In most years, the Lash family watches the Friendship Day parade from Howard and Lois Lash’s lawn in town.
“It’s probably the biggest family in Friendship,” Winfield Lash said.
For the 2012 parade, the seven Lash brothers were part of the main event watched by a large contingent of relatives including some of Winfield’s seven children, 17 grandchildren and more than 20 great grandchildren.
Wanda Benner said the seven Lash brothers were a natural choice to act as Grand Marshals for the July 28, 2012 Friendship Day Parade.
“The theme this year was memories – Friendship Businesses Old and New.” Benner said July 30. “We wanted to find what was the oldest Friendship business that was still operating.”
She said parade organizers were fairly certain that the boatbuilding enterprises of the Lash family would qualify. “Most of them are still alive and they all worked for the business at one time or another,” Benner said.
When Lash Brothers Boat Shop began operations on Martin Point Road at the head of Hatchet Cove in 1927, there were eight brothers. Today, Wesley Lash, son of the oldest of that earlier generation, has his own boat shop on Cushing Road, with his son.
Wesley’s father, Winfield Lash is 94 years old and still lives next door to where the boat shop stood until it was destroyed by fire in 1987. Originally, the shop belonged to his uncle, Scott Carter.
Winfield and brother Doug bought the shop from Carter’s widow and partner, and employed the rest of their brothers, on and off.
Philip, who called himself “one of the younger ones,” is in his early 80s now. He worked for the Lash Brothers shop until deciding to strike out on his own.
“They would build anything,” Philip Lash said. He said the Lash Brothers shop built a lot of small draggers in the 50-foot range, Friendship sloops, lobster boats and at least one schooner, the Joseph Russel.
Philip Lash said he built fiberglass boats, but that the shop at Hatchet Cove built in wood and fiberglass.
Winfield Lash said he prefers wood.
“I was always around wood,” he said. “When they made fiberglass, I didn’t like it very much.” Over the course of his career, Winfield Lash built more than 100 boats. The last one he was working on, the day of the fire, was fiberglass.
Lash’s first experience with boats came as a child, accompanying his father on freight runs from Friendship to Portland. He remembered tying up his father’s schooner at the B&M Baked Bean factory.
For three years, when he was younger, Lash was supervisor of construction at Billings Diesel and Marine in Stonington, overseeing the work of 140 men.
Back in Friendship, Lash Brothers employed a dozen workers, often providing temporary employment to fishermen and other boatbuilders who were available when a push was on.
In addition to building boats from scratch, Winfield Lash taught himself how to draw the lines that lead to final construction and developed plans for the reconstruction and alteration of other builders’ designs. The shop built six Friendship sloops, all of which are still floating, he said.
Winfield Lash said the prospect of being in a parade was a bit embarrassing, but all seven Grand Marshal brothers in three adjoining convertibles greeted friends and neighbors during the Friendship Day Parade, July 28.
Winfield along with brothers Harold, Paul, Howard, Doug, Philip and Robert, are and remain an important part of the town’s living history.
