View the collection here.

Captain Chester Lionel Morrissey was born on September 12, 1887 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, the eldest son of an American citizen, Captain David Clarence Morrissey, and his wife, Clara May Croucher, both of Irish descent. Capt. David C. Morrissey had become an American citizen in Salem, MA, in 1877 under a Federal law of the 1840s that made ship captains eligible to apply for naturalization but was domiciled in Pubnico, Nova Scotia, until 1905 when the whole family (Capt. David, his wife Clara, with Chester and his siblings Charles, Frank, Meta, Olga and Albert H.) moved to Boston.

Prior to this move, when Chester was almost fifteen his mother took him to Boston to his uncle James Croucher where he got a job as an errand boy for the R. Woodman Manufacturing & Supply Co. He returned to Pubnico a year later and hired on with his cousin Captain Clayton Morrissey fishing for cod off Newfoundland. He then joined his family in Boston and sailed out of that port for several years until, feeling dissatisfied with fishing, which he said had become “more business than a way of life,” quit and took a job as a Boston street-car conductor. However, a year later he was back fishing until early 1919 when the Fishermen’s Union called a strike. Chester used his time to take a navigation class at M.I.T. which included qualification for a Mate’s license. With this in hand he signed on as Third Mate in the Merchant Marine before returning to fishing once more.

In 1919 he married Ellen Shea, a Canadian born on a P.E.I. dairy farm in 1899, who had come to America in 1915. Chester and Ellen had three sons and a daughter: Francis C., James R., Charles A., and Florence M.

From 1923 to 1929 he was a crewman on the Commonwealth, a Boston high-liner, and in 1931 he became captain of the lobster smack Satellite owned by the Consolidated Lobster Co. of Boston and began transporting live lobsters from Nova Scotia to the Boston fish market. In 1932 the company moved to Bay View, Gloucester, and Chester relocated his family from Malden, MA, to Gloucester. He retired in 1957 and spent time writing poems and his memoires, which comprise this collection.

He was a lifelong passionate Republican having been impressed by Theodore Roosevelt, whom he shook hands with at the dedication of the Provincetown Monument in 1908. He was also an avid photographer using a Kodak “Brownie” camera to take photographs while at sea. These photographs were donated to the Cape Ann Museum in 2007 by his daughter, Florence Morrissey.

Captain Chester L. Morrissey died of heart failure in Gloucester on January 23, 1978. He was predeceased by his wife Ellen who died January 8, 1958.

Gift of Wayne Soini, grandson of Capt. C.L. Morrissey.

This collection consists of Capt. Chester L. Morrissey’s notes and rough drafts of a proposed book of his memoirs. It contains snapshots of life onboard certain vessels: the Caroline, the Natalie J. Nelson, the Oranato, the Satellite, the Commonwealth, the Volant, the Francis C. Gruby, the Arabia, the White Cap, the S.S. Lake Freed, and the Billow.

Series V includes a two-page write up of Captain Chester L. Morrissey’s life supplied by the donor. This includes several “family myths,” discrepancies with the facts as cited in the Biographical Note above. Most notably (the donor’s text is in italics): 

According to his death certificate, Captain David Chadsey Morrissey’s middle name was Clarence.

Capt. David C. Morrissey died at sea during a hurricane when Chester was about twelve and, as the bodies washed ashore, he was designated by his mother to identify his father’s body. [His father died from ‘accidental drowning’ in 1910 in Cohasset when Chester was 23, but as Chester was the witness on the death certificate, it is probable that he identified his father’s body at that time.]

Captain Morrissey fished in the 1920s until a serious injury (his left hand was caught and crushed in a metal winch line) forced him out of fishing. [It has been difficult to date this event exactly but his occupation was given as a “seaman fishing vessel” in the 1930 census; he was the cook on a crew list for the schooner Fannie in 1932 and was listed as fisherman or mariner in the Gloucester City Directories from 1936 to 1944.]

Series I. Drafts of his memoir Atlantis: Lost New England.

Series II. Misc. notes and chapter drafts for his memoir.

Series III. Poems

Series IV. Misc. notes

Series V. Newspaper clippings and copies of articles.

Box 1

Series I

FF1 Draft of memoir Atlantis: Lost New England

Chapter 1 – Pubnico, Nova Scotia

Chapter 2 – The Gold Mines of George’s Banks

Chapter 3 – My First Trip, 1904

Chapter 4 – Fish Pirates

Chapter 5 – Rescue at Sea

Chapter 6 – T-Wharf Days

Chapter 7 – The Death of Martin Hubbard

Chapter 8 – “Big Bat” Deals with Trouble

Chapter 9 – M.I.T and Me

Chapter 10 – A Dutch Stow-Away

Chapter 11 – The Loss of the Francis C. Gruby

Chapter 12 – A Trip on The Commonwealth

Chapter 13 – We Vote to Gamble

Chapter 14 – “We’re Bound for Central Square!”

