The Lore and History Surrounding 'Steinbeck's Cannon,' a Staple of Harborfest

The sights of HarborFest, one of the highlights of the fall festival season, are familiar for those who attend year after year — teams giving it their all in the whaleboat races; corn-shucking contests; the rows of vendors and food trucks lined up on Long Wharf.

But since the inception of the festival--back in 1963, when it was called by its original name, the Old Whalers Festival--there has been one sound that has defined Sag Harbor’s biggest cultural and traditional event of the year.

The thunderous boom of Dave Thommen firing the black Wincester 10-gauge signal cannon at the start of the Whaleboat races is one of the defining noises — if not the defining moment — of the festival each year. Thommen, a lifelong Sag Harbor resident whose roots go back generations in the community, has been the unofficial “keeper of the cannon” in recent years, not only responsible for firing it at the start of the races, but also keeping a stock of special-order black powder cartridges the traditional yacht-racing cannon needs to be fired.

The importance of the cannon as a part of the festivities has never been in doubt, but the question of who actually originally purchased and owned the cannon and who decided it would be a staple feature of the event to start is the subject of a bit of mystery and mythology, especially now that most of the people who could definitively answer that question have long since passed away.

The cannon is commonly referred to as “Steinbeck’s Cannon,” a nickname it earned, Thommen said, when longtime Harborfest announcer Ernest Schade shared a bit of information about it with the crowd one year.

“He was saying, ‘This was John Steinbeck’s cannon,’” Thommen said in an interview in August, a month ahead of HarborFest, set for September 16 and 17. While there were some off years between when the Old Whalers Festival ceased to exist and the current iteration of HarborFest began, the annual whaleboat races will mark their 59th year as an annual village tradition this fall.

Whether or not John Steinbeck — the famous American author and former Sag Harbor resident who was on the founding committee of the Old Whalers Festival — ever actually owned the cannon is a bit of a mystery.

For many years, it was in the possession of two other longtime Sag Harbor residents: Bob Barry, who died in the early 1980s, and Bob Freidah, who died in 2010. Both were founding members of the Old Whalers Festival and friends of Steinbeck. Thommen said he recalls one year hearing Schade announce that the cannon belonged to Steinbeck, and taking Freidah aside and asking him if it truly was Steinbeck’s cannon.

Freidah’s response?

“He said, ‘Let them believe what they want to believe,’” Thommen shared. “He never really said ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

Bryan Boyhan, who has been involved with HarborFest since [FILL IN YEAR, AND ROLE], shared what he has heard about the cannon and its history as well.

“I remember Bob Freidah explaining to me that there had been two cannons, one that Steinbeck used to shoot off on his property at the start of cocktail hour, largely to annoy his neighbor, I think,” he said. “This may or may not be true, and it may or may not be the same cannon that Bob Barry used.”

While the chain of ownership of the cannon may never be definitively settled, there are plenty of stories and lore associated with its history, and not just at HarborFest weekends.

Tracey Kohnken, Freidah’s daughter, said she always remembered the cannon being in possession of Barry. When Barry died, her father got the cannon, and when he died, Kohnken had it for a while before passing it over to Thommen.

For years, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when she was young, Kohnken worked at Baron’s Cove Marina, which was owned by Barry at the time, and she said the cannon was frequently in residence there.

“The only thing I can remember much about the cannon is that at Baron’s Marina, there was an upper deck where people gathered to have their evening cocktails, and a friend of Bob Barry’s, Dick Olmstead, owned the Whalers Marina, where The Beacon is now,” she shared. “And they also had a signal cannon. So they would shoot the cannons off, annoying each other and everybody in the area. Then the police got called, and they had to stop.

“It was really just them fooling around, shooting the cannon off after they’d had a few drinks,” she added with a laugh.

The cannon also went on one memorable road trip — by water — according to longtime Sag Harbor resident Nada Barry, the owner of the Wharf Shop and ex-wife of Bob Barry.

Barry shared a tale from the early 1960s, when the cannon was put on board her husband’s boat, and she, Bob, Steinbeck and a few others sailed over to Connecticut for the day to meet with Eduard Stackpole, who she described as an authority on whaling, in an attempt to convince him to attend the Old Whalers Festival.

“To my utter amazement, the cannon was mounted on our boat that day,” she said. “We had [John Steinbeck] come with us that day to talk about the Whalers Festival and try to persuade [Stackpole] to come to Sag Harbor, since he was such an authority on whaling.

“The cannon was on our boat, which sort of shook me, seeing it as a front piece,” she continued. “In the olden days you’d have these carvings on the front of the boat and there, sitting on our bow, was the cannon. I have no idea why they brought that cannon on the boat. Maybe they thought they’d announce their arrival or something. John was a real jokester.”

Like others who are still here and who spoke about the cannon and its history, Nada Barry said she was not sure if Steinbeck ever owned the cannon, but said she recalled hearing stories about it being shot from Steinbeck’s property. But a few days after sharing that tale, Barry said her son, Trebor, informed her that the cannon always belonged to his father, Bob Barry, and was mostly kept at the marina, squaring with Kohnken’s memories.

At this point, the details and facts regarding who bought the cannon and who owned it and kept it throughout the early years are almost beside the point. It has long solidified its place in the festival’s history, and everyone agrees it is in the best possible hands with Thommen, who Kohnken said takes impeccable care of it. He has consistently and dutifully fulfilled the role of maintaining it and firing it on the day of the races. He typically sets it up down by the shore, alongside a table on which he spreads out an impressive collection of HarborFest button pins that he has collected from festivals past.

The cannon firing is a tradition not everyone enjoys, strictly speaking. Thommen and Nada Barry both pointed out that small children and dogs — and those who aren’t “traditional boat people” — in particular, do not often have a positive emotional response to hearing it go off.

Those minor objections and discomforts aside, it’s safe to say that as long as the cannon is operative, it will continue being part of the HarborFest lore and tradition for years to come, a loud and insistent reminder of just how important HarborFest is for the community. Thommen tried to put in perspective what the festival means for the village, especially the year-round residents who have been raising generations of families here for years.

“It’s like homecoming weekend, but we don’t have a football team,” he said. “It’s not like it is in bigger towns. If you were raised here and went to school in Sag Harbor, and if you’re going to come home for a weekend, that’s the weekend you’re coming; that’s the local weekend. It’s when I see people I haven’t seen in years and years.”