Town Hall Display Celebrates Boat, Dream and Model

More than half a century ago, George Boston worked two years building a 30-foot ketch named Fiddler's Green on his Paradise Road lawn. 

Stephen Bishop, a friend of Boston's, spent more than 2,000 hours between 1957 and 2013 building a model of the Fiddler's Green.

Now, George Boston's story and Stephen Bishop's fine Fiddler's Green model are on display on the first floor at Town Hall, the exhibit courtesy of the Swampscott Historical Commission.

Stephen Bishop, a retired consulting engineer, met George Boston while he was building his boat in the 1950s. Boston had a dream, to sail around the world by himself.

Between 1957 and until just recently, Stephen commemorated the Fiddler's Green dream by crafting a model of the ketch, working on it from time to time over the years.

"It was a labor of love," he said. Stephen was standing by the display last week with his wife, Jane P. Bishop.

The glass-case display includes the model, boat plans, photographs of George Boston and his boat as well as newspaper clippings and a exhibit description.

George Boston tried twice in the 1950s to sail his ketch around the world, but both times he had to abandon the voyages due to sickness.

Years later he disappeared in a boat in the Bermuda Triangle, Swampscott historian Lou Gallo said in an earlier interview.

In the 1960s during a storm the Fiddler's Green broke from its Swampscott Harbor mooring and crashed on Fisherman's Beach, the local historian said.