Fisherman's Memorial

This is the famous statute of the Fisherman of Gloucester in Gloucester, MA. This statute is facing Gloucester Harbor when many fisherman lost their lives and never returned home to their families.
Erected in 1925, this historic commemorative sculpture is a featured stop on the Maritime History of Massachusetts travel itinerary. Also known as the Man at the Wheel, the eight-foot, bronze statue that is eight feet tall on a five-foot granite base. Gloucester bills itself as the “America's Oldest Seaport,” and the monument was completed in 1925 to honor 300 years of Gloucester losing fisherman. The statute was designed by English sculptor Leonard Craske (1882–1950), and it was cast by the Gorham Company of Providence, Rhode Island.

The Folksong written about the Fisherman of Gloucester is below:

“The Fisherman of Gloucester, he's weathered many gales,
He's gazing toward the open sea, and looking for the sails 
Of the fishing boats of Gloucester, from the port of missing men.
The fishing boats of Gloucester that will never come again.
'Twas on an April morning when the boats they did set out,
Their sails were crisp and white as in the port they steered about,
And the womenfolk were waving as they stood upon the shore
To the fishing boats of Gloucester they'd never see no more.
'Twas at midnight on the ocean, all the hands they were asleep,
Except the sailors on the bridge the lonely watch did keep,
And a storm it started blowin' and they reefed up all the sail,
But mountains of the salty sea left none to tell the tale.
Many were the fisherwomen whose hearts they were bereft,
For of fourteen boats, two hundred men, not anyone was left.
Many were the little children whose fathers never came again
To sit down at the table in the port of missing men.
So the people there in Gloucester that mighty statue raised
Of the Fisherman of Gloucester with his never-blinking gaze,
Staring out across the sea at the changing of the sky
A symbol of the women's hope and prayer that never dies.”
©Copyright 2016 Lorraine Palumbo. All Rights Reserved.



Read less