Cranberrying in the 1890s

The day after Labor Day was memorable for two things: the exodus of the city people and the beginning of the cranberry season. I was not so fortunate as the children of Marjorie Ann, our washwoman. They went "up Westward" to Carver for a month or six weeks and returned with new clothes and marvelous accounts of camping out and of the workers on the big bogs. My eyes grew large at tales of high words and fist fights over best rows and scoops from somebody's tops. My father’s pickers worked because "it was so healthy to be out of doors;" some, because it was "great fun;" and others, as they frankly admitted, because they liked a little extra money for Christmas, for a trip to Boston, for a winter coat, or for lace curtains for the Parlor. Father boasted that he had college students, professors, and millionaire's daughters among his cranberry gangs.

Bright and early I was out at the head of the lane. I wore my pink sunbonnet, my blue denim apron, my armlets of black stockings, my little calico bag for checks. In my shining new six quart measure I had packed my rubbers, gloves, finger stalls [finger guards], my birch bark luncheon box that Aunt Georgia from Oldtown, Maine, had sent me for Christmas, and, best of all, a bottle of the usually prohibited coffee.

Down the schoolhouse hill came rattling a blue cart with seats along the side. These were Father's own invention: instead of the back-breaking boards laid in rows across the cart, our seats consisted of two long boards fastened by small pieces in the middle and at the ends, allowing quite an elastic spring. The ends stuck out in front just far enough not to hit the horse, and in back over the road. We youngsters loved to sit on those projecting ends that rocked so delightfully and dangerously. The oldest and stiffest ladies stood on a box to climb up the back of the cart, but we exulted in swinging ourselves up by the seat-ends.

Head gear ran from caps to sunbonnets or immense farmer's hats, decorated with colored ribbons or strings. All wore armlets to protect the wrists from scratches from the wiry vines; some fastened their finger stalls to the stocking armlets; others preferred old gloves with stalls of unbleached cotton cloth. On wet days, when the bog reverted to its original swamp, we wore yellow oilskin aprons, which we discarded as soon as the sun came out to dry the bog off with amazing rapidity.

By eight or half past we reached the bog, which had been already lined off, and where the screen had been set up on empty barrels. Some growers lined off the sections between the ditches into individual rows but Fred, our overseer, made the rows wide enough to admit four between the lines; a more social arrangement. To be the one to take up to the screen the first full measure of the season was a coveted distinction. Fred, our hired man, was the fastest picker anywhere about. He could pick a barrel — sixteen six-quart measures — a day with his bare hands. He would sit down beside me and silently work his hands like little machines, and soon in a marvelous way the measure would be filled and properly heaped — a level measure would not be accepted at the screen. We must heap up the berries until not another one would stay on the pile. Old Mrs. Taylor, who presided over the screen because she was too stiff to pick, was the life of the bog with her little jokes when we climbed up the bank with our measures to get our checks.

In our day cranberry raising was an avocation; Father was a doctor; other owners were sea captains, store keepers, or carpenters. It was the thing to have a little bog where you could raise enough cranberries for winter, to pay for the care of the bog, and a little interest on the investment. Consequently the bogs were far from uniform in character and yield. Old bogs were sanded to keep the vines short. To leave bottoms; to pick dirty measures thick with leaves, vines, and sticks; not to heap the berries; these were the signs of the poor picker. The season lasted for about a month according to the size of the crop and the weather.

Before the first day was over we began to complain of backache and cramps in our legs. We could work faster kneeling but we had to stretch out sometimes as at a Roman banquet to ease the intolerable pain in the knees. We became more hardened as the season wore on. Usually we did not nibble at the berries; their acidity was their defense. But sometimes we grew thirsty or were bored by sparse picking. When we had swallowed one cranberry, the charm was broken: however puckery it was. we must take one more and then it was hard to stop. The last year that I picked, we carried huge wooden scoops with wooden teeth. We rested them on the ground and rocked them back and forth as we pushed them through the vines. Each held three or four quarts and filled the measures with amazing rapidity. On the other hand we received less pay for a measure. From ten cents, we were reduced to six cents for the six quarts.

"Knock off!" shouts Fred, and we dash up the bank for our baskets stored in the cart or hanging on the pine boughs. Substantial food it was: thick meat sandwiches with crusts intact, hard boiled eggs, pies, cake, cookies, gingerbread. The first salad that I ever tasted was one of the delicacies exchanged at the bog - a favorite place for swapping food and recipes. The older pickers gossiped the noon hour away. We children ate rapidly in order to have time for our favorite game of duck-on-a-rock. I can't remember that we ever played it at school. It just went with cranberrying.

