Chapter I: Part 1

STORIES
OF
CAPE COD

_by_
JACK JOHNSON

A “DISCOVERY BOOK”...

Romantic Facts of All the Cape Cod Towns

Copyright 1944
by JACK JOHNSON

Designed and printed by
THE MEMORIAL PRESS
Plymouth, Massachusetts

Cover design by
Leo Schreiber

First Printing August 10, 1944
Second Aug. 25, Third Sept 11, Fourth Oct. 1, 1944
Fifth June 4, 1945

_For additional copies of this book write_:
Jack Johnson, Yarmouthport, Cape Cod, Mass.

_CONTENTS_

Bourne 1

Sandwich 5

Falmouth 9

Mashpee 13

Barnstable 17

Yarmouthport 21

Dennis 25, 29

Brewster 33

Harwich 37

Chatham 41

Orleans 45, 49

Eastham 53

South Wellfleet 57

Admiral Nimitz 61

Truro 65

Pioneer Trans-Atlantic Steamship Service 69

Provincetown 73

Cape Cod Fishing 77

Cape Cod Beacon 81

First Glider Flight in United States 85

BOURNE----

_300 Years Ago The Pilgrims
Visioned Cape Cod’s $50,000,000
Canal_

Myles Standish, the Pilgrim’s engineer, first conceived the idea for the Cape Cod Canal in 1624. Governor Bradford wished for the development in order that his fellow pioneers could better carry on their fur trade with the Dutch in New York. He craved to “avoyd the compasing of Cap-Codd, and those deangerous shoulds, and so make any vioage to ye southward in much shorter time, and with far less danger.”

But, the actual building of this eight-mile waterway was delayed for 300 years. August Belmont took over in 1909, and the job consumed five years and $13,000,000. Later the Government acquired the Canal--to date the total cost, including periodic dredging and other improvements, is said to be around $50,000,000.

The Canal has proved to be Cape Cod’s greatest contribution to the winning of the war.

George Washington saw its military value. In 1776, when he was in Boston, planning to send troops to New York, Washington observed that this “interior barrier should be cut in order to give greater security to navigation, and against the enemy.”

BUILT TO PREVENT SHIPWRECKS

Often the military angle is mentioned in the long and hectic history of planning the project, but primarily the Canal was visioned to safeguard shipping in an era when shoals and fogs off this coast took a great toll of vessels and lives. Also, by speeding up traffic, the Canal was intended to help in the development of New England commerce.

Prophetic words were uttered by Belmont’s survey engineer while the construction was under way. These are found in some interesting material passed on to me by Bill McLaughlin of the Hotel Onset. “The Canal as planned,” said Engineer Parsons, “is quite sufficiently deep to take all the smaller vessels of the Navy, even to cruisers.... There might, however, arise a contingency when the Canal would be of the greatest value to the country in time of war.”

On the shipwreck problem hereabouts in that day, Parsons noted: “Of all the wrecks occurring on the whole Atlantic coast from Eastport, Maine, to Key West, Florida, one-quarter take place in the short stretches between Chatham and Provincetown.”

Numerous costly attempts were made to put through the waterway, and failed, before Belmont entered the scene. As the story goes, the financier was moved largely by sentiment, for when he functioned with a silver spade at the ceremonious opening of operations it was on land that once belonged to his ancestors.

Prospects looked bright for another promoting group just before the Civil War. It appeared the Government would provide a large portion of the necessary funds. But negotiations halted when the war started. At a later stage some 500 Italian laborers were imported to Sandwich from New York and they began work scooping out the ditch, using shovels and wheelbarrows. This lasted only a few weeks. Another means employed was a dredge with a chain of buckets, 39 in all, operated by two steam engines. Lack of capital halted this venture; the dredge was burned and sunk in the Canal at the spot where operations had started.

FAITH TRIUMPHED IN CRISIS

August Belmont’s engineer found quicksand in the borings when he began his survey. He was about to write a report to his boss and recommend that he save his money. But another engineer whose heart was in the Canal dream argued warmly that the quicksand was confined to the center and not over the entire bed of the proposed canal. A glacier had ploughed its way into the waters of Cape Cod Bay, cutting a furrow through the valley between Sandwich and Buzzards Bay.

The quicksand came of this glacier, declared this authority, and he added it was not general enough to be a serious detriment. His advice was taken, he was proved correct, and Belmont’s engineer submitted a report that was favorable.

On the south bank of the Canal, in Bourne, is a replica of the trading post, “Aptucxet”, which rests on the very foundation stones that were laid in 1627. Here the first business between New York and Eastern Massachusetts was carried on by the Pilgrims who then were intent upon getting money together to settle with their backers in London who had financed their voyage to the New World.

Meanwhile, Governor Bradford was observing the Indians paddle their canoes up Manomet River, then portage them over a stretch of land to Scusset Creek and finally navigate on into Cape Cod Bay. It caused him to think of the advantage of having a Cape Cod Canal.

SANDWICH----

_Joe Jefferson Described It As
“The Handsomest Town Out of
England”_

Joseph Jefferson, great actor of his time, called Sandwich, Cape Cod, “the handsomest town out of England.” And even today it is interesting to note that Sandwich--the first town settled on Cape Cod--imparts more of the nostalgic feeling than any other community on the Cape.

Massive trees shade her quiet streets, with their beautiful old homes, and the stranger is conscious of a serenity that places her apart from the modern world. But, Sandwich, founded in 1637 and with a present population of less than 2,000 has much to talk about.

