Press Release
New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (FHC) is excited to launch a collection and digitization effort focused on fishermen’s documents and is actively seeking logbooks, settlement sheets, vessel trip reports, charts, and other such materials from the local fishing community.
Anyone interested in contributing materials is encouraged to email archives@fishingheritagecenter.org or call 508-993-8894 and ask for Connor.
For generations, many fishermen have kept handwritten logs of their time at sea. These often include notes on where they were fishing, what they were catching, weather and sea conditions, and more. A settlement sheet for each trip details the wages, expenses, and “share” for each member of the crew.
Taken together, logbooks and settlement sheets tell a valuable story of environmental and economic change over time. How much fish was landed, where and at what time of the day, duration of the tow. What was the price at auction? How much did the crew get paid? What was the cost of fuel, ice, food, and other provisions? Logbooks not only preserve what happened; they reveal how fishing communities responded when prices shifted, regulations changed, landings ebbed and flowed, and livelihoods came under pressure.
New Bedford has long valued its whaling story. The city’s fishing story deserves the same level of attention.
“Working people, whether they’re fixing an engine or risking their lives on the deck of a scallop boat, don’t often have their stories told,” says Laura Orleans, Executive Director at New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.
Many of those stories never reach a museum wall or newspaper archive. They stay in kitchens, file boxes, basements, and family memories. All too often their historic value is not understood and they are discarded over time. The Fishing Heritage Center urges fishermen and their families to share these materials with the archive to ensure that this history is preserved for future generations.
The Fishing Heritage Center has been collecting and preserving fishing community history for more than a decade. The online archive features thousands of historical photographs, documents, and recordings that tell the stories of the people behind New Bedford’s commercial fishing industry. Explore the archive by navigating to: fishingheritagecenter.pastperfect online.com.
Established in 2016 and located in the heart of the Seaport Historic District, New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center shares the story of New Bedford’s commercial fishing community with the world.
For more information, visit the center’s website: www.fishingheritagecenter.org.
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Click here to download the 10/29/26 issue: 10-29-26 Horribles
Click here to download Mr. Trapilo’s letter: TrapiloResponse
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