The Hudson River Maritime Museum has an extensive collection of oral histories interview of Hudson River commercial fisherman, including fisherman Edward Hatzmann, who was interviewed on April 25, 1992. Below, Hatzmann recalls a story told to him by fellow fisherman Charlie Rohr, about a prison break from Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.
Unlike some fishermen's tales, this one was really true! Fisherman Charlie Rohr really did have to deal with the prisoners. He was interviewed for the Yonkers, NY Herald Statesman in an article published April 14, 1941. The article is transcribed in full below:
"'We're Going To Bump You Off!' Killers Promise Charlie Rohr. But Shad Fisherman, Who Rowed Fugitives Across Hudson, Talks Them Out of It and Escapes Alive" OSSINING - Charlie Rohr is alive today, but from now on he feels he's living on borrowed time. Rohr is the shad fisherman who rowed two desperate escaped convicts across the Hudson River and then talked himself out of being their third victim. "It was pretty tough sitting there with two guys holding guns to you," Rohr reported, "but it didn't do any good to lose your head." Rohr and another fisherman were getting their equipment together in their shack shortly before 3 A.M., preparatory to rowing out to their weirs. A series of shots broke the pre-dawn stillness but the men didn't pay much attention to it. "I thought it was just a brawl," Rohr said. The other fisherman went upstairs for a minute, and Rohr stepped to the door of the shack on Holden's Dock. Two men, white-shirted and in the gray trousers unmistakably of Sing Sing Prison, confronted him. Two guns were held against his stomach. "Is this your boat?" one growled. "Yes," said Rohr. "Get going then," he was told. "And fast - we've just killed a cop." Rohr wasn't having any. "You take the boat," he urged. "You're rowing," he was told. "Get going." The trip across the river took an hour - the longest hour of Charles Rohr's life. The thugs sat in the center and stern seats of the boat, and trained their guns upon him during the entire trip. Rohr worked the oars, and then men whispered back and forth. The fisherman pulled up at a point near Rockland Lake on the west bank. The convicts prepared to leave the boat. "Now," said one in an expressionless voice, "we're going to bump you off." "Listen," said Charlie Rohr, his mind working faster than it ever had before, "that won't do you no good." The men paused. "I'm well known around here, see? Everyone knows my boat. And if you knock me off, and the boat's around here, everyone is going to know what happened and where you guys got away." They were still listening, so Rohr kept on. "What you'd better do is let me go back. Then no one's going to know anything about this." Four eyes regarded him coldly. Then the pair whispered together for a minute. Charlie Rohr held his breath, and then his heart leaped. The men jumped from the boat and ran into the woods on the shore of Rockland County. He rowed back across the river with shaking knees. 
"Disheveled at battered, these two fugitives from Sing Sing prison are shown today after eight hours of freedom during which they left a train of four dead in a prison break. They are Joseph Riordan, left, and Charles McGale. They were captured in the Rockland County hills a mile from the Hudson, which they crossed in a rowboat." caption of photograph from Yonkers "Herald Statesman" front page, April 14, 1941.
Joseph Riordan and Charles McGale were caught in Rockland County and returned to prison. Charlie Rohr went back to fishing.
​If you'd like to hear more stories from Edward Hatzmann, check out his full oral history interview, available on New York Heritage. For more fishermen's oral history interviews, check out our full collection.
​If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!​
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Shad in the bottom of a fishing boat, Clark Family Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum.
We are into shad season now, so we thought we'd share more stories from our Hudson River Commercial Fishermen oral history collection!
Today's story comes from Port Ewen commercial fisherman George Clark, talking about growing up fishing with his father Hugh Clark, and an encounter with a fish market dealer who tried to get the better of them.
If you'd like to see Hugh Clark's original shad boat, it is on display at the Hudson River Maritime Museum toward the back of our East Gallery in the boat slings. ​To listen to all of George Clark's oral history interview, visit New York Heritage.
