This photo was familiar to many long timers in Manchester, but for those who weren’t able to identify this town mainstay it is Bruce Leseine, the “authentic original” proprietor of Captain Dusty’s. Yes, before it was an ice cream hot spot, it was Mr. Leseine’s fish and bait store on Beach Street. Click here to read the first of two parts to his remarkable story, which ran in the Cricket.
From The Cricket's Archives:
You don’t have to live in Manchester long, or walk up Beach Street to Singing Beach, before discovering the yellow shack called “Captain Dusty’s.” Before it became home to some of the best ice cream on the Northshore, it was a renowned seafood shop whose proprietor, Bruce Leseine, became known as Captain Dusty.
Bruce had a very interesting story which we would like to share with our readers over the next couple of weeks.
Born on South Island off the coast of South Carolina in 1905, Bruce moved with his mother, two brothers and a sister to New York when he was 10. Coincidentally, South Island was later named Yawkey Island when the former Red Sox owner purchased it. History is a little murky at this point, but Bruce was discovered by a Long Island doctor as Bruce lay in bed, stranded in a hospital, with malaria. The doctor eventually adopted Bruce and four other children into his home. The doctor’s brother was a Catholic priest in Brooklyn and Bruce spent eight years as the church custodian. At the age of 18 he moved to Boston and began working as a Pullman porter. Bruce recalls, “They sent me to school for six weeks and I learned to cook, cut hair and shine shoes.” His skills as a porter led him into the employ of Albert C. Burrage a millionaire who had a private train car and maintained an estate in Manchester. Bruce traveled the country on “the newest and finest thing in private cars the country had known.” Burrage owned homes in Manchester, Boston and Redlands, California. He regularly transported his polo ponies from the east coast to the west. Bruce recalled that this was a great life as he saw the country and got paid as well.
After the stock market crash of 1929 Bruce found himself without a job as the private train stopped its travels and the porters were dismissed. Bruce found himself stranded in Manchester. He knew he had to find a way to support himself, and he knew even during the Depression people had to eat, so he purchased a rowboat with money left by Mr. Burrage and fished with a handline. The fish he caught he would sell out of a wheelbarrow that he pushed around the town. A customer from Baker’s Island asked him for some fillets and he told her he only sold fish “in the round.” He later visited the local library and learned how to fillet fish which he could sell for a premium.
Bruce opened Captain Dusty’s before the start of WWII and ran it until 1990. During the war, seafood was exempt from rationing and Bruce sold literally thousands of lobsters a year. He fished from his boat “The Dirty Shame” and three times a day visited the crates (traps) he had in place around the north shore. His red and black blocks (buoys) were well known in the area. Bruce said that in all the years he spent on the water he never had any problems with other fishermen because he was black.
Next week in The Cricket: The Real Captain Dusty Part 2.