Cranberry pickers enjoy a lunch time picnic in West Yarmouth.

At five o'clock we knocked off for the day and received white quart checks for the contents of our measures. Every night we tied these up into packages which we could exchange for measure checks or we tied them all into dollar bundles.

Though the picking season was short, the care of the bogs was a year-long duty, with dangers from frost in winter, multitudes of worms in summer, drought or too much rain. Long after the berries were harvested, the women screeners worked in our barn. At one end of the long screen was the winnowing machine, which got rid of sticks and dirt; at each side of the screen, which rested on barrels, were three or four women, who picked over the fruit, taking out frosted, rotten, or withered cranberries, so that when the board was removed from the mouth of the screen by the last screener, a stream of clean hard berries poured into the waiting barrel.

Screening cranberries

Captain Parker next door used to save his crop until March to obtain high prices, but so much fruit rotted away during the winter that the loss hardly warranted the delay. Growers had all sorts of ideas about raising cranberries and defended their pet theories at the expense of friendship. Should the bogs be flooded in winter? How early should you let the water off? What was best for worms? Away down in our field was a huge iron kettle, a regular witches' cauldron, where the hired men steeped tobacco juice to spray over bogs in summer.

The berrying wound up with a gala day, when we picked the small North Dennis bog. We consoled ourselves when berries were scarcest and knees were crampiest, by thoughts of the good time ahead - the long ride, the visits from Dennis friends, and the special treat supplied by Father - watermelon, ice cream, candies. It was a real picnic. There was so much feasting and fun that with difficulty did we succeed in getting the patch picked at all. Usually at the end we let some piece go. It was dark when we reached home after our slow ride through the woods. "Goodbye!" we shouted to one another. "See you again at the bog next year! or with less gusto, "See you at school next Monday." How good the baked beans and Indian pudding that Mother had kept warm for us in the oven! After supper I put away my last bundles of checks, packed up my trusty old measure, added up once more my hard won riches, as much as fifteen or twenty dollars - a tidy sum it seemed to me and it went a long way in the nineties. Later on, I would go with Mother on an excursion to Boston, where I would invest in a new coat, dress, or muff and tippet [a long, wide shawl or scarf] - and then have five dollars left for Christmas gifts.

Cranberrying was over until next year.

Excerpted from an essay by Caroline R. (Pulsifer) Siebens (1881-1970).
Caroline’s father was Dr. Thomas Benton Pulsifer, town doctor for Yarmouth in the later 1800s. They lived at 382 Route 6A. Caroline is the smiling girl in the cover photo and below on the dark horse. Read more about the history of cranberry cultivation on Cape Cod in this article in Cape Cod Life magazine.

The Pulsifer family at home.

Yarmouth's Seven (or more!) Golf Courses

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Wayside Golf Links Members - members of the Thacher family.

The first people to ever play golf on Cape Cod were from Yarmouth. That makes sense because the first golf course on the Cape was Henry C. Thacher’s private 9 hole links course called “Wayside” which he had built in the late 1880s. It was primarily on the land that is now the nature trails of the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth. The 7th hole crossed Strawberry Lane and the 9th green was up on the edge of the back parking lot of the Congregational Church. Some descendants of Henry C. Thacher used parts of the course until the 1950s.

Yarmouth’s Bass River Golf Course is one of Cape Cod’s best and oldest courses. Opened in 1900 as a private nine hole club, the course has grown and flourished over its more than 100 years. In 1914 a noted golf course architect was commissioned by the club to redesign the course. The signature hole is #9, a 169-yard, par 3, which plays across part of Bass River.

Bass River started as a cow pasture which was rented by eight summer residents. They built fences around the greens they created so the cows wouldn’t trample them, and they hired a local farmer to mow the grass. In the 1920s, the players bought the land they had been leasing, banned the cows and removed the fences around the greens. They increased the course to 18 holes. The only hole in its original 1900 position is today’s 10th, and its tee was built over an Native American shell midden.

Playing through the cow pasture at Bass River, 1910s.

