“The Little Engine That Could”

Like a down-turned thumb, the Massachusetts peninsula known as Clarks Point projects south from New Bedford into Buzzards Bay. On the point’s western side, bordering Clarks Cove, British forces came ashore in September 1778 and burned what was then known as Bedford Village. Hard times followed. But by 1787, when the village was renamed New Bedford, Clarks Point was home to salt works, woods, farms, and in 1797, the first of several lighthouses. By then it was clear that whaling would power the growth of what became, for a time, the country’s richest city.

The whaling fleet created a market for all sorts of equipment and supplies: barrels, blocks, pumps, sails, tools, rope, spars, and of course whaleboats. Among the sparmakers were William Beetle (1787–1872)—a New Bedford street still bears the family name—and his son Rodolphus, one of the city’s wealthy men. Another Beetle, James (1812–86), established a boatshop and developed a method for the rapid, volume production of whaleboats.

Sometime after 1877, James moved the shop from downtown Eddy’s Wharf to Clarks Point, where he and his wife, Ann Amelia Hathaway, had a little house on what is now East Rodney French Boulevard. Here, James worked with his sons John Henry, Charles Darwin, and James C. Beetle.