Chatham Man Dies In Brewster Crash

CHATHAM – Edward Footer is being remembered as the consummate Chatham commercial fisherman, the sort who would switch from gillnetting to clamming or another fishery as demand and opportunity dictated.

“Everybody in the industry knew Eddie,” said fellow fisherman and neighbor Luther Bates. “He was very resourceful.”

The 57-year-old West Chatham resident died Monday in a three-vehicle accident on Route 6 in Brewster. The cause of the crash, in which a truck driven by a 24-year-old Yarmouth man crossed the median and struck Mr. Footer’s pickup and another vehicle, remains under investigation by the Massachusetts State Police.

Friends said Mr. Footer was a hard worker who spent most of his time fishing and clamming, sometimes crewing with other fisherman, including his brother James, and sometimes working on his gillnetter Dorothy Ann, named for his mother.

“He was down here every day,” said Wharfinger Craig Pennypacker, who supervises the town’s commercial fish pier. “Everybody down here is quite saddened.”

Bates clammed alongside Mr. Footer for years, including during the heyday of Chatham’s commercial shellfishing industry in the 1990s. “He was famously an exceptional clammer,” Bates recalled, “one of the best of the best.” Mr. Footer had an innate sense of where to find clam sets. “He was a good guy to have clamming with you.”

Mr. Footer also caught dogfish, black sea bass, skate and whatever species was available. “That was his life,” Bates said. “He was always up for an adventure and to try stuff. That’s the thing about a good fisherman.”

“He was just a really nice guy,” said friend Rene Rutanen. “Everyone is just in shock.”

Mr. Footer enjoyed gardening but kept to himself when not fishing, she said. “He was a solitary guy. He liked to be at his house and go fishing.”

State police from the Yarmouth barracks responded to a report of a multi-vehicle crash in the eastbound lane of Route 6 near Exit 85, formerly Exit 11, at 3:15 p.m. Monday afternoon. According to a preliminary investigation, a 2020 Isuzu truck, operated by a 24-year-old Yarmouth man, was traveling west when it crossed into the eastbound lane and struck Mr. Footer’s 2006 Toyota Tundra, as well as a 1997 GMC Safari operated by a 40-year-old Yarmouth man.

Mr. Footer succumbed to his injuries at the scene, according to a state police statement. The operator of the truck, who was not identified, was transported to the hospital with serious injuries, while the operator of the Safari was uninjured.

The crash remains under investigation with assistance from troopers assigned to the state police collision analysis reconstruction, commercial vehicle enforcement, crime scene services and the Cape and Islands state police detective unit. Brewster police and fire and MassDOT assisted at the scene.

The sudden loss of the well-liked fisherman hit the local fleet hard, Pennypacker said. On Tuesday he retrieved a high flier from Mr. Footer’s boat and placed it on the pier’s observation deck as a tribute.

“He was a great guy. He always had a smile and a wave,” he said.

Mr. Footer is survived by his mother, Dorothy Footer of Yarmouth, his brother James of Chatham and sister Melanie Footer, who lives off Cape.