Monument to baymen planned for Theodore Roosevelt Park

Dozens of baymen, local politicians, public officials and Town of Oyster Bay residents gathered at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park on Wednesday to announce a plan to establish a memorial to the baymen who have trawled Long Island’s waters and risked, and lost, their lives in the effort to provide for themselves, their families and their communities.

Baymen have been an integral part of Oyster Bay’s history since the hamlet’s founding; they are named for the body of water that attracted settlers to the region in the mid-1600s. But the last several decades have seen a decline in numbers of the doughty fishermen, due to the difficulty of the job and the overfishing and over-clamming of local waterways. 

The Baymens Heritage Association was founded in 2020 to preserve and honor their history, culture and influence in Oyster Bay and to raise funds for a memorial. The idea was inspired by tragedy, the death that year of Michael Kennedy, a 57-year old Bayville baymen, while he was on the water. 

“After my son, Michael, died in 2020, our baymen asked us to join with them in developing a memorial for Mike,” his father, John Kennedy, the treasurer of the association, said 

at Wednesday’s event. “My family and I agreed, as long as the memorial was built and dedicated not just to my son, but to all baymen all over the country, especially those who had lost their lives working on the waterways.”

The organization has already raised nearly $300,000 of the goal of $525,000 to build the memorial, thanks to the generous donations of local foundations and well-known locals, including the Joel Foundation, the Bahnik Foundation, Nelson DeMille, and Roger and Agatha Burns, as well as smaller donations from residents of the surrounding communities. The money will fund to the construction of a life-sized bronze statue of a bayman pulling his catch into his boat — right by the beach, so the sun will set behind him every night.

The statue will be surrounded by oyster and clamshells and a brick walkway, with the bricks etched with the names of companies, organizations and individuals who donated to the project. Bill Painter, president of the Heritage Association, explained that the group hopes to complete the project in the next year and a half.

“I’m pretty blown away that we’ve already secured almost $300,000 and we haven’t even had a fundraiser yet,” Painter said this week. “I’m glad the community is behind this, and that others have looked at the history of the baymen for all these years and what they’ve endured for many years.”

Another goal of the project is to serve as a reminder of the risk baymen take every time they head out onto the water. Men like Kennedy and Tony Capozzoli, who died off the shore of Tappen Beach in 2022, often work alone, and because the work is physically demanding, mistakes can be deadly.

Doug Rodgers, one of the trustees of the Heritage Association, added that members hoped the memorial would remind the fisherman motoring out to stay safe and be mindful of the risks.

“One of the reasons for picking this site is a lot of baymen leave from the ramp here, and we want them to look at this statue every day and say, ‘Maybe I’m going to be a little bit carefuler today,’” Rodgers said. “‘Maybe I’m not going to do that little risky move that I do 100 times a day when the boat’s still moving.’” 

Local politicians have expressed their support for the project ever since it was presented to the town board in 2022. Supervisor Joseph Saladino and several board members were in attendance on Wednesday, and spoke about the courage and honor of the baymen and their importance to the hamlet over the centuries. 

“This is very personal for us,” Saladino said, “because in this case, this monument not only represents all of those who work on the water, but is a special tribute to one person, in fact, who is one of a number of people who have lost their lives on the water working in this very demanding profession. Honoring (Michael Kennedy’s) legacy, and all of his colleagues who have worked on the water, is the impetus behind this memorial, which will forever remember those who make their living on the sea.”

For information on donating to the Heritage Association project, go to BaymensHeritage.org. The group is a nonprofit, and all of the money that is collected will be used for the monument.