stage head n [phonetics unavailable]. DAE ~ (1677-1752), DC (1799-) for sense 1.
1 End of a fishing stage which extends over the water where fish is landed.
[1663] 1963 YONGE 57 [The boat's crew] bring the fish at the stage head, the foreshipman goes to boil their kettle, the other two [master and midshipman] throw up the fish on the stage-head. [1777] 1792 CARTWRIGHT ii, 261 The Hautboy, riding at the stage head, parted her road and drove on shore near the salthouse. 1819 ANSPACH 430 The place where the operation of curing the cod-fish is performed, is a stage or covered platform erected on the shore, with one end projecting over the water, which is called the stage-head. [1833] 1976 O'NEILL ii, 584 As Snow was coming in from the stage-head, Mandeville claimed he stepped aside, and Spring fired the fatal shot. Spring claimed that he was unable to bring himself to do the deed and when he dropped the gun Mandeville picked it up and shot Snow in the breast, from a distance of three or four yards, as the man was advancing from the stage-head. 1863 HIND i, 303 At one end of [the stage] is a wharf, called the stage head, extending far enough into the sea for boats loaded with fish to come alongside of it at low water. 1907 DUNCAN 143 'Twas dark when we moored the punt to the stage-head. 1927 DOYLE (ed) 65 "Three Devils for Fish": O we left the stage-head and we steered her so straight. 1936 SMITH 42 We had our eight crews on board, and everything done but taking in the stage-heads and hauling up the boats. 1957 Nfld Qtly Sep, p. 4 He told Mark, his older brother about it when they were taking up the salt over the stagehead in waterbuckets. T 36/8-64 You were supposed to build your flakes, when you had the collar on; build your flakes, build your stage heads, tar your roof, go in the woods an' cut rines for to cover up your fish. T 175/6-65 An' puttin' out their wharves, what we call stage heads. They'd have the wharf way in on the beach, all o' fifty feet sometimes, with a stage head out. That'd all have to come down in the fall. 1976 WINSOR 96 When they reached their 'stage-head' (wharf), one of the women who had gathered there, looking down at the caplin, said 'Aunt Matilda, you got your caplin.' 'Yes, my child,' she replied. 'Where did you get them?' 'Pouch Island,' she answered. 'Who hauled them for you?' Shaking her head slowly, and with her heart full of thankfulness, she replied: 'I don't know, but it must have been the angel Gabriel, and his brother.' 1979 Evening Telegram 16 July, p. 4 If the producers lose their independence [from the large fish companies] it'll be in the market place and not on the stagehead.
2 Attrib stage-head clerk: sea-lawyer; know-it-all.
1937 DEVINE 49 ~ A dude or prate-box who knows how to do everything except work.
stage-head rail: one of a number of wooden poles fastened one above the other at the end of a fishing stage to form a type of ladder (P 148-76).
stage-head step: see stage-head rail (Q 67-33).
