Stuart Vorpahl, Crusader for Fishermen’s Rights

Stuart Vorpahl Jr., a fisherman, historian, former town trustee, secretary of the East Hampton Baymen’s Association, and a descendant of one of East Hampton’s oldest families, died last Thursday at Southampton Hospital. He was 76 and had been undergoing treatment for cancer.

Mr. Vorpahl “was a fierce defender of the rights and traditions of the common people of our town,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell wrote on Facebook last Thursday. “He could spin a tale and recite history at will with a good sense of humor while making his point.”

“When he passed away today,” Mr. Cantwell wrote, “we lost one of the most important advocates for fishermen and local residents.”

Daniel Rodgers, an attorney and advocate for East End commercial fishermen, called Mr. Vorpahl “a man of the ages that we will never see again. He was very easy to underestimate, but he was absolutely brilliant, one of the smartest men I ever met.”

Three times, the bayman was charged with violating state fishing laws, and three times the charges were dismissed. In August 1998, Mr. Vorpahl was charged with one count each of fishing without a commercial license and taking lobsters without a permit after returning to the town commercial dock on Three Mile Harbor. He had 490 pounds of fluke on board at the time, when the daily limit was 70 pounds.

“I abide by the trustees’ permits,” Mr. Vorpahl told The New York Times. “The federal and state licenses are out of the loop.” Mr. Vorpahl maintained that the 1686 Dongan Patent, which established the trusteeor hindrance” by the Department of Environmental Conservation or any other entity. In September, he finally received a $1,000 check from the D.E.C. in restitution for the 1998 seizure.

“Stuart Vorpahl was not born to be a raconteur. He was born first and foremost a man of the sea, a fisherman. It was only through this frustration at bureaucracy and government regulation that he began challenging authority, and he never stopped. He never gave up; he never wavered. You have to admire that about a man. . . . He did this because it was the right thing to do. And he did it for all of us,” Mr. Rodgers said.

Arnold Leo, secretary of the Baymen’s Association, said that Mr. Vorpahl’s “impact really was a profound reminder of the origins of this settlement we call East Hampton Town. Indeed, it really was a fishing and farming village, even as recently as 50 years ago. Stuart was one of several baymen who recognized that some of the changes that had begun to happen were really very dangerous to their traditional, communal way of life.” 

“He was railing at the D.E.C. for years that he did not need a fishing license because of the Dongan Patent,” Hugh King, East Hampton’s town crier and the director of the Home, Sweet Home museum, said. “It was never brought to trial,” a fact that annoyed Mr. Vorpahl given his meticulous preparation for his defense and expectation that his arguments would prevail.

Mr. King called Mr. Vorpahl the embodiment of Samuel (Fishhooks) Mulford, an East Hampton merchant who went to London in 1704 to protest the tax on whale oil. “His opinions came from his knowledge of the trustees and the deep-seated feeling for the little man,” Mr. King said. “Who speaks up for the lone fisherman?”

Stuart Bennett Vorpahl Jr. was born on Dec. 2, 1939, in Southampton to Stuart Vorpahl and the former Helen Bengtson. The Bennett family, from whom he was descended, were among the first settlers here. He grew up on Oak Lane in Amagansett, where his father established Stuart’s as a commercial and retail fish market, and, for a time, on Montauk Highway in East Hampton. He graduated from East Hampton High School in 1957 and joined the Coast Guard shortly thereafter. He served four years on lightship duty, leaving in the early 1960s when his father, also a bayman, began suffering heart problems.

At a dinner-dance held by Southampton Town baymen, he met Mary Cituk, a Southampton native whom he would soon call “my bride,” an affectionate term he used for the rest of his life. “His mother and father knew my mother and father,” Mrs. Vorpahl said yesterday.

The marriage may not have happened at all, however, she said. “He had a passport to go to Sweden to marry a girl there,” someone he had met in Boston when he was in the Coast Guard. “She had gone back to Sweden and he was going to follow, but after that dance he didn’t go too far. He said his parents had it all planned — they didn’t want him to leave.” The couple were married on Dec. 2, 1962, the groom’s 23rd birthday.