The ancestry of President Franklin D. Roosevelt is traced to the historic Freeman Farm, at a junction on Route 28. Alvin Page Johnson of Swampscott, Mass., an accredited genealogist, definitely connects the President with Cape Cod ancestry and beyond to John Howland, a Mayflower passenger. Edmond Freeman was among the ten men who came from Saugus and settled Sandwich. He, according to data discovered by this genealogist in 1934, was found to be one of the early American ancestors of our President. Back of the Freeman Farm are boulders with bronze tablets marking the graves of Edmond and his wife, Elizabeth.

DANIEL WEBSTER’S HAVEN

“Rip Van Winkle” lies in another Sandwich grave. Joe Jefferson had a strong desire to live in Sandwich. Both he and his friend, President Grover Cleveland, negotiated to buy houses there, but were unsuccessful. Historians drop the hint that this might have been because the righteous Puritans of the community did not want an actor in their midst. At any rate it is recorded on good authority that Jefferson remarked to a friend: “They wouldn’t let me live in Sandwich, but they can’t prevent my burial there.”

Daniel Webster, great statesman, spent some of his pleasantest hours on annual fishing and hunting excursions to the streams and marshes of Sandwich. Daniel Webster Inn, the first stagecoach stop for Cape Cod travellers of yore, and still providing food and good cheer, was named for him. Webster put up there. He drank his rum straight and when he was not engaged in camaraderie with the townsmen in the inn’s quaint little taproom, the jug was delivered by a lift direct to his room.

Millions of American kiddies of this and past generations can feel indebted to Sandwich, for here, also, is the birthplace of one of their favorite authors. Thornton W. Burgess was born in Sandwich in 1874 and here he discovered the beloved little characters of his animal kingdom, whose adventures he put into print and which have lulled many a child into slumberland. Thornton Burgess had to put a little boy of his own to bed after his wife’s death, and that’s how he first began discovering his delightful little characters of the woods and fields.

The great meat packing industry, Swift and Company of Chicago, stemmed from the brain and tireless toil of Gustavus Franklin Swift, who was born in Sandwich in 1839. Gustavus’ ambitions came to light in early boyhood when he bought hens from his grandfather at 40 cents each, then sold each hen at a profit. At 16 he bought a heifer, slaughtered it and peddled the meat. At his death Swift and Company was capitalized at $25,000,000. Building the foundation for the business on Cape Cod, Gustavus would drive pigs through the streets of Hyannis, aided by a well-trained Collie dog. A housewife would come to the door, single out the porker she wanted, and the dog and master would then thread through the procession and work together to corner the pig until the transaction was completed. The Swift family moved to Barnstable in 1861. Tools used on Cape Cod in the beginning of the great meat business were collected in Barnstable some years ago and now form a prized collection at the Swift plant in Chicago.

FAME OF SANDWICH GLASS

Sandwich, herself, was in the big industry bracket. Indeed, the products of the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company have given the community national fame, and this fame lives on today. Sandwich glass, by virtue of design and distinctive colorings, is prized by collectors all over the country. Here the largest glass-works in the country flourished in 1850, with 500 master-craftsmen and a weekly output of 100,000 pounds. There is the legend that the first skilled glass blowers were from England and were smuggled into this country in barrels at a time when they were forbidden to enter this country. The famous plant is in ruins now. It closed down after a strike in 1888, though, at that time, machine-made glassware, turned out in Pittsburgh and Chicago, was entering into competition with the wares fashioned by the original Sandwich artificers.

Humor and curious laws and prejudices lighten the pages of Sandwich history. A story that always gets a chuckle is that of “Seth the Peddler” who, in 1669, was ordered out of town “lest he might become a public charge.” Seth Pope shook the dust of Sandwich, but before he left he announced he would be back and he would “buy up the town.” Which is exactly what he did. Thirty years after making his bitter departure, Seth, no longer the humble peddler, strode back into Sandwich and proceeded to purchase nearly all the land in the town. He built two houses and gave one each to his sons, Seth and John. Then Seth Pope left Sandwich for good after letting it be generally known “he would not live in the damn town.”

And, romancing was decidedly different in those olden days of Sandwich. Richard Bourne, minister to the Mashpee Indians, lost his wife, Bathsheba. Not long after, he wrote to a widow who was to be his second wife: “I have had divers motions since I received yours, but none suits me but yourself, if God soe incline your myndie to marry me ... I doe not find in myselfe any flexableness to any other but an utter loatheness.”

FALMOUTH----

_The “Marrying Town” For
New England’s Greatest
Military Camp_

When New England’s greatest military camp was developed almost on Falmouth’s doorstep, this very picturesque old community, with its rich store of whaling lore and seafaring color, became the busiest and most exciting center on all Cape Cod.

Falmouth has had a notable number of wartime marriages in the New England area. Many and many a Camp Edwards soldier, before embarking for foreign duty has been joined in wedlock. And, these young people who made the most of a few fleeting hours have come from widespread parts of the country.

The time factor also was precious in Falmouth romances of olden days. There’s the story of the sailing-ship master of the last century. His wedding plans were all arranged when he received orders to sail out of New Bedford to Germany with a cargo of oil. A friend arranged to have his beloved and the parson ready at the hour when the vessel would arrive off Falmouth.

No time was lost. The skipper rowed ashore and sped to the new house he had built for his bride. The ceremony was performed, he kissed his bride farewell and an hour later was over the water again, resuming a voyage to Bremen.

OUTSTANDING IN HISTORY

Falmouth is one of the most interesting places, historically, on the Cape. The first house was built in 1685; the town meeting custom was established in 1686; the first church was erected in 1796. The Village Green, most attractive feature of the town, is linked with the colorful course of Falmouth history.