​If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!​
Editor’s Note: The following text is a verbatim transcription of an article featuring stories by Captain William O. Benson (1911-1986). Beginning in 1971, Benson, a retired tugboat captain, reminisced about his 40 years on the Hudson River in a regular column for the Kingston (NY) Freeman’s Sunday Tempo magazine. Captain Benson's articles were compiled and transcribed by HRMM volunteer Carl Mayer. See more of Captain Benson’s articles here. This article was originally published May 6, 1973.  Cornell tug Victoria at Cornell docks, workers scraping and painting rail from floats, c. 1920. Donald C. Ringwald Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum. For many decades in years past, one of the true harbingers of spring locally was the annual run of shad in the Hudson River. The shad fishermen would lay their nets and, to many residents, the first shad was a happy event. Generally, the relations between boatmen and the shad fishermen were amicable. The shad nets wound frequently drift across the channel and the boatmen would do their best to avoid them. On occasion, however, due to conditions of tide and wind - the boatmen would have no recourse but to run over the nets. Then, the relationship would be somewhat strained. At times the results were not without a touch of humor and, at other times, a bit bizarre. One time back in the, 1920's the tug "Victoria" of the Cornell Steamboat Company was going down river with several loaded scows for New York. She was bucking a flood tide off Highland and shaping the tow up for the cantilever span of the railroad bridge. The pilot on watch was getting close to the [b]ridge when he noticed he was going to run over a shad net. On looking over to the Highland side of the river, he saw a row boat coming out with an outboard motor and two men in it. Obviously they were the shad fishermen. He quickly blew one short blast on the whistle for the deckhand to come to the pilot house. When the deckhand came up, the pilot said, "Here, watch her, I’ve got to go below for a minute." Going down to the main deck, he went to the galley and put on the cook’s apron and hat and stood in the galley door as the shad fishermen came alongside. When they were within shouting distance, one of the fishermen hollered over, "What the devil are you running over my nets for?” and added a few more choice words of admonition. Of course, the deckhand in the pilot house didn’t know what to say since he was a new man and green at the game. The pilot, dressed like the cook, stood in the galley and laughed at the poor deckhand taking the bawling out. Then, to add insult to injury, he looked at [t]he fishermen, shaking his head and pointing up at the pilot house — as if he was in sympathy with the fishermen and perhaps not thinking much of the “pilot” steering the tugboat.  Night boat "Trojan" underway. Donald C. Ringwald Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum. On another occasion shortly after World War I, the steamboat "Trojan" of the Albany Night Line was on her way down river and, when off Glasco at about 11 p.m., ran over some fisherman's shad net. The fisherman yelled up to the pilot house of the passing steamer from his rowboat, "The next time you do that, I'll shoot you." About a week later as the "Trojan” was coming down past Crugers Island, a shad net was again stretched across the channel. Due to the nature of the channel at that point and the way the tide was running, the pilot bad no alternative but to run over the net. All of a sudden, [a] fellow in the rowboat stood up and fired a shot in the direction of the "Trojan." Fortunately, the shot missed the pilot house, but did hit the forward smokestack, putting a small hole in it. The later incident was related to me by the late Dick Howard Jr. of Rensselaer who was quartermaster on the “Trojan” at the time. Actually a sidewheeler, like the "Trojan,” would do little damage to a shad net by running over it. Despite their size, the side-wheelers were of exceptionally shallow draft and almost always would pass right over the net itself suspended beneath the surface. The only damage would be to have a couple of the net's surface floats clipped off by the turning paddle wheels. A propeller driven vessel, on the other hand, with its deeper draft, could do considerable damage to a shad net by snagging it and chewing up part of it by the revolving screw propeller. Most boatmen though, whenever possible, when passing over a shad net - would stop their boat’s engine and drift over it so as to avoid damaging the net. AuthorCaptain William Odell Benson was a life-long resident of Sleightsburgh, N.Y., where he was born on March 17, 1911, the son of the late Albert and Ida Olson Benson. He served as captain of Callanan Company tugs including Peter Callanan, and Callanan No. 1 and was an early member of the Hudson River Maritime Museum. He retained, and shared, lifelong memories of incidents and anecdotes along the Hudson River. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Trio of shad fishermen deploying a net into the Hudson River, George Washington Bridge in the background, 1946. Arthur G. Adams Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum.
