At the end of Main Street in Greenport, so close to the water that you could step out the door and into a boat, sits Preston’s Chandlery as it has for 145 years. While half the town shutters in the offseason, Preston’s is open all year long, every day of the week. On many of those days, someone walks in the door, looks around, and asks proprietor Andrew Rowsom the same question: “What did this used to be?”
He generally gives the same answer: “this.”
On the Waterfront
Preston’s Chandlery sells marine supplies to ship captains, sailors, tourists and locals of all ilk as they have for over a century. They no longer cater to whalers, but today’s clientele can find the lines, charts, jackets and boots that would have done yeoman service on the Pequod.
“We’ve been doing this a very long time and doing the same thing,” says Andrew, whose family has run the store since 1957.
Most days, Peter Rowsom’s two Portuguese water dogs, Calypso, 11, and Skippy, 7, wander amiably across the worn wood-plank floors and through the dry goods. Peter and Andrew are brothers and between them they run the place, with Andrew managing sales and service and Peter the computer-based part of the business, so the dogs often walk behind the counter for some attention, past an ornate cash register that dominates the front of the store. That cash register? It was installed in 1911 (the Rowsoms still have the box it came in) but the century-old machine doesn’t even qualify as original equipment — Samuel Truman Preston founded the store in 1880 — although it still holds neat stacks of actual money, despite being there almost long enough to outlive cash.
A Tale of Two Families
For much of its history, Greenport has been a great place for a marine supply business. At the turn of the last century, yachts owned by the Astors and the Vanderbilts were an important part of Preston’s customer base. During World War II, the boom in Greenport shipbuilding for the war effort resulted in the village’s population rising to 30% more than the current level — 3,250 compared to 2,400 today — and the fleet involved in the local oyster industry were an important part of the customer base.
Two families have run Preston’s since it was founded in 1880: eight decades of Prestons and, since the ‘50s, eight decades of Fagans/Rowsoms. “After World War II, a lot of those shipbuilding jobs moved away,” says Andrew, reflecting on Greenport’s poor economy during the middle of the last century. “That’s when we bought the business.”
The Rowsoms’ ownership of Preston’s began with their grandfather, Frank Fagan, who in 1957 purchased the store with a partner. It was a post-retirement project for Fagan, who worked in advertising in New York City and was an avid boater and longtime Preston’s customer. Fagan told his family that Preston’s was always out of what he needed, so he thought the best solution was to buy the company.
Fagan ran the business with his son-in-law, George Rowsom, and in the ‘60s they created a mail-order business to broaden their customer base for nautical decor, ship models and prints. “My grandfather loved that sort of stuff and he figured a lot of other people did too,” says Andrew. Eventually, Preston’s was mailing a large digest-sized catalog to three million people a year.
Today, Andrew and Peter run the store that was purchased by their grandfather and built by their father. An older brother, Capt. Chris Rowsom, who recently retired as executive director of Historic Ships of Baltimore, also worked at the store before becoming a ship’s captain.
Keeping Up with the Times
For 145 years, Preston’s has navigated the sea of changing customers and a changing world. Although it seems like they have always sold the same things (nautical supplies) to the same clientele (people with boats), a closer examination reveals the truth.
On a recent weekday, two guys entered the store. After browsing for a few minutes, one man, a Bayville resident, stopped in front of a small cannon and asked, “Can I buy the cannon?”
“If you can curl it, you can have it,” Andrew responded.
The cannons — one across from the cash register and aimed at the front door, the other in the shoe department — have been in position for 50 years. Like the bearded, swarthy figurehead hanging on a post by the counter, they’re part of the eclectic inventory accumulated by Andrew and Peter’s grandfather.
“Twenty years ago, most customers came in for things they need. Now, they buy things that they want,” says Andrew.
Cannons aside, Preston’s has long carried nautical clothing, and many of the brands they favor have been around almost as long as the store. “Peter Storm made great Irish wool sweaters. That was always a good line for us,” Andrew says. “We’ve carried Sperry Top Siders [founded in 1935] since at least the mid ‘70s.” Preston’s offers several brands of the distinctive striped fishermen’s shirts, but Andrew’s favorite is Armor-Lux, a French company founded in 1938. “Even in the pandemic when we couldn’t get anything, I could put an order in with Armor-Lux and have it in a week,” he says.
Bilge Pump Prowess, and Then Some
As Preston’s adjusts to the realities of an online world of commerce, the Rowsoms keep their eyes on the things you can’t see on your phone. “Many of the items we sell can be acquired with less effort and maybe even a slightly lower price,” says Andrew. “But there are the intangible aspects of shopping at Preston’s… you may come in looking for a specific item and run into another customer who has practical experience with that item and can give you a real-life review and may even suggest the item next to it on the shelf.”
The store sometimes serves a function that’s equal parts repair shop and living museum. “Last summer a customer brought in a 40-year-old bilge pump that we were able to rebuild on the spot with parts that I’m sure we’d had in inventory since the ‘70s,” says Andrew.
Special service at Preston’s is legendary, too, like for the Shelter Island customer who waited almost a year to purchase a kayak during the pandemic and then had it delivered to a dock near her home by Andrew, who pulled the craft behind his Boston Whaler.
The Greenport stalwart still provides boating services such as mooring and rigging, although they have more of that business than they can handle due to the lack of workers skilled in the nautical arts. “The rigging work has become more significant,” says Andrew. “It’s harder to get people to do that work. At the shipyards, their talent is stretched very thin and it takes a lot of time and effort, finding the right rope, splicing, knots. I replaced every line on a boat… I started a project on Memorial Day and finished Labor Day.”
Andrew lives in Greenport with his wife, Heather, and several dogs and horses. For him, the draw of working in the family business is simple. “If you can make a living, and live out here, it’s probably a good choice,” he says. “Although it’s not a fun place to work when the wind is blowing from the east at 50 miles per hour and the dock is getting torn apart.”
The Rowsoms are a family with salt in their hair and the sea in their blood. Peter, who also resides in Greenport, went away in the ‘80s long enough to get degrees from the University of St. Louis and Southampton University in management information systems. He came back to guide the company’s transition from drawers and file cabinets to computers and processing a thousand orders a day.
Peter’s first Portuguese water dog, Salty, who he jokingly referred to as “partly human,” once tried to follow him while he was crossing the bay in a Whaler to the Shelter Island Yacht Club, swimming halfway there before Peter pulled him out. Even the Rowsom dogs (like all Portuguese Water Dogs) have webbed feet.
There may be another generation of Rowsom ownership, but it’s too soon to tell if the life of the chandler will be the same draw that it’s been for Andrew and Peter. “Peter has a son who works at the ice cream store,” says Andrew. “But he makes more money there.”
