Pop Combs 1911-1991
Part 1
George Washington Combs, known to most as, “Pop,” was a man unlike any I had ever known. Aside from his piercing bright blue eyes, he was a mountain of a man, with a youthful spirit that loved to laugh. Although he has been gone almost thirty years now, his spirit re-visits me at the sight of a bay-bird over the salt marsh.
Pop’s family roots date back to the Mayflower. All the Combs’ worked the water for generations. Pop’s life-span began in the age of “Ships of Wood and Men of Steel,” and continued through the age of everchanging technology. Pop always said he was born at exactly the right time in history. Few of us have lived our lives completely immersed in the natural world, as he. Mostly out of necessity and the ability to survive, and flourish. In Pop’s world, practical knowledge and natural intelligence was his best asset.
One spring afternoon Pop and I were heading down the bay. The police boat waved us over, “Hey Pop, do you know what the tide is doing?”
“Sure,” he said “The tide is rising on the bar, falling in the channel.”
In utter confusion, they replied, “Ok Thanks.”
You might think this makes no sense, but it made perfect sense to him, and later to me because it is true.
He was deeply connected to the natural world more than most of us because these connections served him well. He could predict weather and tide flow by noticing the slightest, almost imperceptible variations in the wind. Whether it was clamming, scalloping, catching bait, or shooting ducks, seasonal and lunar cycles made recurring natural events predictable, allowing him to be successful at the task at hand. He lived twelve months of the year on the bay, reading it like a book and harvesting what he wanted as if it was a walk through the supermarket. His chosen lifestyle afforded him a peaceful satisfaction with life. His heartbeat was in concert with the rhythms of the natural world. Understanding the elements of nature’s ebb and flow, moving with them, rarely fighting them. His inner peace was intoxicating. It was Albert Einstein who said. “Look deep into nature, then you will understand everything.”
The Combs family settled in Freeport, Long Island in 1640. Born in 1911, Pop lived the first thirty years of his life in Freeport, immersed in the extended family of a close-knit maritime community. As a boy, he would row his skiff to the barrier beach to hunt and fish. His father, Captain Alvin J. Combs, had a bay house on the beach, not far from the Little Stone Creek bay house I am trying to restore. It was used year-round as they worked the bay and provided essential shelter when bad weather hit. The Combs’ were industrious, independent, and fearless. They worked the waters as baymen, boatbuilders, rum runners, as well as fishing and hunting guides for the Guggenheims and other industrialists. They survived when there was nothing, and there was nothing they couldn’t or wouldn’t do to provide for their families.
Prohibition was a colorful time in Long Island history for watermen. The storied adventures and antics that played out with Pop and his father during that time still survive today.
Heavily laden rum supply ships sailing up from the Southern Islands lined up on “Rum Row,” three miles off Long Islands’ shores, all looking to off-load their cargos. Coast Guard Picket boats were on patrol, trying to prevent local rum runners from delivering the goods and making their fortunes. Between international waters and secret drop points, these local rum runners and the Coast Guard played cat and mouse.
Rum captains, like Bill McCoy, wanted to employ watermen to carry their rum to secret on-shore delivery locations. Watermen, like Pop and his father, signed up.
It was a dangerous but lucrative business chosen during hard times. Baymen knew the waters better than anyone. They could navigate through the maze of shallow water channels slipping past the Coast Guard in the dark of night, rain, fog, and snow.
There was so much competition on “Rum Row” one of the supply captains decided to give a free case of rum to local baymen to keep them coming back. Captain Bill McCoy was famous for that. At one point, he decided to raise a basket up the mast, so incoming runners knew who he was. Other Rum Row captains got wise to this and also raised a basket up their masts – hence the expression, make sure you deal with the “Real McCoy.”
Pop, as a teenager feeling adventurous, once rowed a small skiff out to “Rum Row” to pick up a load. He recalled it was a calm night, and was surprised, from three miles offshore he could hear the train coming down the tracks on the mainland. He returned home undetected by the Coast Guard but not by Captain Alvin J. Combs, who was not happy with his son’s endeavor.
So much rum was getting through, Coast Guard Picket boats started mounting a canon on the bow. They did catch a few rum-runners, very few, and even managed to blow the stern off one rum boat they chased into Jones Inlet.
During Prohibition, boat builders in Freeport were building two boats side by side, at the same time, under the same roof — one for the Coast Guard, and the other for the rumrunners — both boats purportedly designed to outrun one another.
It was common practice for rum runners to carry $500 in cash in the top pocket of their work shirts. That was the agreed cost to buy off the government man if you were caught. A.J. Combs was said to have carried that $500 in his top pocket for many years after prohibition ended. It was a business that only lasted a short time, but the stories are still told today.
Life on the bay changed with the onset of World War II.
To be continued…