Are your shad bushes blooming? The large shadbush (also known as juneberry or serviceberry or shad blow) in the museum's courtyard is getting ready to bloom - that means the shad run is starting!
In this story, Port Ewen commercial fisherman Frank Parslow describes restrictions on fishing in New York Harbor during WWII and the impact on Hudson River fishermen. This audio clip is part of the Hudson River Maritime Museum's Hudson River Commercial Fishermen Oral History Collection. You can listen to a selection of the museum's full oral history interviews on New York Heritage.
​If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!​
 Commercial American Eel pot (1940s-1960s) (30" x 11"). Wooden pegs carved by Henry Gourdine. Tom Lake Collection. Hudson River Maritime Museum. Today's Featured Artifact is an eel pot used by Hudson River commercial fishermen. The wire pot contains a series of cones which allow the eels to enter the trap, but make it difficult or impossible to leave. The wooden pegs used as closures on this eel pot were carved by Hudson River commercial fisherman Henry Gourdine. Eel fishing was once a major industry in the Hudson River. British food traditions include eel pie and jellied eel, smoked eel is considered a delicacy in most Eastern European and Scandinavian countries, and Japan, Korea, and Vietnam also enjoy eel in a wide variety of foods. In the mid-20th century, eel was a major export from the Hudson River fishery. American eel are opposite of many Hudson River fish in that they live in the river, and only return to the ocean to spawn. All American eels (and over 30 other species of eel) are born in the Sargasso Sea off the Atlantic coast of Florida and the Caribbean. The tiny new hatchlings ride the Gulf Stream north along the Atlantic coast in search of fresh water. By the time they reach the Hudson River, they are known as "glass eels," for their tiny, transparent bodies. American eel can take between 12 and 20 years to reach maturity, at which point they return to the Sargasso sea to lay and fertilize eggs. This lengthy period of maturity means fewer eels survive to reproduce. In addition, the damming of tributaries, habitat loss, pollution, and overfishing contributed to their precipitous decline in the 1980s. The exact life cycle of all species of eel and the reason for their decline remains largely a mystery, although more research is being conducted every year. Today, American Eels are endangered and fishing for them in the Hudson River, and elsewhere, is no longer allowed. It may take decades for the population to recover. Thankfully, in 2008 the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation started the Hudson River Eel Project, in which volunteers work with DEC scientists and educators to count glass eels and help transport them over obstacles to access freshwater tributaries in the Hudson Valley. To learn more about the project, check out the video below! If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Filmmaker Ken Sargeant has compiled many of Henry's stories, including with footage from a filmed oral history interview, into "Tales from Henry's Hudson." In 2013, Arts Westchester put together this short video of Henry, combining oral histories from the Hudson River Maritime Museum and film interviews by Ken Sargeant. You can watch more of Henry on film below:  Image of Hudson River commercial fisherman Henry Gourdine, in his rain slicker and hat, smoking a pipe. Courtesy Arts Westchester. For today's Media Monday, we thought we'd highlight one of the best storytellers on the Hudson River. Henry Gourdine, a commercial fisherman on the Hudson River since the 1920s, was a famous advocate for the river and its fishing heritage. Born on Croton Point on January 7, 1903, his reminiscences of growing up along the waterfront, defying his mother to spend time there, and his working life on the river, captured the imagination of the region at a time when commercial fishing was under threat from PCBs. A boatbuilder, net knitter, and fisherman, as well as a storyteller, Gourdine helped preserve many of the fishing crafts. He taught boatbuilding and net knitting at South Street Seaport, recorded descriptions of many heritage fishing methods on tape, and would happily talk about the river and fishing to anyone who asked. Henry Gourdine passed away October 17, 1997 at the age of 94. Read his New York Times obituary. In 2006, the New York Times