Opposite the Green is the old meeting house; in its spire is a bell cast by Paul Revere. An inscription reads: “The living to the church I call; And to the grave I summon all.” A faded receipt is in a local bank, bearing the date 1796 and giving the purchase price as $338.94. The Green had its whipping post. Not many years ago the top of the post was found in the attic of a house facing the Green and was removed to the Public Library to go on exhibition.

Outstanding in Falmouth’s story is her rich fund of whaling lore. The Town’s Museum has a generous assortment of articles reflecting the great activity in this line: navigation instruments, revolvers used to put down mutinies, logbooks, handcuffs, harpoon and many ship pictures.

Elijah Swift, who began as a carpenter, is rated the most useful citizen in Falmouth history and he is credited with first bringing prosperity to the town. Elijah Swift knew wood, hence his services were highly valued when he was engaged to supply live oak for the shipbuilding program of the American Navy after the War of 1812. He recruited a large number of Falmouth men to go South on the live oak operation and, incidentally, he was successful in fighting the dreaded “yellow jack” disease in the swamp country. This business was destined to run into the millions.

INTERESTING PERSONALITIES

A living reminder of Elijah Swift’s works are the beautiful, tall trees surrounding the Village Green. He was permitted by the town, in 1832, to plant, at his own expense, the saplings that developed into these giants. The first summer after the planting was unusually dry. Elijah Swift hired a man to carry water daily from Shiverick’s Pond to keep life in the saplings, and this loving care he gave at the outset makes this scene today “a glory to the community.”

Falmouth has had, and still has, many people who have done distinctive work in their lifetime. Katherine Lee Bates, who wrote “America, the Beautiful,” was Falmouth-born. Edward Herbert Thompson, great American archaeologist, who did some of the most important work of bringing to light the facts of ancient American life and culture, was a Falmouth native.

Coonamessett Ranch, in the township of Falmouth, is said to be the largest ranch east of the Mississippi. Charles R. Crane of Chicago started cultivating it in 1915, to demonstrate the agricultural possibilities of Cape Cod. But he had an idealistic aim that was thwarted by the outbreak of the last war. The great acres were to have been settled by carefully selected families of the Russian peasantry, and the owner was intent upon carrying through his ideas for developing the possibilities of the less fortunate Russian folk.

MASHPEE----

_Where the Wampanoag
Indian Tongue is Still
Chanted_

Mrs. Dorcas Gardner, of Wampanoag Indian descent, sits in a low-ceiling little room mellowed from many years of simple living, and she speaks with the wisdom of her 74 years.

“Why? I come up against the word Why so often I have to let it go by. The Lord knows best. It should be a better world after this war. When you go to the lowest, there must be an uplift somehow. We’ve seen so much of the bad we’re bound to have some good come out of it.”

Mashpee (originally Massapee) is steeped in Indian lore. Here is Cape Cod’s smallest town. It has a population of 405. George Perlot proudly points to the town’s remarkable service record.

From the tent days Camp Edwards has had close ties with little Mashpee. Indeed, 90 per cent of its airport is on Mashpee land. But this historic settlement has always had more than a local reputation, as far back as 1658 when Richard Bourne began his evangelistic work among the Indians. Mashpee election returns are watched for and featured in the city newspapers, because they are the first to be announced in every State or Federal polling.

OLDEST CAPE COD CHURCH

The Indian Church, oldest house of worship on Cape Cod, is a rare landmark; likewise the Indian burial ground, whose oldest gravestone marks the resting place of Chief Popmonnett, who died in 1770 at the age of 51. The fame of historic Hotel Attaquin, a whaling skipper’s enterprise, is such that someone, in 1910, filched the register which bore the signatures of Daniel Webster, Joseph Jefferson, Charles Dana Gibson, Grover Cleveland, John Drew and Finley Peter Dunne.

Two men survive in Mashpee who still speak the Wampanoag tongue--Ambrose Pells and William James. One or the other intones the primitive language over the grave when a Mashpee resident of Indian descent is given to the earth.

In 1711, the Rev. Daniel Williams of London left a fund in charge of Harvard University for the religious education of Indians. Mashpee became the beneficiary of this largesse. Richard Bourne taught the Indians here to govern themselves; they were authorized to hold their own courts, try criminals and pass judgment. Further, Bourne caused a law to be invoked whereby “No land could be bought by or sold to any white person without the consent of all the Indians, not even with the consent of the General Court.”

A Provincetown preacher, one Mr. Stone, appeared before the Mashpees long ago and, in his sermon, laid particular stress on the evils of alcohol. One of the Indians was asked how he liked the sermon. He answered:

“Mr. Stone is one very good preacher, but he preach too much about rum. Indian think nothing about it; but when he tells how Indian love rum, and how much they drink, then I think how good it is, and think no more ’bout the sermon, my mouth waters all the time so much for rum.”

ANCIENT RITES RE-ENACTED

Another in the line of preachers who occupied the Indian Church pulpit was Rev. Phineas Fish of Sandwich. He annoyed his early American parishioners, because, while accepting a salary, he held church for the whites and discouraged attendance by the Indians. At a meeting of the elders some strong sentiments were expressed and ultimately Mr. Fish was forcibly ejected, after which “the lock on the door of the chapel was changed.”

Mrs. Gardner many years ago originated the Richard Bourne Day ceremony, in celebration of the ordination of the pioneer missionary. In August of each year the colorful pageantry of braves in their great feather head-dresses, their squaws with beaded buckskins, tom-toms, tepees and even papooses was witnessed at the Indian Church. The Indians came from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and other parts. Their ancient rites were re-enacted and they exchanged reminiscenses of their family lines, while large crowds of white visitors looked on and let their imaginations roll backward. The war came and the curtain was drawn--for the duration, at least--on this picturesque ceremony at the 257-year-old Indian Church in Mashpee.

