an angle, was always

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worn with panache. Nantucket's whaling background made a stage fit for his imagined role as a sea captain, and his membership in the New York Yacht Club made him ambitious for the Nantucket Yacht Club to be elegant enough to receive the mighty yachts of such men as J. P. Morgan, Harold Vanderbilt and others whose names were famous in the 1920's and 30's.

My uncle was a complete romantic and had a glamorous childhood in the Samoan Islands under the eye of his step-grandfather, Robert Louis Stevenson. He was the only white child on Vailima, British Samoa, and was treated like a little prince by the native children. When British ships would sail in, the sailors made him a little sailor uniform to wear on visits aboard the men-of-war of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

With this background and his success as a playwright (he wrote "Seventh Heaven" which, as a movie, starred Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor and won the 1927 Photoplay Medal), Austin Strong came to Nantucket with my aunt before 1921 when my father, Ellery L. Wilson, moved our large brood of Wilsons to 25 Hussey Street. I was seven years old. The Strongs lived at 5 Quince Street nearby. What Austin Strong did to brighten the lives of the young children who came to the island every summer came from his romantic imagination, and to hundreds of youngsters, his memory remains bright through our old age today.

He was one of the first to make a shanty on Old North Wharf into a "boathouse" on pilings over the water and, in 1922, he put up the imposing three-story "Boathouse" which still stands between the "Mary Slade" and the "Charles & Henry." He built it as a "land yacht" since my aunt refused to join him on the deck of a floating yacht. He put davits over the porch deck and hung a Herreshoff dinghy on it. It had a leg-o' -mutton sail, and he used it to teach children, eight years old and older, how to sail alone in a boat. Her name was the "You You," French for "Little Boat." He held classes on the float in front of the boathouse deck. Here we learned to tie knots and sew sails, to make landings and dodge harbor craft at moorings, and particularly how to apply the rules of the road when approaching other boats. We were also warned NEVER to sail outside the jetties towards Tuckernuck or Great Point in small sailboats, which could be grabbed by strong tides and swept to sea. If we made boo-boos during this training, he washed our heads with a huge sponge to make us remember.

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Austin Strong and Yacht Club members, 1927 From the NHA collection

Uncle Austin had a racing catboat called "Catnip" and competed in a Yacht Club handicap class. He noticed that no children were sailing in the class racing boats; and as he worked his way up through the ranks of the Commodores at the Club and finally became the Commodore, he obtained a fleet of twelve-foot Beetle Catboats with colored sails. He donated one to the Wilson children, which I immediately appropriated on race days, and we dubbed her the "Kittiwake." Uncle's captain, Peder Pedersen, a wonderful Norwegian who tended Uncle's fleet of small boats, carved a black kittiwake out of lead, painted it and put it on the bow. In those days, a number of summer residents had boathouses on the waterfronts where they kept large catboats, sloops and motorboats, with hired captains to maintain them. Sidney Mitchell had what is now the "Peru" on Old North Wharf, and his brother, Leeds Mitchell, Sr., had a shore boathouse, a dock and a fleet next to his house which sat almost in the lap of the Brant Point Lighthouse. Sidney Mitchell sailed a yawlcat, the "Mimosa," which he handled like a master. Uncle owned a lovely catboat named "Light," and G. Lister Carlisle, who owned the Old North Wharf, had a very elegant catboat called the "Gilt Edge," maintained by Charles Collins. The harbor

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was filled with catboats every good sailing day, and there were among them many party boats which one hired at the wharf.

The only marine noise in those days was the put-put of one-lung engines of fishing boats (conversions of old catboat hulls) and the whistles of the steamers rounding Brant Point. I remember Leeds Mitchell, Jr., with the first outboard, which broke down constantly and made a terrible noise as it zoomed across the harbor and back.

The "Little Rainbow Fleet," as Austin called our children's boats, was made up of smaller editions of the "Old Rainbows" that were at least fourteen feet overall. They died out shortly after the Beetle class came into being. The Fleet ended up with forty boats, racing in two classes up harbor, and was a beautiful sight from the shore. For those of us at the tiller, however, busy trying to beat each other, it was wet, sloppy going, tacking home from the Second Point Buoy to cross the finish line off Brant Point.

