Mystic Seaport Captured by Bean Counters

Tom Leiws

 Have you heard the expression, “He knows the cost everything but the value of nothing?” That's the theme of this post. First, a small digression.

 

One of the most magical days of my life was spent on an outcrop on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island. There, I visited Louisbourg Fortress, one of the final outposts of French Canada before the English took over in 1759. Louisbourg has the distinction of being the very best reenactment of history I have ever experienced. Visitors can't even drive to the site; they must park in remote lots and are dropped off at the gates. Once inside, the reenactors take visitors back in time by staying in character so well that they feign ignorance of all events that occurred after 1758, including vocabulary and expressions that postdate the lives of those who lived there in the 1750s. I learned a lot about 18^th century soldier life beyond military regimens, including laboratory habits, foodways, the isolation of being many thousands of miles from France, and lingering fears of invasion. It was magical in ways that no static museum can touch.

 

Louisbourg’s the gold standard, but perhaps some of you have been to Plimouth Plantation, Old Sturbridge Village, or Hancock Shaker Village. I’ll stay in the Northeast, though I’ve seen other wonderful sites. Let's be blunt:  Without the talents of researchers and staff with the skills to jumpstart our historical imaginations, here's what we have at Louisbourg, Plimouth, Old Sturbridge, and Hancock: a pile of gray, moss-covered stones in a fog-shrouded part of Nova Scotia no one would visit; a reconstructed wooden fort and faux cabins on the southeastern shore of Massachusetts; a bunch of old buildings that never actually stood in 19^th century Sturbridge; and an assemblage of meaning-deprived farm houses and structures that Berkshires developers would have long-ago leveled.

 

This brings me to the villains of this piece: the administration of Mystic Seaport and its sanctimonious, money-driven president Pete Armstrong. Mystic recently fired its living history interpreters, canceled its renowned sea music gathering, and told festival organizers that in the future they can have no access to museum funds or staff. In Armstrong's words, “Sea music and sea chanteys are not a priority for this museum at this time and continued requests made by social media and telephone will not alter that fact.” He went on to mention that director of development Chris Freeman is looking to get "the best bang for… limited bucks.” 

 

Endangered activity at Mystic

 

 

Whose bucks, one wonders?  It costs $27 per person to visit Mystic Seaport and I'm not seeing much bang. Here’s what used to happen at Mystic. You could find costumed guides in character aboard its wooden ships like the Charles W. Morgan, where people like Stan Hugill, Tom Lewis, Cliff Haslam, and Louis Killen* sang from the rigging and told tales Armstrong or Freeman surely cannot. I doubt either of them know about being a mate on the last wooden ship to round Cape Horn. Somehow, though, Armstrong thinks car shows and destination weddings are bigger bucks for a seaport museum. Perhaps they do generate more revenue, but what's being sold here is Yuppy indulgence, not maritime history.

 

I should confess that I am no sailor either. I grew up in farm country and used to know my way around an old tractor and cows, but until I moved to New England, I thought a capstan was where you hung hats and a schooner was just a beer glass. Then again, I was not the president of a museum devoted to seafaring. What I know, I learned from places like Mystic and whaling museums in New Bedford and on Nantucket.

 

Let me break it down for the obtuse and tone-deaf administration at Mystic. Take away the reenactors, singers, and actual sailors and here's what you've got: a collection of old ships for diehard aficionados and wealthy New York yachtsman who think they’re sailors when they turn a wheel while wearing topsiders. You've also got a bunch of rusty chains lying on docks, some outbuildings lacking enough staff to bring to life what those structures purport to represent, and text-heavy displays. How many pieces of scrimshaw will visitors take it before they think, “Yeah, yeah, more scratching on shark/whale teeth?” How many oil paintings will they take in of ships they've never heard of? How many faces of long-dead sea captains? Exhibits of whaling voyages without dynamic guides will simply remind of a lot of people of being forced to read Moby Dick in high school.

 

Another fiction: This section of the Long Island Sound shoreline is more associated with Coast Guard cutters and submarines than spermaceti and blubber. Mystic’s pride, the Charles W. Morgan sailed out of New Bedford; Mystic was never a center of the whaling trade. Without colorful guides, song, and stories to help us suspend disbelief, we are left with a repository of old boats­–Disneyland without the rides. Blubber has given way to bluster, and history is in the hands of those who know its cost but not its value. Is this worth $27 of your money? It’s not enough bang for me.

 

Rob Weir

 

* Hugill and Killen are now deceased. Before Killen died, he underwent reassignment surgery and was known as Louise.