Inside this Issue: Volume 5, Issue 9 PAPHA Newsletter October 2011

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1 Volume 5, Issue 9 PAPHA Newsletter October 2011 Cowboy Comes a Singin' Put on your cowboy boots and come enjoy America's Cowboy Balladeer while helping raise money for the Port Aransas Museum. The Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association is proud to present Don Edwards to appear at Third Coast Theater on Friday, Oct. 28. Tickets cost $50 and are still available by calling Nancy Donley at This Grammy nominated singer and guitarist will make his first appearance in Port Aransas to benefit the museum. If you grew up loving Gene Autry s music, you ll love Don Edwards! We are hoping that concerts similar to this will be another great source of fund raising for the Museum and Farley Boat Works in the future. A full open bar, Pat Farley's famous gumbo and hors d'oeuvres are included. Invite as many friends as you can, and celebrate the romance of the old west for a great cause! Need a tax write-off? Be a concert underwriter for the event on Oct. 28. Fully tax-deductible! Contact Port Aransas Museum Director Rick Pratt at or rickpratt45@gmail.com Inside this Issue: Uncle Will... Page 2 Surfers, Old Town Fest... Page 3 Storytellers, Old Town Fest... Page 3 Facebook story... Page 4

2 William Augustus Farley Jr. Uncle Will By Bruce Baker, great-nephew of William Augustus Will was born in Vernon, Washington County, Florida on December 25, 1870, a few months after the death of his father. He was a small child when his family moved to Comanche County, Texas in the 1870s where they remained until the property was sold in The family returned to Apalachicola, Florida where Will s mother, Martha, died on May 14, 1889 soon after returning from Texas. Will remained in Florida where most of his siblings resided. He enlisted for service in the Spanish American War on May 20, 1898 in Tampa, Florida. Will was a Sergeant in Company H of the First Florida Infantry. He remained in Florida the entire term of his enlistment and was discharged December 3, After his discharge he returned home to see his family in the Florida Panhandle and then went to Tarpon, Texas in 1899 to see his sister Nellie Lindley and brother Bob Farley. Lorena Mae Curry was visiting her first cousin, Alice E. (Curry) Farley, when she met Will Farley, the brother of Bob Farley. Mae and Will married on June 20, The wedding began in Tarpon, Texas and the couple went by sailboat to Rockport with Will s brother and sister-in-law, Bob and Alice Farley. Following the wedding supper at Rockport they left about 9pm for their return trip to their island home. A late June calm came down over Aransas Bay so the sailboat did not dock in Tarpon until sunrise the next morning. Will worked in Tarpon as hunting and fishing guide. Will earned $1.50 a day to take clients fishing, rowing them as far as five miles into the Gulf on calm days. Will remembered taking one of his clients, Mr. Smith, hunting in a duck blind on what became the Humble tank farm on Harbor Island where Smith killed 192 red head ducks that day. In 1904 Will first used a put-put a 1 ½ horse-power outboard and began to troll for mackerel and kingfish. It was this same year that Will first created a lure that became the prototype for a mackerel lure, the hootie. I worked on a power launch for a New York man that year. Farley said, and indirectly, that was how the lure first came about. This fellow had a hook with a pearl right in front of it. Just for kicks we trolled it to see what would happen. The mackerel would really hit it, but for some reason they wouldn t clamp down on the hard pearl. White Rag Worked So I just tried wrapping a white rag in front of a 8-0 hook. It really worked, but the rag would be ripped to pieces after just a few fish. Then I looked around for something tougher, but about the same color. A new manila rope served the purpose. It was tough and would last a long time. I caught as many as 350 pounds of mackerel in one morning on this lure and I believe that is actually how the hootie as they are now called came about. All the fishermen over there (Port Aransas) began using the same sort of lure, he continued, and we experimented with crochet threat and other kinds of yarn. We tried, white and red and even mixed the colors. White must have proved best. That s what has been used down through the years. Right now white crochet threads with a few strands of sisal make up the simple but productive lure. Farley said they made the lure in about the same method as they are made now. The thread is twisted through a loop in the wire leader just in front of the hook. The wire leader is usually about 14 or 16 inches long. When the city of Port Aransas was created Will was listed as one of the first two councilmen of the new city and his brother-in-law, Willie Harmon, was listed as the clerk. Will bought a grocery store in 1913 which he operated until the hurricane of 1919 washed him to the mainland. Wills store was a gathering point for some of the residents in Port Aransas when the 1919 storm was approaching and those that gathered there went into the sand dunes to survive the storm. The store and home all washed away during the storm except for a piano which was too big to go out the door or windows. The store was gone, but the building remained. Anna Farley called it Uncle Will s stone store. It was probably built of shellcrete and was still standing in the 1950s. After the 1919 storm, Will lived in Aransas Pass where he was elected as a trustee of the Aransas Pass School District in In Aransas Pass Will had various occupations such as wholesale fish house, grocer, and farmer. He liked to remain active and continued making fishing lures when he was in his 80s. He would also spend hours with the netting shuttle making cast nets which he liked to make as gifts for friends and relatives. Gardening, and fishing were also among his favorite activities. Will died on the 28 th of September This story is based on an article in the Corpus Christi Caller~Times, Sunday May 30, 1954, 7B Page 2 PAPHA Newsletter October 2011