The Depression, World War II and gas rationing, which limited the ability to get to the course, coupled with devastation from the 1944 hurricane, led the group to sell the club to South Yarmouth businessman Charles Henry Davis in 1946. Davis lived in the “House of the Seven Chimneys” on the corner of Pleasant and River Streets, and he had money to rebuild the course. Davis died in 1951 after substantially improving it. His death caused uncertainty, the town of Yarmouth purchased it in 1953 for $85,000 and it became the first town-owned golf course on Cape Cod. In late November of 1957, the clubhouse burned to the ground. It was replaced and there was a realignment of holes at the same time. Automatic watering sprinklers were installed in 1969, replacing a 1937 system.

Another early view of Bass River Golf Course.

The two nines are very different; the front is short and tight while the back is long and open. The front nine is the part designed by Donald Ross, but how much remains is uncertain. Several of the greens remain as Ross designed them.

The Great Island Golf Links was founded in 1902. It started as a nine hole course and expanded in 1905 to 18 holes. It was supposedly the first course ever to be watered, having windmills on many of the holes. A steam roller was used to make sure the greens were flat and smooth. The 18 holes were 5121 yards, with the longest, #11, being 557 yards and the shortest, #12, being 110. Intriguing hole names such as Trout Pond, Hoodoo, Misery, Rocks, Ghost’s Walk, and Circus made the course even more interesting. President Grover Cleveland was a frequent visitor to Great Island during his administration and supposedly caught a trout in the trout pond that weighed three pounds. The course wasn’t built until after Cleveland left office and while he continued to come to Grey Gables in Bourne, it isn’t known whether he ever played golf on Great Island.

Great Island’s Aberdeen Hall which had its own golf course.

The next course was located near Lewis Bay in the Englewood section of town. It was built as a private course by Simeon P. Lewis, probably in the early 1900s. The only reference to it anywhere is one sentence in a book “ Collector’s Luck – A Thousand Years at Lewis Bay, Cape Cod,” written in 1967 by Betty Bugbee Cusack. In the first paragraph she wrote, “... in 1955, we bought our little cottage ...overlooking Lewis Bay – on what was once Simeon P. Lewis’ private golf course.”

The Depression and World War II stopped all golf construction, but the influx of tourists after the war led to Blue Rock Golf Course which opened in 1962. It was designed by Geoffrey Cornish. It measures 3,000 yards in length from the professional tees and features four challenging water holes. Holes range from 103 to 255 yards, with the ninth hole as the signature hole. It was rated in 2011 by Golf Magazine as one of the top ten par 3 courses in the U.S. Blue Rock is part of Red Jacket Resorts.

An aerial view of Blue Rock Golf Course.

Kings Way Golf Course has tweaked its name several times since opening in 1988. The executive course was designed by Brian M. Silva and is 4,023 yards from the longest tees for a par of 60. One hole is par 5 and five are par 4. It offers Scottish bunkers, undulating greens, and some magnificent views of Cape Cod Bay and its marshes. One interesting fairway has a 19th century smallpox cemetery located by it.

Small pox cemetery near Kings Way golf course.

The Bayberry Hills Course was first envisioned by town golf committee members who saw 200 acres just west of Old Townhouse Road as being a possible golf course. It was designed by Geoffrey Cornish and Brian Silva. There was thought of trying to make 27 holes, but ended up with a “roomy 18.” The design is not the typical straight, flat, back-and-forth track. It has some serious challenge with a par of 72 on 7100 yards. Built in 1986 and opened July 1988, the original course offers 18 holes with a water hazard on the 4th hole.

An additional 9 holes, The Links 9, was opened in 1999, officially in 2000. Until 1991, the area where the Links course ended up was the town dump. Drivers on Route 6 remember all the seagulls between Exits 7 and 8. When the course was built, it was called the largest recycling project in the state. The state helped with a one million dollar grant in 1996. The 50 foot tall landfill which covered 57 acres contains 40 wells which collect methane gas. On top of the trash is a six inch layer of sand, covered by durable black plastic sheets fused together. Another 18 inches of sand covers the plastic and it is capped by eight inches of topsoil. More than 240,000 cubic yards of sand were used. In some cases, more sand was used to provide better contours for the course. Being a Links type course, it is treeless.

A view of Bayberry Hills, built over the former landfill.

Building this course was part of a $17.5 million dollar project that included two soccer fields, two softball fields, bocce, horseshoe pits, a play yard, and a bike trail, all located in the area of the former dump.

The layout of Bayberry Hills now includes three 9-hole courses, The Red Course, White Course and Blue Course. The Red and White were the original Bayberry Course, and the Blue was the Links course.