The big poster for sale today which shows the Rainbow Fleet off Brant Point was photographed by H. Marshall Gardiner under the direction of Commodore Strong. He chose a dead calm day, then aroused us sailors to haul our sails and tie our bowlines to the sterns of fellow boats. My father towed us out into the harbor so that when we got into a good line, Marshall Gardiner could begin taking pictures from the Commodore's boat which was run by Byron Coffin. I was Commodore of the Rainbow Fleet at that time. "The Emerald" which my father bought me, the "Kittiwake" with brother Peter aboard, Pauline Freeman in her boat, the "Tern," and a dozen other young sailors in their boats became famous. The final shot of us rounding Brant Point was taken from that beach by Mr. Gardiner. I bought a pink and white dinner plate made in Japan some years later which showed me and "The Emerald" at the head of the procession. Uncle Austin always knew a classic moment that would remain memorable and did something about it.

He did much to renovate the Yacht Club building, docks and piers, and built a stage on what is now the dance floor. We used to see silent movies there once a week, with "Brownie," the blind musician, playing the piano while a small boy described the scenes on the screen to him.

On this stage, Commodore Strong created an unforgettable performance called the "Nantucket Follies" in which townspeople, wharf people and young people and children all took part. It was a series of vignettes, and one set was a whaleship with Captain B.

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Austin Strong leading the Main Street Fete Parade, 1923 From The NHA collection

Whitford Joy at the helm, surrounded by the last living whaling men singing sea chanties. Among them were Nelson Ewer, John Cross and George Grant. It was done so authentically you thought you were at sea.

Another memorable set was Roger Dunham's newspaper store, with Roger playing himself as all sorts of Nantucket characters came in to buy a paper -- taximen, carriage drivers, wharfmen, fishermen, gardeners, farmers, "Babe," the enormously fat deliveryman from American Express, many summer people known to all in the audience and dozens of children. So many took part in the Follies that one wondered who was left to watch it in the audience. A bevy of young beauties danced, of course. It was a celebration of old and "new" Nantucket. The most moving vignette was of Walter Chace who, as a member of the Coast Guard, had been given the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving lives in a gale off Great Point. He stood silently like a statue, dressed in the waist-high boots he wore at his lifesaving work, carried a large white coil of heavy rope on one shoulder, and wore the medal so all could see. What a hero! Tears were in every eye.

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While he was Commodore, Austin Strong introduced a welcoming committee of male Yacht Club members who volunteered (my father among them) to spend a day in white shirt and flannels, black tie and navy jacket with brass buttons, white shoes and a white yachting cap, aboard the special Commodore's launch. Whenever a visiting yacht appeared and anchored (no marina in those days), the launch, which was painted blue with a white stripe and run by Byron Coffin, put out into the harbor to deliver an engraved invitation for the visitor to use the Yacht Club facilities while on the island. (If a boat came in without a visiting yacht club flag, it was probably a rumrunner and was not approached!)

This practice so established the elegance of the Yacht Club that it became noted elsewhere. Once, when the Edgartown Yacht Club had a regatta in which I raced, fifteen Officers of the Day stood on the deck looking at entering yachts through binoculars, but they did not give out invitations!

Commodore Strong did other glamorous things to make Nantucket glorious in the eyes of visitors and summer people as well as the islanders. He invented the Main Street Fetes for the benefit of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. The first Fete was the biggest and most ambitious. Everyone participated and wore costumes of the 1870's. A parade started at the Pacific Club with Uncle dressed as a rich sea captain, just arriving in his dove grey suit, flowered vest and grey top hat. Accompanying him were his Chinese wife and his whaling men, with the ship's oars held high, riding in a Life Saving boat that was drawn on wheels over the cobbles. Girls dressed in bonnets, hoopskirts and pantalettes sat with the rough seamen. A whole army of handsome officers of the army and navy (who were Yacht Club members) marched in front, and two little cabin boys accompanied the sea captain. He headed for the Hadwen-Satler house on the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets where his Nantucket wife awaited him on the porch with other elegant ladies. (Maybe the Chinese wife was a gift to his real wife?!) I danced the Virginia Reel with Pauline Freeman, Wilhelmine Kirby Waller and others in Phebe Beedle's garden during this gala day. The Commodore broke all social barriers with this procession so all of Nantucket was feted. It was real and wonderful. My mother dressed me in a homemade hoop skirt & a wide brimmed hat with rosebuds on it. My two eldest brothers were dressed as cabin boys with black top hats, white shirts and pants, and black patent leather shoes.

