Cuttyhunk Island - Cuttyhunk Club

Cuttyhunk Club

In 1864 some members of The West Island Club in Sakonnet Point, Rhode Island grew dissatisfied with that club’s regulations. They looked for a place to start their own fishing club. After a visit to Cuttyhunk, these powerful New York gentlemen decided they had found their spot. In 1865, they purchased a large portion of the island, and built 26 "fishing stands"—long, wooden platforms that stretched out from rock to rock into the surf—all around the island. They limited initial membership to fifty men, with a single negative vote of the active members sufficient to bar a man from membership. The admission fee was $300. Eventually, the membership was expanded to sixty, then seventy-five.

Each evening, the members of the Club met to draw lots to determine which fishing stand each would use the next day. Each member employed a "chummer"—a young boy paid to bait the member’s hook with lobster tail, and cast chunks of lobster into the surf to attract striped bass. They paid the chummer $1 per fish caught, or more if the fish were particularly large. Records were kept of the number, size, and location of the fish caught, and by whom. Cuttyhunk gained a reputation for being a prime location for sportfishing, especially for striped bass.

The Cuttyhunk Club gave the Cuttyhunk Church the land to build on in 1880 (the Church celebrated its 125th anniversary in the summer of 2006). Every Fourth of July, the Club would host a party for island residents, including fireworks displays. In 1921, William M. Wood bought out the Cuttyhunk Club’s interest in the island, along with any other land that was for sale. He wanted a place for his young children to summer. He invited other young, wealthy couples who were his friends to purchase summer homes on the island, to provide playmates for his children. The Wood family owns a great deal of the island to this day. Descendants of many of the families who purchased property from Wood still summer on the island annually.