published a retrospective on the impact of Henry Gourdine on local communities throughout the valley. Henry Gourdine on FilmHenry Gourdine Oral HistoryThe Hudson River Maritime Museum has an extensive collection of oral history recordings of Hudson River commercial fishermen. Marguerite Holloway interviewed Henry Gourdine several times between 1989 and 1994, covering a whole host of fishing-related topics. Those oral histories now reside at the Hudson River Maritime Museum and have been digitized for your listening and research pleasure. Click the button below to take a listen! Henry Gourdine's Fishing Shack Henry Gourdine's fishing shed, photo by Rob Yasinsac, April, 2006. Built in 1927, Henry Gourdine's fishing shed stood for decades along the Ossining waterfront. But the days of the working waterfront were over, and Ossining sold the property to developers in the early 2000s. By 2006, work was set to begin, and Henry's shed was not part of the for condominiums overlooked the Hudson River. Despite pleas from local conservationists and the Gourdine family, including a temporary injunction from a court, the shed was ultimately demolished in May, 2006. Henry's fishing equipment and two boats were salvaged from inside and saved by Arts Westchester and family members. Preservationist and cataloger of ruins Rob Yasinsac cataloged the shed and its contents in April, 2006, before it was bulldozed. Read his account and see more pictures. Sadly, the development soon stalled, and ground was not broken on the condos until 2014. Henry Gourdine Park Perhaps as an apology for the demolition, the condominium development known as Harbor Square created a waterfront park and named it Henry Gourdine Park in honor of the man who fished off its shores for nearly 80 years. The park was opened in June, 2018. You can learn more about the park and its amenities and visit yourself. Recorded in the summer of 1976 in Woodstock, NY Fifty Sail on Newburgh Bay: Hudson Valley Songs Old & New was released in October of that year. Designed to be a booster for the replica sloop Clearwater, as well as to tap into the national interest in history thanks to the bicentennial, the album includes a mixture of traditional songs and new songs. This album is a recording to songs relating to the Hudson River, which played a major role in the commercial life and early history of New York State, including the Revolutionary War. Folk singer Ed Renehan (born 1956), who was a member of the board of the Clearwater, sings and plays guitar along with Pete Seeger. William Gekle, who wrote the lyrics for five of the songs, also wrote the liner notes, which detail the context of each song and provide the lyrics. This booklet designed and the commentary written by William Gekle who also wrote the lyrics for: Fifty Sail, Moon in the Pear Tree, The Phoenix and the Rose, Old Ben and Sally B., and The Burning of Kingston. Pete Seeger wrote a song for a friend, Ron Ingold, a shad fisherman on the Hudson River. Ingold is one of the new breed of Hudson River fishermen who is ready to fight for the environmental health of the River and, since he is on the River almost daily, he understands the importance of that delicate balance that must be maintained between Man and Nature. He understands this far better than the “half-blind scholars” who scarcely know which way the wind is blowing or which way the currents are flowing. https://folkways-media.si.edu/liner_notes/folkways/FW05257.pdf Editor's Note: Hear interviews with Ron Ingold and other Hudson River commercial fishermen here: https://nyheritage.org/collections/oral-histories-hudson-river-commercial-fishermen OF TIME AND RIVERS FLOWING - LYRICS Of time and rivers flowing The seasons make a song And we who live beside her Still try to sing along Of rivers, fish, and men, And the season’s still a’coming When she’ll run clear again. So many homeless sailors, So many winds that blow, I ask the half-blind scholars Which way the currents flow. So cast your nets below And the gods of moving waters Will tell us all they know. The circles of the planets, The circles of the moon, The circles of the atoms All play a marching tune And we who would join in Can stand aside no longer Now let us all begin! Thanks to HRMM volunteer Mark Heller for sharing his knowledge of Hudson River music history for this series. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
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