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Uncle masterminded another Fete at a later date on Easy Street and Old North Wharf, and the Governor of Massachusetts attended. All the cathoats in the Basin had their sails hauled to make a pretty scene. Since it was another calm day, everything went off without a hitch.

Austin designed a Nantucket Island map which he donated to the Hospital. Since it was the only one for sale at the time, it brought in quite a bit of money.

During World War II, when all the coast towns were forced to have blackouts, the Strongs chose to stay on island during the winter. He organized a blackout group to see that not even a cigarette glowed in the dark whenever warnings came. He also instituted victory gardens for raising vegetables because, with so many farmers in the army and navy, food was hard to obtain and strictly rationed.

With Everett U. Crosby and others who loved Nantucket dearly, the Strongs worked to keep the cobblestones on Main Street when someone thought it should become a tarred pavement. He and a group of investors bought land on Coatue, including all of First Point and, I believe, up to Second Point, to protect it and keep it forever wild.

He also established the Wharf Rat Club, the idea for which came to him in 1926 when the Yacht Club refused family memberships to my father with seven children, Albert Reed with five, and the Frank Gilbreths with twelve, all of whom wanted to have all their children enjoy membership which they could not otherwise afford. Seeing our disappointment, the Commodore said, "We'll make a club down at Old North Wharf! We will have no dues, and the motto will be 'No Reserved Seats for the Mighty.' " He was thinking of the Perry & Coffin Store, run by Charles G. Coffin and his son, Herbert Hunter Coffin, which sold fishermen's clothes, boots and gear, and where the partyboatmen tied up their catboats. Here, a social life already prevailed around a potbellied stove for cold weather. On one side of the building facing the Basin, chairs were brought out and people sat around and chewed the fat. All it needed was a name and a flag. A secret board was formed to pass on membership to keep it in hounds. The criterion for joining was the ability to stand the gaff and give it as well, and you had to sit there once in a while. I lived there!

Uncle went to Tony Sarg, famous puppeteer, illustrator and bon vivant, who was sketching people on the beach at the Jetties, and

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said, "Tony, I can't draw a rat, and I need one for a flag for the Wharf Rat Club." In two minutes, Tony drew a rat sitting on his haunches smoking a pipe. It became the Wharf Rat logo -- a white rat on a bright blue flag. The Club became famous when members who joined the U. S. Navy talked about it in London, the Arctic, Antarctic and across the Pacific Ocean. The Club is still going strong with Charles Sayle as Commodore, following the death of Peter Grant. Roars of laughter can be heard through its open door if one walks down Old North Wharf. The Club flag is flying under the American flag on the wharf side of the building. As all those owning hoathouses on the wharf automatically became members when it started, I am one of the chartered few. In the first days, every time a member came to the Island on the steamer, he would get a three-gun salute; and the flags would be raised if he had let the Wharf Rat Commodore know ahead. Nowadays, the gun is fired for parties held in early July and August and on Labor Day. All of this is thanks to Austin Strong's flair for making the most of everything around him. Life was fun in those innocent days.

I believe he had much to do with the rebuilding of the Steamboat Wharf around the time the Yacht Club was done over. His influence was felt in all directions to make the town of Nantucket and its environs as charming as possible. There was a ring of authenticity about the island up to the time of Austin's death in the fifties which is lacking today. He made us all feel it, deep in our hones.

In sum, what Austin Strong did for Nantucket was to romanticize its heritage and its possibilities as a yachting center. With his pied-piper charisma with children, he launched many careers, some of them spectacular in later life. Commander John Walling, who lost his life when his submarine went down in World War II in the Pacific, was in one of Uncle's classes. Leeds Mitchell, Jr., has supervised the America's Cup races and is Harbor Master in Barrington, R.I. Gifford Warner has run ferryboats on the Connecticut River for years. I would say that Nantucket today owes a strong debt (forgive the pun) to this fabulous man who made us all realize the preciousness of the Island and its people.

There are many stories to be told about him, and these just skim the surface. He was my most unforgettable character.