BARNSTABLE----

_Revival Of A Great Cape Cod
Tradition Is Taking Place
In Hyannis Village_

In olden days New England’s great clipper ships had a world reputation. Fortunes of the American merchant marine were at the crest in the 1850’s, when, also, Cape Cod’s memorable pageant of clippers and stalwart shipmasters were in full lustre--notably, the famous Red Jacket, which made the record crossing of the Atlantic on her maiden voyage in 13 days and one hour.

Today the spirit of this great tradition is revived here with a new, even more widespread, sort of drama. The historic Massachusetts Maritime Academy has established a “permanent shore base” at Hyannis, Cape Cod, to school officers for wartime duty in our merchant marine and Navy and--after the war--to train young men for technical jobs at sea or ashore.

This is definitely the most newsworthy and promising wartime development in Cape Cod affairs.

OLD SEAFARER GIVES ADVICE

The 100th class of this old school which had its beginning in the era of wooden ships and iron men was graduated in 1944 with colorful and impressive ceremonies. A full dress drill by a battalion of midshipmen on the Academy parade grounds provided a stirring scene for some 500 fathers and mothers and relatives. The graduating class was the largest in the 51 years of the institution. Governor Saltonstall, Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald, U.S.N., Commandant of First Naval District, and other notables bid Godspeed and counselled the new officers who were to join Academy comrades scattered over the world in all theatres of the war.

Particularly interesting was the meaty advice Admiral Theobald offered the new officers out of his own 40-odd years of seafaring experience. He said:

“You’re going to have to spend endless days and months in the sameness of only a cloudless sky above you and a smooth sea beneath you. Don’t get in a seagoing rut. Get an avocation as soon as you can. I would suggest that you develop the habit of doing heavy reading on international relations. Your nation is in the middle of world politics now and will never recede again from world relationships.”

“We, as a nation, have been too prone to accept the notion that other nations have the same psychological reactions as ours. You will find it a very interesting avocation to get books and study other people of the world. You must go back to find out what makes them tick. And, also, this reading will enable you to determine whether your own statesmen are doing a good job.”

He made a point of impressing the graduates that a man in war never gets over fear. In a crisis of danger they would be afraid the first time, and the hundredth time, although each time they would learn more of what to expect.

GOVERNOR SEES FUTURE

Governor Saltonstall spoke of America’s plans for a great merchant marine fleet, and said, “I congratulate you on the opportunities that lie ahead of you.”

Capt. Walter K. Queen, U.S.N.R., Ret., chairman of the Academy’s board of commissioners, announced that the total number of Massachusetts lads trained for officer duty since the Academy was founded now was 2,277. In keeping with a long-time custom, the Boston Marine Society, established in 1742 and the oldest marine society in the world, presented its prize to Vincent Francis Leahy of Brookline as “the graduate excelling in those qualities making for the best shipmaster.” Prizes were presented also to other outstanding students by the Society of the War of 1812 and the Massachusetts State Society.

Cape Cod, pioneered by men of the sea, is an appropriate setting for a modern school of shipmasters. The future looks extremely promising and the Academy, hardly established on the new site, is steadily expanding. Its erstwhile students are in the thick of action in this war, and many of them saw the worst of it while “delivering the goods” to Murmansk. Some have been killed, some wounded and some decorated for valor.

Cape Cod and New England at large will hear much about the Massachusetts Maritime Academy as time goes on, for the signs point to increasing heights of achievement by the American merchant marine after peace is won.

Capt. Claude O. Bassett, U.S.N.R., is the Academy superintendent. A mild and good-humored veteran and thoroughly schooled and seasoned in the profession of the sea.

YARMOUTHPORT----

_Ichabod Paddock, Whaling
Instructor--and “Wes” Baker,
Guadalcanal Hero_

Tom Baker is mail carrier for the Yarmouthport, Cape Cod, postoffice. An elderly man, wiry, with quick-moving gait, he makes his appointed rounds in fair weather and foul. A younger man who held the job is in a war plant.

When Guadalcanal was taken, Tom Baker’s son--19-year-old Pvt. 1st Cl. Thomas Wesley Baker--raced up the beach in the first invading wave of Marines.

I talked with him when he came home--an invalid, with jungle malaria in his system. His Guadalcanal experience had cost him 40 pounds.

It was 3 o’clock in the morning when the Japs advanced up the beach. Wes Baker was taut and scared, because this was to be his first experience in actual combat.... “We saw them first. They came in columns of four. The highest ranking officers were right out in front. Later, we found that none of the Japs was less than corporal and in their clothing was a lot of American and English money. They were picked troops and the biggest Japs I ever saw, all of them close to six feet tall. They came through a little lagoon, waist high in water. There wasn’t any barbed wire up, so they kept coming on. They were no more than 200 yards away when we opened fire. There were 1500 of them and they were all killed. We lost 29 and 80 were wounded. We’d charge and they’d go into the water, trying to swim out of range. We picked them off like ducks. When their officers were killed, they didn’t know what they were doing.”

HOME FRONT CHARM

More advanced in years than mail carrier Tom Baker are Miss Saidee M. Swift and her sister, Mrs. Caroline Burr, of the Home Front. They are in the candy-making business.

A large and pleasant old house stands at the bend of the road just as you enter upon the beautiful vista of great elms in Yarmouthport. A weather-worn sign--Saidee Swift’s Candies--is on a tree out in front. For 20 years Saidee Swift has turned out fine candies and travellers from all parts of the nation have knocked at her door. Her chocolates have gone to China. Governor Saltonstall is one of her best customers. Her trade has included judges, society folk, artists, writers and countless prominent individuals who have visited the Cape. Each Christmas she makes about 200 pounds of candy for faithful customers in distant parts.