3 Surfers turn to paddling Old Town Festival Close to 100 people were on the beach at the surf contest site. Not all were surfers, of course, but all were having fun. Unfortunately, someone forgot to remind the surf to show up. So in typical island-style, the 30 competitors for the scheduled longboard contest held paddle contests instead. They had different heats paddling around the end of Horace Caldwell Pier and back. The results from the competition were: Results: 1 Nick Jones, Port Aransas; 2 Frank Floyd, Corpus Christi; 3 Allen Lassiter, Corpus Christi; 4 Jeff Talent, Port Aransas; 5 Aransas Blaha, Rockport; 6 Mason Knowles, Savannah, Ga. and 7 Sue Gaudino, Port Aransas. Page 3 PAPHA Newsletter October 2011

4 Old Town Festival Photo by Nancy Phillips and Pam Greene Page 4 PAPHA Newsletter October 2011

5 Dishing on Port A The storytelling part of the festival is always one of the most fun. This is a time when you get to hear people who have a history in Port Aransas tell all about it. In the casual setting, speakers talked among themselves, sometimes correcting, often adding, and answered questions from the audience. Local historian Dr. John Guthrie Ford added from his vast knowledge gleaned from years of research. He also served as emcee. Among those speaking were Marcy Mathews Ward Thomas, who brought photos to enhance her memories and let the audience get a visual to put with the audio. Also speaking were Marcy's brother Manny Mathews, Nancy Smith Teller, Marc Teller, Mary Jo Brundrett Mathews and Debbie Bundy. Page 5 PAPHA Newsletter October 2011

6 From the Port Aransas Museum Facebook page My grandfather, Teddy Mathews, at one time had two of these fine boats designed specifically for our Gulf waters. One of them, the Marcy, named after his daughter (my mother) can be seen on Ytube in video clips from The scene is just off-shore near Port A, four guys in a way cool Farley boat on a bright sunny day. The guys in the boat are Elliot Roosevelt, Barney Farley, Elliot s Dad (the one with the rod & reel), and Ted Mathews. The other boat, the Manny, named after his son (my uncle Fred) is the one that I grew up with or on I guess I should say. I remember moonlight rides down Lydian Ann channel. Nothing quite like it. And crabbing in little slue and big slue by the Lighthouse. We d fill 1/2 a trash can in what seemed like minutes. We knew we had enough when my old dog, Lee, was able to reach them in the can. When we heard the shrill yelp, we reflexively ducked as he yanked his head back out of the can to fling off the crab pinching his Matthew Anthony Patrick Ward nose. Some years later my uncle Fred (AKA Manny ) chartered fishing parties out of the Mathews place, later called the Sports Center, where Virginia s is now. My first job was during the Summer of 66 cleaning that boat when my uncle came in after a charter. It s hard to figure out now whether that was work or play. When I was in Jr. High my grandfather rigged the Manny for shrimping. He was handy like that. On Saturday mornings he come would by early (like earlier than I had to get up for school) and pick up me and my brother Mack and take us shrimping there in Turtle Cove. The larger shrimp we d have for lunch. Smaller ones we kept for bait, using a few of those to catch some fish for supper. While culling the net I d usually find something I figured would look good in Chris Page s marine tank in our science lab at H G Olsen. In 1970 I remember feeling satisfied that the Manny was securely tied down beside the shop. It actually seemed like overkill at the time to have it lashed with so many ropes staked to the ground. The next day, August the 4th, when we saw what was left of the boat I thought I would vomit. The Manny had been so cruelly beaten and tortured by Celia. She had rolled him off his trailer one way before the eye and then back over his trailer the other direction + another complete roll and 1/2 to leave him belly up on the edge of the property. It was no less than as if one of my family had been murdered. Today, thanks to the museum, a physical part of the Manny, the business end of him (where the fish were landed) is now on display in the Port Aransas Museum. If you like, you can get on board and sit in one of the deck chairs and imagine slicing through the swells as we pull ahead of the pack on our way out to the Gulf for some trophies....good times, yes sir, they were good times. Visit the Museum or go to Youtube to see newsreels of FDR's visit to waters of Port Aransas: com/watch?v=idmshezweas Photo by Nancy Phillips History repeated During the 2011 Old Town Festival parade, the restore Farley Boat, the Tina, was pulled to remind folks of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1937 fishing trip in Port Aransas waters. Aboard this day was Deno Fabrie acting as FDR, Barney Farley III as Fishing guide Barney Farley and Manny Mathews as his father fishing guide Teddy Mathews. Photo by Pam Greene Bubba Milina's parade entry Page 6 PAPHA Newsletter October 2011