THE TAR PIT....

The Tar pit

 

When I was a kid, there was a huge lot behind our house.  It was owned by a fishing company. Ernest Coggeshall..  He spread fishing nets across the rectangle of a lot about 20 acres here  or there.  My mother use to sew the new ones in our house.. I think I already mention that before.. And she sew and repaired the old ones out in that field each summer.. Every spring they would fire up the old TAR PIT…

THE TAR PIT…It was about 12 foot square… and about 6 feet deep, under it was a hole where they started a fire with wood, to heat the pit/tar…  use the scare us kids.. as we heard all kinds of stories about how it was like quick sand.. TO STAY AWAY FROM …..THE PIT… I once snuck up to look in.. and it was tar alright.  It was dry, and cracked… and scary..

 

THE TAR PIT was for tarring fishing nets.  Like I said, my mother sewed the nets together in our living room It was huge, and white and clean… By April she had them all done.. sewing the wings on to the box (the trap) and the funnel to funnel the fish in to the box.

 

Then in April they fired up THE PIT… and dropped the net into the hot tar..  With a crane… they poked it with sticks to make sure it sank down in to the tar.. pushing and pulling to make sure the whole net was full of tar..  and then they pulled up the net and put it on the truck.. The truck would go up and down the field, as they pulled it off and spread it across the grass… It was left there for a month to dry… Also they would do an old net that the tar was wearing off… it also was spread across the field.. Then taken down to the dock to be put on the NOMAD… the fishing boat. And out to the ocean to be placed in the sea with corks bobbing up and down and holding the side up, the wings.. for the fish to follow into the funnel part. Then the NOMAD, would go out in the early morning..  with skiffs they would be placed by the box/trap.. and they would raise up the sides of the box.. until they could see the fish flopping…  The huge spoon like net would scoop them up and put them in to the holding hole in the mid ship.  There would be ice thrown in there.. Dumping load after load of the fish.  Then head back to Newport, to the dock and unload into barrels to go to Providence..

 

But back at THE PIT…. It was the source of scary stories for many years…  Of cats that walked the border, and fell in….never to be send again…  Also of horrors of horrors … some boys throwing cats and junk in there. Much to the disgust of the Coggeshalls as it would get caught up in the nets. I don’t ever recall them skimming thru the hot tar to remove things.

 

I heard there is a whole housing project in those fields now.. Don’t know what they ever did about THE TAR PIT… Don’t know if they emptied it and destroyed it or what.. Don’t know anyone from the old neighborhood that to be able to ask.