Ellery Thompson was an American sea captain and writer. In 1950 he wrote Draggerman's Haul: The Personal Story of a Connecticut Fishing Captain which described Captain Nick Nelson and other residents of Noank, Connecticut

Noank, Connecticut

Noank is a village and census-designated place in the town of Groton in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,830 at the 2000 census...

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He was a fisherman, a painter of ships and ocean scenes, and a writer and storyteller. He lived and worked in Noank. He was profiled in the The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

 magazine in a 1947 series of articles by Joseph Mitchell. Come Aboard the Draggers was a sequel he wrote which was published in 1959.

The Stonington Historical Society

Stonington Historical Society

The Stonington Historical Society is an organization in Stonington, Connecticut. It operates a museum at the historic Stonington Harbor Light and it operates the Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer House, a U.S. National Historic Landmark.-External links:...

 ran a major exhibit in 2005 about his life and work, curated by Bernard L. Gordon, who had fished with Thompson on Thompson's ship, the Eleanor. The historical society reported:

In his 1947 profile, Mitchell characterized Thompson as a "sad-eyed, easygoing Connecticut Yankee" and as a member of a family that had "fished and clammed and crabbed and attended to lobster traps" in Stonington waters for three hundred years. Thompson is "the most-highly respected captain in the Stonington fishing fleet," Mitchell wrote. Thompson himself fished the waters around Stonington for more than 50 years. What's more, he told wonderful stories, played the trumpet and painted for fun until it began to make him money, too. Born in Mystic in 1899, he retired from fishing in 1958 and died at the age of 88....