The next time you’re with a local golf expert, ask them if they can name the seven golf courses in Yarmouth. Chances are they can’t, and won’t know that golf was first played in Yarmouth, before Highland Links or Cummaquid Golf Course.

P.S - Part of the Cummaquid course is in Yarmouth and their legal name until a few years ago was “The Cummaquid Golf Club of Yarmouth and Barnstable, Inc.” Should that be counted as our 8th course?

As a side note, you might also be interested to learn that the first miniature golf course on the Cape was in Yarmouth too! At the Englewood Hotel in West Yarmouth.

Researched and written by Duncan Oliver.

Memories of South Yarmouth Village in 1905

I was eight years old in 1905 and everything about the village at that time is vivid in my mind. The main street was lined with silverleaf poplar trees, some over 2 feet in diameter. I was told that the saplings were brought from England. As the years went by these trees had become a nuisance. They grew to large shady trees but were too prolific, spreading everywhere and hard to control.

The only large public buildings in 1905 were the village school, the Methodist Episcopal church, the Standish Opera House and the Baptist Church in the Lower Village. The town hall or office was a medium-sized building situated half way between the village of South Yarmouth and Yarmouth.

The school was set back from the street between the Methodist Episcopal Church and the home of Orlando Wood. Children started going to school at 5 years of age. There were two sidewalks leading up to it, one on the right for the boys and one on the left for the girls. The center was kept green and mowed. The boys’ playground was on the north side of the building and the girls’ on the south side. There were nine grades in the school, three each in the primary, the intermediate and the grammar school upstairs. A section of the grammar school was partitioned off for the Sloyd or wood-working classes. Each room had only one teacher, and special teachers came once a week to teach music, drawing, sewing, and woodworking. I was in the fourth grade in the intermediate room in 1905. Each room contained a large wood or coal burning stove for heat.

South Yarmouth School.

On St Valentine's Day we exchanged Valentines with our friends and enemies. Some were very fancy and beautiful and some were horrible. On Memorial Day, May 30, we always had a special program in our flower decorated school rooms to which our parents were invited. Afterwards we marched two by two to the cemetery, a boy drummer at the head with a girl carrying our flag. The rest of the children carried flowers from the room decorations to place on the soldiers’ graves.

All during May we hung beautifully trimmed May baskets to our friends, knocking on the door and hiding outside, usually in the early evening. After we were found, we generally went inside and helped eat the goodies they contained.

There were kerosene lamps on Main and Bridge streets. The lamplighter came at dusk every day to fill and light the lamps. Many families had lamp posts in their own yards and also hitching posts for horses out in front. Kerosene for the lamps was bought at the grocery store usually with a small potato on the spout to keep it from spilling. There were a lot of horses in 1905 and a town pump and horse trough was situated on Main Street in front of the school. Every day the janitor brought a pail of this fresh water to each school room where it was placed on a low shelf with a tin cup beside it. Some of the children brought their own collapsible tin cups and kept them in their desks.

Most every family raised chickens and some fattened pigs to be slaughtered in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our family invariably had roast stuffed chicken at Thanksgiving with cranberry sauce, vegetables and a choice of mince or pumpkin pie. At Christmas we generally had roast loin of pork with applesauce, homemade yeast biscuits, vegetables and always a suet pudding with whipped cream. Our recipe for this was brought by my grandmother from her home in New Hampshire.

We rarely had snow before Christmas but plenty during the next 3 months. The snow plows came early and cleared the sidewalks so the children could get to school by 9:00 a.m. The plows were a triangular contraption made of wood, weighted down by a huge rock and the driver. The plow was hitched by chains to the horse's harness.

The bridge across Bass River was constructed of wood and the toll house was still beside it, but it was not used then as no tolls were collected in 1905. One day I stood on the bridge and watched the packet David K. Akin sail up the river and anchor at Fuller's Wharf. It was quite a thrill to me as this was the largest boat I had seen. The cargo was mostly coal, grain, and flour for Fuller's grain store. Not far from the bridge was a very busy place, the village blacksmith shop. Next to that was a paint store and the undertaking parlor beside the Bass River Savings Bank.

David K. Akin packet ship.

The post office was a small building on the corner of Main and Bridge street. The railroad station and freight buildings were situated beside the track on Station Ave. The stage from the village met the trains and carried the passengers and mail.

Christmas time at the Methodist Episcopal Church where I went to Sunday school will always remain a happy memory. Each Sunday during December we studied the Bible story of the Lord's birth, learned to sing Away in a Manger and many other Christmas hymns, also learned recitations to be given at the Sunday Christmas church service.

