Dain

I stopped by Allens Seafood in Harpswell. I used to deliver bait there when I drove for Craig. It was a difficult approach and, more than once I almost stuck the truck or backed into a vehicle. But it was one of my favorite stops.

The flies were thick and the unload was strenuous. After each delivery to the wharf boss, "Albert Pogie" I would wander into the office to pick up a check. It wasn't really an office, more like a hovel with jugs of oil and boat parts and tools and paperwork and fly paper hanging from the ceiling. The old man would usually be seated in the corner with a mangy dog or two hanging around. 

Dain was an "old salt". He was Maine. Here is his obituary.

Obituary

Dain Henry Allen died on Sept. 7, 2015, at his home on Lookout Point Road in Harpswell. He was 79 years old. He was a fisherman from the day he could pick up a clam hoe. Yet he claimed to never have worked a day in his life. He simply got up in the morning and went and did what he loved to do. He was hauling his lobster traps two days before he passed.

Over his lifetime, he was involved in nearly every fishery in Middle Bay. Dain dug clams and quahogs. He was the first person in the state to commercially harvest mussels, in essence creating an entire industry. He built the market for mussels in New York by transporting a few bushels to the city for restaurants to try out on their customers. Before that time mussels weren’t considered edible. He was the first to drag for smelts using a net similar to those used for groundfish. He of course went lobstering all his life, and grew to know each ledge and piece of sea bottom where the crustaceans crawled. He also fished for sea urchins, scallops, and crabs. He purse-seined pogies for lobster bait. He went long-lining for halibut, cod, and haddock. Sundays in summer when he couldn’t haul his lobster traps, he often went tuna fishing, bringing home giant bluefin, which at that time were worth nothing so he butchered them with a handsaw and gave the steaks away. 

In the 1960s, his father Henry Irving Allen opened a seafood stand alongside the Harpswell Road. It quickly became a popular spot to buy and eat fresh seafood. Shortly thereafter, they built a wharf on Lookout Point. The operation was called Allen’s Seafood. For the rest of his life, Dain’s day started by going “to the shore.” Over the years, generations of fishermen passed through Allen’s Seafood or as it grew to be affectionately called “Allen University.” It is still operating today. 

Dain is survived by his wife Holly Chase Allen, his sisters Dawn Bichrest and Anne Anderson, a stepbrother Scott Roberts, sons Tom Allen and Albert Rose, and grandchildren Samuel Allen, Kimberly Rose, and Gwendolyn Rose. 

A remembrance of Dain is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 13 at 1 p.m. at Allen’s Seafood on Lookout Point Road. The food will be potluck. His friends should come with a dish and a story to share. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Harpswell Neck Fire and Rescue or to the Harpswell Santa Fund.

Dain told me he build a boat every year. Such a talented diamond in the rough.

I spoke with Holly and she cried when she told me he had passed. He was a relic from the past and I so enjoyed my time knowning him.