Artist Holden Wetherbee, who came to Block Island in the late 1940s, created murals and paintings for the Highview Hotel that portrayed an island-based fishing industry that would soon go away.

Based on his observations, both ashore and aboard the fishing boat STANLEY, Wetherbee shows us how swordfish were then hunted in Rhode Island waters with harpoons.

This litho, which depicts fish being uloaded, is from a series donated by Jack Lynch, author of "Wetherbee's Block Island - Paintings From the 1940s."

Netting swordfish began to catch on in the 1950s, and by the ‘70s hunting swordfish with “sticks” was just a memory.