Saidee Swift’s technique includes a close watch on the weather and sometimes she waits four or five days for just the right temperature. She says, “In a northeast storm, I can dip splendidly.”

Whaling captains lived in the great houses facing the Yarmouthport elms. In 1691, Ichabod Paddock was engaged to go to Nantucket to instruct men “in the art of killing whales by the employment of boats from the shore.” Not far from Saidee Swift’s is the former domicile of Asa Eldredge, commander of the famous clipper Red Jacket, who made a record voyage from New York to Liverpool in 13 days.

Regular packet service to Boston contributed to the naming of Yarmouthport. There is still an old timer or two who can recall the fierce competition between the Yarmouthport and Barnstable sailing packets and the frequent races to Boston.

WOMEN MOULDED BULLETS

Yarmouthport is a part of the township of Yarmouth, which is considerably spread out, from shore to shore, across the Cape. Not so many years ago some stray bullets were found under the bricks of the hearthstone of an old house that was being demolished. The find was reminiscent of the story of Joshua Gray and his fellow soldiers of Yarmouth. Joshua Gray was captain of the early Yarmouth Militia and an officer in the Revolution, who marched with his men to help Washington defend Dorchester Heights. The night before their departure, women of the town worked in his home until sunrise moulding bullets for the soldiers.

In great grandfather’s time Yarmouthport was the trading center in this section of the Cape, and people came over from Hyannis to do their shopping. Tom Baker’s mail delivery job was first held by John Thacher, who rode horseback and made his rounds once a week. His pay was $1 a day, and some citizens considered this an extravagance. Total postoffice receipts in the town of Yarmouthport for the year 1795 amounted to $26.

The first daily newspaper on Cape Cod was founded in 1893 in Yarmouthport. George Otis operated the _Cape Cod Item_. On the same site the _Yarmouth Register_, weekly newspaper, continues to record the local life, as it did 108 years ago.

DENNIS----

_The “Smoky Gold” Craft Thrived
When America Was Young_

The “smoky gold” story of Cape Cod gives a rare picture of the pioneering spirit and richness of America’s founding days.

Smoky gold was the local name for lampblack, an indispensable base for paints and printer’s ink in the olden days. The little town of Dennis, once a great clipper ship port, was known in those days as one of the world’s greatest sources of lampblack and her precious shipments were in demand in England and on the Continent.

A modern summer visitor, the Rev. Ernest G. N. Holmes of Bethlehem, Pa., brought the story of the great Cape Cod industry to light. While clearing a Dennis farm he had bought for a summer home, the clergyman discovered a stone arch two or three feet above the ground; adjoining it was a stone floor and around its edges the soil was as black as night--a very unusual color for Cape Cod earth.

AN INGENIOUS OPERATION

Subsequent investigation revealed that this was the remnant of a lampblack manufactory, known to the old timers as a Funn. Today this section of Dennis is called Funntown. The Funn was a lamp chimney on Gargantuan lines. Anyone who has used a kerosene lamp knows how annoying it was to have the lamp smoke and smudge the glass. The Funn, however, was erected for just that purpose, only there was no glass and the lampblack formed on the ceiling of the Funn thick enough to be scraped off in layers. Thus, smoky gold was produced.

The relic was found knee-high above the ground, but when the Funn was in working order it stood 18 feet above the ground and over a circular area 20 feet in diameter. It was of stone and brick construction, the top like a great inverted cone. There was an opening on each side. The winds were important to the industry. So, the Funns were always built in pairs, the hearth of one facing due east and the other due north. The prevailing wind on Cape Cod is southwest. The idea was to keep the smoke from escaping outside the Funn.

The smoke first came from fires of pine knots gathered in the surrounding woods. Next, after this supply was cut down, resin was sailed to Dennis from the Carolinas and Virginia. A fuel problem arose when, in 1860, a Civil War blockade cut off this supply. The Funn operators then looked to the coal regions of the Pennsylvania mountains; naphtha, a by-product, was shipped in and this was used up to the last days when the Funns operated.

OXEN CARTED SMOKY GOLD

After the fire was quenched, a man would enter the Funn with a 12-foot pole and a board at the end, somewhat like a hoe. For protection against the showering soot he wore a straw hat with a brim that went beyond his shoulders, and with his long scraper he would reap the heavy coatings of smoky gold. It would be poured into boxes, then taken to an adjacent packing shed, where the boxes would be sealed for shipment. Oxen then would cart the smoky gold to the East Dennis shore, where crews of the clipper ships that sailed the seven seas put in. It would go to Boston by sail, a trip of 10 to 11 hours if the wind was good. On the oldtime Boston docks Cape Cod lampblack would join the company of spices and silks from India, the teas from China, Java’s coffee and sugar from the West Indies and become a part of the adventurous world commerce of the clipper days.

“Time moves on to ever new discoveries,” wrote Edna Cornell, telling the story of smoky gold in a bulletin of The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. “The wonder of yesterday is the forgotten glory of today. The Funns were new and amazing a century ago; but industry, always in a hurry, outstripped them long ago, and they are now only a few scattered bricks, a few garden walks and a fireplace. Nevertheless, like all big and influential things, no matter of what antiquity or deep obliteration, they have left a footprint behind them that time has not yet erased nor witchgrass on a Cape Cod farm completely hidden.”

DENNIS----

_“Sleepy John” Sears’
$2,000,000 Idea_

Some remembrances of an old Cape Codder:

“Salt works! Yes, I have seen many of them. There were rows and rows of them on my grandfather’s farm. And my grandmother! Well, she wore herself out taking care of them. She had only 14 children. Generally three of them were in arms. Many a time when grandfather and the boys were at the flats (the shore) and a rainstorm came up, grandmother would walk half a mile, carrying one child, leading another, and the three-year-old toddling behind--to the salt works to cover them before the rain came on. Rain freshened the salt, you know.”