Proposed but not included:

Chapter 15 – The Gold Mines, Inc.

Chapter 16 – Revolution and the Consolidated

Chapter 17 – Lobster Run

Chapter 18 – Atlantis: Lost New England

Not proposed but included here:

The Caroline Affair

A Winter Day’s Catch on Browns Bank.

FF2 Rough draft & layout of book.

Chapter 1 – Pubnico, Nova Scotia, 1900

Chapter 2 – The Gold Mines of George’s Banks, 1903

Chapter 3 – My First Trip, 1904

Chapter 4 – Fish Pirates, 1906

Chapter 5 – Rescue at Sea, 1906

Chapter 6 – T-Wharf Days, 1907-09

Chapter 7 – The Death of Martin Hubbard, 1912

Chapter 8 – “Big Bat” Deals with Trouble, 1914

Chapter 9 – M.I.T and Me, 1919

Chapter 10 – A Dutch Stow-Away, 1919

Chapter 11 – The Gruby’s Last Trip, 1921

Proposed but not included:

Chapter 12 – A Trip on The Commonwealth, 1933

Chapter 13 – We Vote to Gamble, 1928

Chapter 14 – “We’re Bound for Central Square!” 1929

Chapter 15 – The Gold Mines, Inc., 1929-30

Chapter 16 – Revolution and the Consolidated, 1931

Chapter 17 – Lobster Run, 1934

Tentative chapter headings:

Chapter 18 – Fishermen’s Races, 1936, 1938

Chapter 19 – The War, 1940-45

Chapter 20 – Just Another Industry, 1945-50

Chapter 21 – Port of Boston, 1950

Chapter 22 – Atlantis: Lost New England, 1900-1950

2 photos: Lower East Pubnico & the crew of the Onato

2 Letters from Wayne Soini (grandson) critiquing and discussing publishing options.

Series II

FF3 Chapter roughs & notes

Notes for 1902, 1931, 1919, 1906, 1904, 1905, 1912, 1906

Mate of the Billow

When the Captain got sick

T-Wharf Days

The First $100 Share on a Boston Haddocker

Beam Trawling from the Bay State Fish Co., 1928

Beam Trawling on the White Cap

A Trip on the S.S. Youngstown

A Trip on the S.S. Covalt

We Struck the Northeast Bar of Sable Island

Blizzard Fishing on the Commonwealth, offered to a magazine for publication.

Chapter 4 – Fish Pirates

Bay View

Revolution & the Consolidated

FF4 Chapter roughs & notes

A: “This old time cook …”

B: T-Wharf Days

C: “Pubnico is a little village …”

D: “Here on the east side …”

F: “They tell this story …”

G: Lobster Run

H: Loss of the Frances C. Gruby

I: “After getting some herring for bait …”

J: A Trip on the Commonwealth

K: West – the North East Bar

L: Pubnico, NS

M “So in 1931 …”

N: “When we arrived at Asphatagan …”

O: Third Mate on S.S. Bay View

P: Arabia

Chapter 13: We Vote to Gamble

To Rotterdam on the S.S. Lake Freed

A Fishing Trip on the White Cap.

Mate of the Billow.

The Lanesville Renidez-vous

Days Fishing on Browns Bank

Series III

FF5 Poems:

Remember the Girl You Left Behind

Prohibition Days

Some of my Adventures on the S.S. Lake Freed

Offered a Position by the Shipping Board

My Little English Girl

Adventures in 1919

The Second Mate’s Yarn

The Office Romance

A Trip on the Schooner Volant

Looking Back Forty Years

A Trip on the Commonwealth

A Product of the Lakes (S Scovalt)

Untitled, first line: Twas on the good ship Convalt

Untitled, first line: Now we’ve got a man in Washington

Untitled, first line: Then Old Danny Wilson

Series IV

FF6 Misc. notes

FF7 Misc. notes

FF8 Misc. notes

Series V

FF9 Clippings & articles

The Gloucester Fisherman

The Romance of Gloucester, Lawrence J. Hart

Newspaper clipping: Dual Role for Schooner, (Ernestina/Effie M. Morrissey) GDT 1977

Newspaper clipping: Save the Morrissey, GDT 1974

Newspaper clipping: Longlining Lives On In Gloucester (photo of Capt. Chester Morrissey) National Fisherman, 1977

Master Mariner: Memoirs of a Gloucesterman, Boston Sunday Globe, 1972

Sorting Shorts, Boston Sunday Globe, 1950

4 obituaries for Chester L. Morrissey.

Letter from Florence Soini to Nantucket re: death of her paternal grandfather Capt. David C. Morrissey in 1901 or 1907 storm [see Scope and Content] and response.

2 page write up of Capt. C.L. Morrissey’s life, supplied by the donor [see Scope and Content].