Bob Doxsee, Jr. is a walking, talking, and entertaining connection to Long Island’s commerce and societal history.
Born and raised in Freeport, NY, Bob ran The Doxsee Sea Clam Co., one of the oldest family-owned and operated seafood businesses in New York State for decades.
The yarns he spins about the colorful Doxsee family members and the characters who worked for them will rope you in, to the point where you can smell the sea air and taste the salt in the water.
The Doxsee family presence in America dates back to 1743, when a 21-year-old Thomas Doxsee emigrated from England to Massapequa Brook in Huntington. His son Archelaus moved to Islip where James Harvey Doxsee (Bob Doxsee’s great grandfather) was born and, eventually, created an enterprise that would involve subsequent generations of Doxsees’ in the clamming, fishing and canning industries up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
Bob Doxsee, Jr.’s speaking presentations are a lively combination of historical pictures, legendary tales of men and women and a reflection on how much life and business has changed on Long Island over the past 150 years.
His well-attended and well-received talks presented at local libraries and historical societies captivate the audience as only someone who was there can. Attendees come away with a greater understanding of what it was like to live off the sea on Long Island’s South Shore in the late 1800s and throughout the 20th Century.
“James H. Doxsee was perhaps one of the first to recognize that clamming could become a major industry for Long Islanders, creating hundreds of jobs. Bob is looked upon as one of the last authorities on western Long Island’s fishing heritage, and the last of a generation that saw fishing as a way of life, rather than a job.”
– Nancy Solomon, Executive Director of Long Island Traditions