On Christmas Eve all the Sunday school and their parents attended a party held in the sanctuary. A huge beautifully trimmed tree nearly reached the ceiling. It was placed in the back of the altar rail. Parents secretly brought many gifts for their children and teachers which were placed among the branches or under the tree. After singing Christmas songs we were asked to keep very quiet to see if we could hear Santa Claus coming. Soon sleigh bells could be heard coming nearer and old Santa came bounding in to distribute the gifts. Over his shoulder he carried a bag which contained boxes of hard candies for each child. I had reached the age to notice that Santa looked surprisingly like a man in town. Very few people had Christmas trees in their houses. We never had one. We had a green wreath with red berries on our front door, gave gifts and sent greeting cards to our friends and relatives. We children always hung our stockings on the mantle before going to bed Christmas Eve. In the morning we always found an orange in the toe besides apples, nuts, candy and small gifts. The oranges were very special as we rarely had one.

 In midwinter came the job of cutting the ice on Long Pond. There were two ice houses, one on each end of the pond. Several men were employed to saw the ice in large squares which were packed in layers in the ice houses, each layer separated and covered by straw. This was sold during the summer to the townspeople to fill their ice boxes and refrigerators.

Summer time in 1905 in South Yarmouth was a lovely place to be. There were a few summer visitors in the village but it was still quiet and plenty of room at the beaches for swimming and picnics. There were strawberry festivals and church fairs and bean suppers and also the local baseball games with plenty of buttered popcorn. 

Independence Day however was quite noisy as all kinds of large firecrackers, rockets and cap pistols were allowed.

I would like to close now with this excerpt from a poem written by Henry W. Longfellow:

“Often I think of the beautiful town

 That is seated by the sea,

 Often in thought go up and down,

 the pleasant streets of that dear old town, 

And my youth comes back to me.

By Maude (Weekes) Boesse (1897-1990)
(from our archives)

Maude Boesse

Our Beloved Boardwalk - a history

One of the most photographed scenes of Cape Cod is a weathered boardwalk reaching across the marsh from Bass Hole to Clay’s Creek on the north coast of Yarmouth. It is also a favorite locale for birdwatching, weddings, viewing the sunset, and stealing kisses in the moonlight.

Thomas C. Thacher, an early environmentalist, would be well pleased. 

Thomas C. Thacher

When T. C. arose in the town meeting of 1911 to propose creating a small park at Bass Hole and extending the old boardwalk across the marsh and Clay’s Creek, he probably never imagined such popularity. But he had an eye for the town’s scenery.

"There is lots of beauty in Yarmouth and we want the citizens of the town all to share it and enjoy it," he said. "We propose to take the landing, convert it for public purposes and keep it up in a high grade way."

But Tom and other town fathers had a more compelling reason for extending the boardwalk. They wanted to reach Gray’s Beach across Clay’s Creek. No, not the small swimming basin at the end of Center Street which we now call Gray’s Beach, but the original Gray’s Beach -- a broad shimmering expanse of white sand extending from the entrance to Bass Hole southwestward along the marsh for more than a mile to toward Mill Creek. 

In T. C.’s day, the man-made swimming hole did not exist. That area was all marsh, with a short boardwalk reaching to a small boat landing in Bass Hole. The town actually kept a boat there, so that anybody wanting a swim could row across to Chapin Beach in Dennis. It must have been annoying when other would-be swimmers arrived at the Yarmouth dock and hollered. You were duty bound to row back across Bass Hole to pick them up. 

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The early boardwalk. Note that in contrast to today, the boardwalk went north toward Chapin, the went west along the end of the marsh. Click to enlarge.

The Thacher family offered $300 for half the cost, a substantial sum in those days, and the Selectmen appropriated another $300 for the full cost of the project. 

Bath houses at Gray’s Beach

In their 1912 report the Board of Selectmen noted that "the generosity of the Thacher family" brought about an extension of the boardwalk by some 1000 feet making it possible to walk to Gray’s Beach at any tide. It also included building "a string of bath houses and suitable benches which makes this a delightful place for bathing and all shore recreation."

The late Guido Perera, descendant of early Yarmouth settler Antony Thacher, and benefactor of the Historical Society, described the Gray’s Beach of his boyhood as "a sand peninsula which extended from the entrance of Mill Creek all the way to Bass Hole, with an interruption for Lone Tree Creek. There were no high dunes, but a broad white sand beach running along the marsh, where we usually went swimming."

