In addition to being a shellfisherman and running a charter fishing business in the summer, Vanderhoop is the Harbormaster and shellfish constable for the town of Aquinnah on Martha's Vineyard.
His father, William, held the job for more than a decade before Brian took over 1997.
"I'd rather be out here working for myself than working for somebody else," Vanderhoop says as he sorts the catch. "Plenty of shellfish, beautiful place." He is a big man of Wampanoag descent with a boyish face and a ready smile. He takes his job seriously.
**designates Mass. Criminal Justice Training Council and Massachusetts Maritime Academy Certified Harbormaster
In 1998, the name of the town was officially changed from Gay Head back to its former Wampanoag name of Aquinnah by the state legislature.
Many year-round residents of Aquinnah are descendants of the Wampanoag Indians, who showed the colonial settlers how to kill whales, plant corn and find clay for the early brickyards. Much later, these Aquinnah Indians were in great demand as boat steerers in the whaling fleets. It was the boat steerer who cast the iron into the whale. The Aquinnah Indians were judged to be the most skillful and courageous boat steerers of that era.
In those olden times, whales came close to shore for they had not learned to fear pursuit. From near the entrance to his den on the Aquinnah Cliffs, Moshup would wade into the ocean, pick up a whale, fling it against the Cliffs to kill it, and then cook it over the fire that burned continually. The blood from these whales stained the clay banks of the Cliffs dark red. The coals of the largest trees (which Moshup plucked up by the roots), the bones of the whales, shark's teeth, and petrified quahogs that are still found today in the Cliffs are the refuse from Moshup's table. The Aquinnah Cliffs are a sacred place to our tribe. They are imprinted with one hundred million years of history.