Salt-making by the solar evaporation process was developed into a $2,000,000 business on Cape Cod in the early 1800’s, according to one estimate. Today, in an age when the Cape lives on the summer vacationist trade and Camp Edwards revenue, you rarely hear a mention of this once great, now extinct, industry. The originator was a retired skipper who had ideas and ever a weather eye for an extra dollar--Capt. John (“Sleepy John”) Sears of Dennis.

CAPE COD STICKTOITIVNESS

People thought him whacky when they first learned he was trying to make money from the sun and the salt water all around him. But, Sleepy John (an ill-chosen sobriquet, if there ever was one) had the last laugh and rolled up a nice fortune meanwhile when he demonstrated that it is not only a good idea to have ideas but, also, to carry them through. For, salt was a lot more important in his era; it was needed then as now to go with ones’ vittles, though the greatest value was its indispensable use in the curing of fish.

Dubbed “Sears Folly”, the first salt-making plant got off to a merry start in 1776. Skipper Sears built a vat, or “water room”, that was a crude affair, 100 feet long, 10 feet wide. There were shutters over the top so that the vat containing salt water could be covered when it rained, or exposed to the full rays of the sun. As the hot sun poured down on the water, salt began to crystallize and the Dennis idea man must have danced a ’76 jitter jig, conjuring up pictures of what he would do with all his wealth, amassed from just a simple contraption and no expense whatever. At the end of the sunny season, however, Captain Sears had produced only eight bushels of salt, and the neighbors were laughing louder.

The old sea dog wasn’t in the habit of quitting when the going got rough. Having discovered that production was held down by leaks in the vat, he persevered and found a way to make the vat tight as a drum. The second year he crystallized 30 bushels of salt. But, a labor problem was slowing his progress. The salt water had to be poured into the vat from buckets, a tedious and time-consuming handicap, for John soon learned that for every 350 gallons of water he poured only one bushel of salt formed. He kept plugging and, meanwhile, he was doing some tall scheming. The neighbors were still laughing.

FINALE OF A GREAT INDUSTRY

On the fourth year Sears Folly was improved with a pump worked by hand. Production was stepped up. The pump continued in use until 1785, then, at a suggestion of Capt. Nathaniel Freeman, John Sears, with the help of others, contrived a pump worked by wind. This really turned the trick and set the skipper off full sail to become the local Croesus.

Salt sold at $8 a bushel ($8 was $8 in those times) and the bushels piled higher and higher at the Sears works. By this time the neighbors had gotten sober and interested and other salt-making windmills were erected and their creaking and whirring were familiar sounds throughout the village. The men who assisted John Sears with his windmill improvement eventually reassigned to him their right and title and finally the founder of the salt industry obtained a Government patent.

The production of salt spread in other parts of the Cape, notably Provincetown, a great fishing port and, earlier, a whaler’s haven. Salt-making began there in 1800; in 1837 the tip of the Cape had 78 salt works, each employing two men and producing a total of 48,960 bushels of salt. The manufacturing developed even to a higher plan when Glauber Salts, made from boiling brine, was valued by physicians and came into brisk demand.

Development of the salt springs of New York, and manufacturing improvements and cheaper operating costs elsewhere, marked the beginning of the end of Cape Cod’s great salt industry.

BREWSTER----

_Thanks to Pioneering Here,
Millions of American Soldiers
Wear Good Shoes_

Quiet little Brewster, Cape Cod, offers a rich tapestry of Americana.

Many a U. S. soldier slogging over the world battlefronts is wearing brogans turned out by patented machines of the great United Shoe Machinery--which started from a one-man cobbling business in oldtime Brewster.

West Brewster, dubbed “Factory Village” by the old timers, was a bustling scene, with spinning, fulling and grist mills, tannery and iron works, and the still-present Flax Pond, where flax gathered in surrounding fields was put to soak in the water-retting process of making linen.

The sheep growers would trek here, over the fields and ragged roads, with their bags of wool. The going was hard on their footwear, it was noted by the Winslow brothers, one of whom operated a fulling mill and the other, a grist mill. So, to maintain good will, the fulling mill Winslow verged into a sideline of cobbling the shoes of his wool producers.

But, a teen-age son--who gave the lie to common gossip of that day, that the younger generation was swiftly going to the dogs--was actually the one who transformed the humble cobbler’s tapping into a nationwide whirr and, incidentally, founded the Great Winslow fortune of today.

A CROSS-ROADS GENIUS

The lad was uncommonly ingenious and tenacious. Recruited by the fulling mill operator to assist in the cobbling work, the boy grew impatient at the tediousness of the task. He conceived a time-saving and labor-saving machine. Then he dreamed up another and another. He wrote to Washington and obtained a patent on each new invention as fast as it took shape.

These same patents are in use today in the big shoe plants of America, and the earnings from them continue to flow handsomely to the present Winslow heirs. Thus, the mighty United Shoe Machinery Company got its first breath of life on old Cape Cod.

Brewster is named for Elder William Brewster, a crusader for religious freedom, who sailed to Cape Cod on the Mayflower and acted as pastor to the church at Plymouth. He is described as having been “tender harted, and compassionate of such as were in miserie.” Further, “none did more offend him and displease him than such as would haughtily and proudly carry and lift up themselves, being rise from nothing, and haveing little els in them to comend them but a few fine cloaths, or a little riches more than others.” On his death, we are told, Elder Brewster’s complete estate consisted of 275 books, of which 64 were “in the learned languages.”

