Boat-builders the Pomero

establishment at Jacklow and a mill at Charity co-owned by cousins Herman (‘Herbie’) Stoll and Alfred Van Sluytman.

Pomeroon boat-building ‘clans’ included the Brock menfolk: Charlie, Audley, Pelham, Sam, Sonny and Hubert; the Stoll brothers Alec, James, and Joseph with his son Fitzroy (‘Roy’) and nephew John Stanislaus; their cousin Milton Stoll and his sons Hector, Winston and ‘Binks’. The Adams boatbuilding family counted Joseph and his son Carl, as well as Joseph’s brother, John, and his sons Constantine (‘Connie’) and Patrick. Others specialists were Donald Younker, Victor Gamell Jr., Tony Gonsalves with sons Eric (‘Devil’) and Valentine (‘Pai’); Euclit and James Allen, Cecil and Emanuel De Agrella, Joshua (‘Joshi’) Fernandes, Tony Gouveia and Compton Correia-Cabose. The Pomeroon fraternity also included several skilled marine engineers who installed and serviced Kelvin and Petter inboard engines imported from the United Kingdom. Outstanding “engine-men” were Stanley (‘Piro’) Pires, Maloney Brown, Compton Gonsalves and Adrian Garraway.vii A few expatriates are remembered among the group. Barbadians, Captain Ira Sealy and an older brother journeyed to the Pomeroon around 1945 as sail-makers and consultants for the schooner Timothy A. H. Van Sluytman then under construction. A young St. Lucian, called “Ashe”, arrived on a local boat regularly transiting the Guyana-Caribbean shipping lanes during the 1960s and spent several months working at Joseph Stoll’s boatyard at Jacklow.viii

Joseph Charles Stoll (1901-1987) remains a legendary figure among Pomeroon’s illustrious brotherhood of master-builders. His German forebears had acquired land on the Pomeroon in the 1790s and had been slaveholders up to the early nineteenth century.ix Various Stolls had served as colonial government officials and interpreters for Warrau, Lokono/Arawak and Carib speakers in northwestern Guyana.x Significantly, colonial records list an Albertus Stoll, first as Postholder for Pomeroon then as a boat-builder in 1839 with several indigenous people in his household including John Simon “master boat-builder” and Daniel, a Warrau man.xi

Joseph - called ‘Skipper’, ‘Uncle Joe’ and ‘Kaiser’- ran a thriving boatyard at his Jacklow homestead employing as many as a dozen men at a time for large commiss 1930s and ‘70s, he built and repaired h schooners, sloops, ered (tented) and op batteaux, ballahoos By 1945, the carpe boat-builder had d ered the largest w built in Guyana Commissioned by h Ivy Stoll, the 76-t Timothy A. H. Van for Ivy’s father—w masted schooner tha well as inboard en regal hull across t The Timothy Van en vice transporting ric diesel fuel, firew between Guyana, Trinidad but its wo tailed following an fire during June 195 Georgetown. Chief Gonsalves and Garraway, suffered and hands and, after vessel continued it vice.xii Later that schooner was destro Trinidad after a lea gered an explosion Fortunately, the cap owner, Ivy Stoll – a age – all survived.xi

Among Joseph S rable commissions cabin-cruiser Sarnia print provided by M Englishman employ Halcrow & Partner engineering firm Tapacuma irrigat Essequibo during th had been awarded a Mold-Loft Work v course’ from the P International School was reportedly the o follow the complex circulated among Adams returned to Pomeroon-built wat

Stoll and his able Verona, Perfection, Anna Maria (for B Morn, Lady Vivian (owned by Eric Sto Melba and Vernon S Mañana built for Dwarka Ramcharra Reuben Stoby’s lau and Moruca Expre launches—likely Si tured in Vincent Ro British Guiana Le