Caswell Clan Continued 

We get a sense of the Caswell’s success, and of their fecundity, from an 1828 probate record. In his will, patriarch John Caswell meticulously distributed his holdings -- garden plots, potato cellars, fish-drying areas and pathways among six children and a host of island relatives. His will divided his house up room by room, even assigning ownership of hallways, closets and entranceways to different people.

Like the Haley family of nearby Smuttynose, the Caswells were the royalty of Star Island. It was not much of a kingdom-- an island reeking of stale fish and covered in ramshackle huts and upturned dories. Back then, as the joke goes, there were only two types of Shoalers -- the heavy-smoking, hard drinking, fish-smelling, tobacco spitting, foul mouthed heathen type -- and their husbands. Women, Celia Thaxter tells us, did most of the labor and grew old before their time. When the men were not fishing, they were drinking or lounging upon the rocks. A bill from one Star Island fisherman shows he could polish off four gallons of rum in a single month.

We can cobble together a picture of the Caswells from early documents and written impressions left by island missionaries and the first tourists. Richard Henry Dana, author of "Two Years Before the Mast" stayed at Joseph and Sally Caswell's earliest island guest house in August 1843. Dana's first impression was wading up the beach through heaps of stinking fish heads and fish bones. But he came to enjoy the Caswell's hospitality and the dramatic rocky island.

Another early anecdote comes from none other than novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne who spent a 10 days at the Appledore House in the summer of 1852. Hawthorne visited Star with his college friend Franklin Peirce, who was about to become the nation's next president. Hawthorne described Joseph Caswell in his journal as "being very drunk" and dressed like a typical fisherman in "red-baize shirt, trousers tucked into large boots". Joseph Caswell was also the Gosport town clerk, manager of the island school and Gosport town policeman.

But it is from the Laightons, the family that ultimately ruled the Shoals, that we get the most colorful and often comic view of the Caswells. In his autobiography, "Ninety Years on the Isles of Shoals", Oscar offers an affectionate story of fisherman Asa Caswell who rarely spoke to anyone. He recalls a day old Asa stopped by the Laighton's hotel to sell a fresh 28-pound halibut at a nickel per pound. One of the hotel guests asked Asa where he had caught the big fish. Asa Caswell ignored him. When the guest took the aged fisherman by the sleeve and insisted that he reveal his secret fishing spot, the old Shoaler replied:

"Look here young feller, when I was of your age, I kept my mouth shut. Then nobody knew I was a cussed fool."

CONTINUE "The Caswells on Isles of Shoals"