Quaint names are associated with Cape Cod lore. Fear Brewster was one of Elder Brewster’s daughters and he had sons named Love Brewster and Wrestling Brewster.

SEA ADVENTURES OF OLD

When Brewster town history is recounted there is always talk of the colorful seafaring oldsters and their great sailing craft. Outstanding is the Pitcairn Island story. Captain William Freeman of Brewster landed at the bleak hiding place of the Bounty mutineers in 1883, and brought his daughter Clara along with him. Clara cultivated the friendship with Rosa Young, daughter of Edward Young, who survived the hardships and bloody conflict among the mutineers after they found refuge on the island in 1790. Later, they corresponded. Today, in the Brewster Public Library, there is the original manuscript of Rosa Young’s letters, extending over a period of six months.

In one of these letters, Rosa tells of her meeting with the chaplain of the man-of-war Constance, who landed at Pitcairn. All descendents of the mutineers, including Rosa, were intensely religious. Thus, she described the visiting chaplain to her Brewster friend: “Whether he experienced the same feeling that I did I cannot tell, but I certainly thought that a more un-chaplain-looking man was hard to find, and if words and manner are an index to a man’s character, he certainly did not seem rightly fitted for a sacred office.” And then, as though to show how shocked she was, Rosa Young concluded, “as we were about to leave ship he said, ‘Now, we will have to sing, _The Girl I Left Behind Me._’”

The house in Brewster where Joseph C. Lincoln, writer of Cape Cod character stories, was born still bears a For Sale sign. Conrad Aiken, noted American poet, has a Summer place in a tranquil spot in the hill country. Chester Slack, an artist of reputation, lives there year-round and takes a sympathetic interest in local affairs. In recent times a Brewster craftsman, with a resourceful spirit reminiscent of the Factory Village pioneers, has been weaving fine tweeds to fill individual orders.

Brewster today reflects mostly upon her memory-book, for there is no longer any of the teeming industry of the Winslow founders. The exciting spring herring run annually draws attention to the town. Brewster has one vestige of the hallowed past that is distinctive: It is the site of the only water-power grist mill on Cape Cod where countless modern summer visitors have watched the ancient process of grinding corn--and captured a bit of stirring reality of the vigorous Founding Days of our nation.

HARWICH----

_A Liberator of Slaves, Immortalized
by the Poet Whittier_

“The boys all want the town paper. It’s like getting a letter from home, they write.”

Harry Albro, friendly and kind country editor, gives particular attention to his servicemen’s mailing list. He served under MacArthur in the last war, was gassed at Argonne and came back with six battle stars. He has held the post of a State Guard commanding officer and has had other Home Front duties. His homey weekly newspapers mean a lot to people in war service now far removed from their beloved Cape Cod.

When the Revolutionary War clouds loomed, Ebenezer Weekes of Harwich said to his son, “Eben you are the only one that can be spared; take your gun and go; fight for religion and liberty!”

“HARRICH” IN ENGLAND, “HAR-WICH” HERE

“Harrich” is the way it is mouthed in the seaport town of Essex County, England. The Harwich of Cape Cod is pronounced Har-wich. This Harwich was founded in 1694 and it is said that one of her ardent townsmen, Patrick Butler, walked all the way to Boston, a trek of 100 miles, to obtain the incorporation.

In modern times Anthony Elmer Crowell of East Harwich achieved fame as one of America’s great craftsmen. Mr. Crowell, remote from the beaten path, admirably proved the better mousetrap adage. He carved and painted images of birds so realistically that they came into demand for museums and private collections and travelled even to Australia. At first Mr. Crowell was a gunners’ guide, commissioned to fashion some duck decoys that would be more convincing to Cape Cod ducks than the wood-butcher jobs that other decoy-makers had sold the sportsmen. Then the East Harwich genius branched into making robins, bluejays, sanderlings and the many, many other species of the feathered tribes.

Word of his skill got around fast and he profited handsomely. His quaint craft was put into Joseph C. Lincoln’s Cape Cod book, “Queer Judson”. And, “It is not unlikely that a day may come when a ‘Crowell bird’ will be as much sought as a genuine bit of Sandwich glass or a slender piece of Sheraton furniture,” prophesies Arthur Wilson Tarbell in “Cape Cod Ahoy!”

Religion was a strong point of Harwich’s early days. A variety of fifteen denominations once functioned within the town’s borders and at times emotions ran high. It is recorded, for example, that the Rev. Edward Pell of Harwich left a request for his burial to be in the North Precinct, or present-day Brewster, for, “if left among the pines of the South Precinct (Harwich) he might be overlooked at the resurrection, that the Lord would never think of looking in such an un-Godly place for a righteous man.”

MAN WITH “THE BRANDED HAND”

In 1743 came the “Great Awakening” evangelical movement and with it the all-out sects known as “New Lights” who “made the pine woods of Harwich ring with Hallelujahs and hosannas, even from babes!” Moreover, there was “a screeching and groaning all over, and it hath been very powerful ever since.” Touching on activities of the New Lights, Henry C. Kittridge, Cape Cod historian, narrates that “when under the spell of their mania, they walked along the tops of fences instead of on the sidewalks; affected a strange, springing gait, and conversed by singing instead of ordinary speech, in the distressing manner of characters in light operas.” Could it be that author Kittridge was spoofing us a bit?

A native of Harwich--recorded in history as the first liberator of slaves--is eulogized in verse by Whittier. Capt. Jonathan Walker in 1844 put out from Pensacola with seven runaway slaves aboard his vessel, having responded to their appeals to be taken to the British West Indies, where they would find freedom under the Union Jack. The Cape Cod skipper was captured, he was imprisoned in irons and thence the brand, “S.S.” (slave stealer) was seared into his right hand. Captain Walker is hailed by Whittier:

“Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air;
Ho! Men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look there!
Take it henceforth for your standard, like the Bruce’s heart of yore,
In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before.”

