History of New Bedford

New Bedford awakening Would you like to live in a grand old house -- a house of character and whimsy -- set amid trees and parks? Would you like to walk to the beach? Would you like to be part of a city of history and    excitement? ...Providence Journal 3/1/04

Would you like to find such a place on the coast of New England -- even if you lack millions of dollars?
Go to New Bedford. Yes, the world's great whaling port that still leads the nation in fishing.
In 2001, Gerald FitzGerald predicted (in "I Didn't Know That! Greater New Bedford's Golden Nuggets -- Historic People, Places and Events"): "When New Bedford wakes, the nation will turn to look as if upon a found jewel. ..."
After the textile industry fled the city, with its attendant riches, the area took on a threadbare look. Yet, Mr. FitzGerald wrote, New Bedford "has stretched out to pluck destiny from the life swirl too often to drowse about much longer. ...
"No small matter that generations of gutsy whalers stared foaming death in the face to subdue thrashing giants. Casks of New Bedford oil so drawn lit the world and lubricated invention.
"No small matter that even as bigotry sprinkled its streets, New Bedford offered shelter to the escaped slave, ripening for civilization the meaning of the word Friend. ...
"No small matter that wave after wave of men, women and children of different skin tones, speaking different tongues ... splashed ashore here to run thousands of humming looms. The warp and woof they wove clothed cities. ...
"No small matter that even today, New Bedford's daring sons quietly float their fate upon the sea, [pulling] from its depths the richest ocean harvest east of the Pacific." Just look at the jaunty boats: restive in port until heading out, yet again, for the North Atlantic.
But what about culture? Well, you've got Melville, of course, and Emerson and Thoreau; the painters Bierstadt and Ryder; Robert E. Lee did architecture here (Fort Taber), and this is where abolitionist Frederick Douglass launched his career. (Robert's Rules of Order was penned not for Parliament but for the First Baptist Church, which suffered from chaotic meetings.) There is a symphony orchestra, a regionally known theater, an art museum and the Whaling Museum -- as much art gallery as explication of the past and the sea.
Maybe most exciting is that creative people are now gravitating to New Bedford, with its luminous air and palatial mills, in which to make art -- not to mention its non-Boston rents. In the gathering of the artists, visual and performing, you can feel ferment.
Walk these stones, smell the salt, lunch at a Portuguese eatery or an elegant fish restaurant. Visit the fishing boats; gaze out over the waters. Pay respects at the Seamen's Bethel (1832) to those lost in the huge maritime enterprise; the simple wooden structure both warms and charms. Take in all the faces -- wood, brick and stone -- of the buildings that tell New Bedford's story.
New Bedford is, as Mr. FitzGerald predicted, reawakening, and it is, as he says, a jewel. But it's not glass-encased. Here are the scratches of wear and of life -- which are its patina.
-- The Providence Journal.....3/1/04