The Gleason Net Shed

This painting by Charles Vickery (1913-1998), noted painter of ships and seascapes, is the only one we know of that depicts a local Saugatuck scene. It is the building which formerly stood on the site of the present day Gleason's store on Water Street.

Interviews with Henry Gleason on Aug-Sep 2011:

"This building was used as a net shed- to keep the nets and other fishing equipment. My grandfather bought that property in 1919. The abstract shows that it had belonged to the Interurban Railway Company. He built the building and fished out of it. My Grampa and Dad had gill nets out in the lake. They also did cement mixing, they did sidewalks and steps, and they even did the foundation for the Big Pavilion.

"My Dad and Grandfather had a fishing tug and they docked at that. My grandfather lived down on Lake Street, and he and his wife would move upstairs in the building in the summer time - there was no heat up there and of course they could not live there in the winter. I don't know if they rented the house or not, probably did. Their house on Lake was two doors from Dykstra's parking lot on that same side of the street; it was right next to Bird Center. They probably had a cook stove at least in the upper floor (which explains the pipe in the one picture). In later years the water came up so high and the footings settled and it kind of got in disrepair.

"My mother and Dad ran a row boat rental, which would have been during the war, say 1942-43. The small boat with the cabin on it was built by my family and named the "Heinie", it was named after me, Henry--- it's a nick-name for Henry. It was sunk there and we eventually destroyed it, probably in the 1960s.

"There was a smaller ice house to the north of it, separated by about ten feet distance. The side walls of the ice house were concrete about 6 feet high poured cement, on top were boards, about 2 by 6's, and between the studs was sawdust poured in for insulation. The whole building was full of sawdust. They used to saw ice out in the river, it would be about 4 to 5 feet thick in the winter time, and they would cut it with ice saws (we've still got some), and they'd push it up a ramp there with a pipe pole, and they'd use it all summer to ship fish in, and sell a little bit to people with an ice box. There were a lot of willow trees planted around there to shade the ice house in the summer.

"My wife and I bought the property in about 1965 -- we took down the boathouse around 1965-66 and built the store. "

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How and when Charles Vickery would have painted the building is a mystery. The photograph of the net shed presented above is cropped from a larger one which has been dated as about 1942, because a section of the fishing tug "Goshorn" was visible in the picture (it sank in Dec. 1943). The stove pipe, seen in the photograph, is missing in the painting, and also missing in a believed later photo by Bill Simmons. Henry's grandfather and namesake died in 1943, and it's reasonable to think that sometime after he was no longer a summertime resident of the upper floor, the pipe could have fallen away without being replaced.

Vickery's talent was evident very early. The late Saugatuck resident Phyllis Pamperien Yoder, sat beside him in High School art class at Lyons Township High School in Lagrange, Illinois, and said it was quite intimidating to see his work and compare it to her own. His official biographies report:

"Vickery once said that the early years found him along the shores of Lake Michigan living in a tent and eating peanut butter sandwiches. "Many hours and many years were spent in all kinds of weather studying wave actions and the color of sky and water. "

In the 1950s, Vickery became closely associated with the W. Russell Button Galleries, and even today his works can be found in the Button Gallery in Douglas.

--contributed by Chris Yoder

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