The culture of cranberries on Cape Cod--a source of revenue that runs into the millions--was begun on a commercial scale in Harwich in 1845, though it was Henry Hall of Dennis who was the pioneer grower in 1816. Fishing was on the decline and a retired harvester of cod spoke the sentiment of his salty brethren:

“I put up my chart and glass, and took to raising cranberry sass.” Before then the cranberry was regarded as only food for the cranes. Crane-berry was the original name the pioneers gave this famous Cape Cod product.

CHATHAM----

_The First American to Fly
The Atlantic “Hopped Off” Here_

“You don’t say hum and eggs, do you?” chided the old native.

So, the proper pronunciation for the town of Chatham is--Chat-ham. With the accent on the hind end. To the native this is important. And so it is on the opposite side of the nation where the true citizen of San Francisco winces when you say “Frisco” and would prefer to have you articulate the whole name of his fair city.

Chatham, with some 50 miles of shoreline, is one of the most beautiful, unspoiled seashore places on Cape Cod. Architecture of great seafaring days, the primitive, lonely cry of the seagull, the home-spun shell fisherman, a history crowded with drama, bright little Yankee streets, art and literature and here and there a touch of international fame--this is Chatham. The writer is prejudiced, because this is the place where, 18 years ago, he spent his first night on Cape Cod. And met his first artist acquaintance, a dear friend for two decades, Harold Dunbar.

PEOPLE OF DISTINCTION

The late Joseph C. Lincoln was a widely known Chatham resident. The writer of many fiction-novels about Cape Cod folk contributed more than any other person to make this peninsula known to the nation at large. Arthur Wilson Tarbell of Chatham, a modern historian, wrote an outstanding book, “Cape Cod Ahoy!” Sinclair Lewis did some of his early writing here. Alice Stallknecht Wight got on the Associated Press wires as a result of the excitement caused by her mural painting in the Chatham Congregational Church. “Christ Preaching to the Multitude” is its title. The multitude consists of well known Chatham faces and Christ, depicted as a fisherman, is shown addressing them from a boat. For a companion piece Mrs. Wight later painted “The Last Supper”, showing Coast Guards, sea captains and other Chathamites as the disciples.

And in a pleasing, secluded spot the late Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis had his summer home for many years.

The tiptop spire of the Congregational Church is fashioned from a spar on the bark R. A. Allen, wrecked on the Chatham shore in 1887. Lightning damaged the church in the same storm. And the Cape’s toy windmill industry, that has waxed fat from the summer trade, started in Chatham. The humble carver of the first shop is romanticized in Lincoln’s novel “Shavings”. But a Coast Guard station skipper is given credit for making the first toy windmill. The art spread to other stations and business got so brisk the Government issued an order, forbidding the guardians of the deep from engaging further in the profitable sideline.

LINKED WITH OLD ENGLAND

Chatham is named for the County of Kent town in old England. Before the Pilgrims came to the Cape, Champlain, the French explorer, arrived here in 1606. He planned to establish a French colony in Chatham, but a fight with the Indians drove him off. In 1658, William Nickerson of Norfolk, England, appeared on the scene and gave the sachem Mattaquason a shallop for the sea-girted acres. Complications developed; Nickerson was called to Plymouth Court and ultimately he had to pay 90 pounds as a fair purchase price. In 1712 Chatham was incorporated as a town.

The Mayflower, her passengers looking to a settlement below the Hudson, barely escaped being wrecked on the Chatham shoals. Here she turned back to enter Provincetown Harbor.

Three hundred years later a Navy flier repaid this visit, wafting down from the heavens onto Plymouth, England.

Lieut. Albert Cushing Read of Hanson, Mass., was the first man to fly the Atlantic, and he took off from Chatham. He competed in a trans-ocean contest of the Navy “Nancies” in 1919, the N-C’s 1, 2, 3 and 4. The original takeoff point was Rockaway Beach, Long Island. Read rode the N-C 4, which was disabled far off this shore, but managed to get into this port, where, as luck had it, a Navy air station was located for the training of large numbers of fliers for the last war. A new motor was installed, the N-C 4 winged off to the Azores via Trepassey Bay, New Foundland and the pioneering flight was completed with fifty-two and a half hours having been spent in the skies. Read flew on to Plymouth, perhaps for sentiment’s sake, having the Mayflower in mind.

ORLEANS----

_The World’s Insomnia
Champion Lived Here_

The late Joseph C. Lincoln of Chatham gained national fame with his stories of Cape Cod. The quaint characters he wrote about were, for the most part, taken from life. Some other old-timers, however, have been a bit too unconventional, even for Mr. Lincoln’s yarn-spinning purposes. “Bill-Ike” Small, for example.

Bill-Ike--or, Isaac Wilbur Small, a name that no one would have recognized--claimed he never slept. He was the insomnia champion of the world until he passed on in Orleans a few years ago. And, he made it so real a Boston paper printed pages about him. The paper sent down its crack feature writer and he and Bill-Ike went off to New York to tour the night clubs--the idea being to determine whether Bill-Ike’s story would stand the test during two or three night of skylarking and sitting up in a hotel room.

Bill-Ike made good, we were told, for the newspaperman observed him every blessed minute of the sleeplessness, nor did he, himself, fall off a chair.

HE GAINED WEIGHT, TOO

“I close my eyes for a little while, just to rest ’em, but I don’t sleep. I haven’t used a bed for over five years,” Bill-Ike would tell me. Then the gentle old man with a flowing white beard would add that he had gained 38 pounds in the past year.