Mr. Vorpahl was a certified welder and built several boats, but his passion was fishing. In addition to his tenure as a town trustee and membership in the Baymen’s Association, he was also a member of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, the East Hampton Town Dory Rescue Squad, and its conservation advisory council.

Mr. Vorpahl’s understanding of conservation came from experience, and he made his views known as regulation of commercial finfish harvests increased. In 1985, striped bass were banned from the marketplace after bass spawned in the Hudson River were found to contain dangerous levels of polychlorinated biphenyls. Five years later, the haulseine, a semi-circle of net cast from a dory, was banned.

“To the average sportfisherman,” Mr.

Vorpahl wrote to The East Hampton Star in 1988, “the definition of fisheries conservation is to kill off the commercial fishermen. . . . If conservation means controlling the harvest, New York State has been regulating the wrong group of people for years.”

“The town’s patents are our safeguard,” Mr. Vorpahl wrote to The Star five years later, “as they guarantee our rights to ‘fish, hunt, hawk, and fowl’. . . . Historical documents are not to be trifled with, and no judge has the legal authority to rewrite or ignore the existence of our town’s history.”

Even during his illness, Mr. Vorpahl continued to fight for the rights of residents and East Hampton traditions, often in person at meetings of the town board and trustees. On Sept. 22 he attended a trustees meeting for what would be the last time. After a discussion of lease terms for residents of trustee-owned land at Lazy Point in Amagansett, he was typically direct.

“I sat here listening to an awful lot of fuss and feathers,” he said. “What in God’s name is going on now?” He returned to the lectern later in the evening, when discussion had turned to the dense blue-green algae bloom at Georgica Pond in East Hampton, blamed in part on excessive use of lawn fertilizer and aging septic systems. Property owners were appealing to the trustees to open the pond to the Atlantic Ocean ahead of, and in addition to, their historic twice-yearly schedule.

 “Stick to the original schedules,” Mr. Vorpahl told the trustees, “which were always tied to the migration of fish. All those people who live there have ratted it up. . . . The devil is here,” he warned, “and he has arrived in gangbuster style. But do not open up Georgica Pond because of this situation. Let the people up there suffer, and suffer hard, and they will get together. . . . It’s time to pay the piper.”

He was not finished. “New York municipal law does not apply whatsoever,” was his final message to the ancient governing body. “Courts and judges are very powerful, but there is one thing they cannot do: that is rewrite hitory, yet they’re doing it. For now, they seem to be getting away with it.”

The Rev. Steven Howarth of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, who conducted a funeral service for Mr. Vorpahl on Tuesday, said on Friday that he had  been an active and stalwart member of the congregation. He “would play a role in the church not unlike his role in the community: pay attention to changes. . . . He wouldn’t want us to let go of the old unless the new was going to add something. He was also just a warm, welcoming fellow. New members and visitors to the church often found themselves in conversation with him at our coffee hour after worship. His gift for engaging other folks is something we’re going to miss.”

Diane McNally, a trustee who until this month was the body’s longtime clerk, called Mr. Vorpahl “so wise and so steadfast in his opinions and thoughts on what the trustees represent.” He taught her a lot, she said. “I knew that if I had him supporting whatever I was doing on behalf of the trustees, I was going in the right direction.”

Along with his wife, Mr. Vorpahl’s two daughters survive. They are Christine Vorpahl of Bridgehampton and Susan Vorpahl of East Hampton. Five grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and nine nieces and nephews also survive, as do three sisters, Judith Bennett of Amagansett, Vivian Edwards of Sebastian, Fla., and Eleanor Miller of East Hampton. Mr. Vorpahl’s brothers, William Vorpahl Sr. and Gordon Vorpahl, died before him.

The family welcomed visitors on Sunday and Monday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A reception at the Amagansett Firehouse followed the funeral service on Tuesday.

Mr. Vorpahl was cremated. The family has suggested memorial contributions to the Amagansett Presbyterian Church’s Scoville Hall rebuilding fund, P.O. Box 764, Amagansett 11930 or scovillehall.org, the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, 1 Cedar Street, East Hampton 11937, or the Amagansett Fire Department, P.O. Box 911, Amagansett.