Helen Dolan on Gray’s Beach, with the boardwalk in the background.

By the 1950s, the old Gray’s Beach had washed away in a series of storms and changing tidal forces, but fortunately for the pleasure of later generations, the Boardwalk continued on. 

Of course there were occasional interruptions caused by powerful storms and there were several reconstructions of the boardwalk.

While hurricanes of 1938 and 1944 wrought considerable damage to Cape Cod, the Bass Hole area was relatively spared except for "damage to flakes and poles and the bridge" across Clays Creek.

But the story was quite different with the three-day northeaster of February 1978. Furious winds and tide-driven ice floes pushed up pilings and ripped out major sections of the historic boardwalk. Due to the time required to get federal disaster funds and contracts, it was more than a year before the marsh lovers got their boardwalk opened again. 

Meanwhile, the beauty of the scene -- with no parking fees -- got around so that popularity steadily increased. In summertime a mobile bridge was installed across Clay’s Creek -- at low tide the base pilings are still visible -- so that visitors could walk all the way across the marsh to the bay shore. Of course they were dive-bombed by angry terns if they got too close to their nesting grounds in the few sandy stretches still left. In winter the bridge was removed to storage. 

Eventually the removable bridge became so rickety that the whole structure needed to be replaced. In town meetings during the 1980s, the citizenry turned this down because the increased traffic was damaging the marsh. 

This lack of a bridge became a problem for a couple visiting from Hamburg, Germany, who parked their car on Chapin Beach in Dennis and waded across to the Yarmouth marshes at low tide on a summer day. When they tried to return, however, they found the tide had come in. 

According to George Smith who witnessed their predicament from the boardwalk, they then made their way eastward toward the Bass Hole parking lot until -- aha!-- they came to Clay’s Creek also flooded by the tide. Undaunted, the couple stripped, held their clothes over their heads and crossed the creek. According to Smitty, a woman on the boardwalk made loud complaint about this "indecent exposure." When George mentioned this to the couple as he gallantly drove them back to the Chapin parking lot, the German lady, much amused, commented "we should have charged admission."

In August 1991, our boardwalk escaped the wrath of Hurricane Bob, only to be decimated by a three-day storm starting on October 30, and known as the "Halloween Northeaster” or the “Perfect Storm". Storm surges and high winds ripped the superstructure off the pilings and swept it across the marsh toward Thacher Shore Road. The wreckage had to be collected by helicopter. 

Pieces of the boardwalk flung into the marsh after a storm.

Once again it took a year to raise the money and reconstruct our favorite walkway. In January 2018, the end was again destroyed in an early January storm, but quickly repaired and opened the following July. Long may it stand!

Researched and written by Haynes Mahoney

Destruction of the boardwalk in January 2018

Presidents who visited Cape Cod - it's more than you think!

No US President visited Cape Cod prior to the Civil War. Was it because of the terrible press that Cape Cod had endured? Before the war, the Cape was mocked both for its scenery and its people. Author Nathaniel Willis wrote that Cape Cod was “the earth’s most unattractive region.” Others said there were so few trees that Cape Codders used fog for shade. Herman Melville in Moby Dick, used chapter 14 to disparage Nantucket. He even went so far as to say that Nantucket had so few things that grew that they even had to import weeds. An 1863 children’s book said Cape Cod’s landscape was a symbol of emotional deprivation. 

Cape people also were attacked. John Werner said that Cape seamen as a class were more addicted to vice than many others. Nathaniel Willis bemoaned the fact that Cape women were not shapely, and even Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that Chatham opposed lighthouses as they hurt the salvage wrecking business (untrue!). Thoreau frequently disparaged the mid-Cape people.

In view of this, it’s easy to see why people wouldn’t visit. Of course, it also may have been that the railroad didn’t cover the entire Cape until after the Civil War and there was less available steamboat transportation until then.

In any case, the first President to visit us was Ulysses S. Grant. In August 1874, Grant and his entourage arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. The next day they steamed to Hyannis where they rode a train through Yarmouth to Provincetown. They later returned by train to Sandwich, then to Woods Hole and back to Martha’s Vineyard. Grant was the first to make the Cape a vacation destination. Grant’s wife Julia was treated kindly by the Cape press, never mentioning that she had strabismus, a condition that made her cross-eyed.

Grant visiting Martha’s Vineyard in 1874.

President Chester Arthur was on Nantucket in 1882 for a lunch, being the second to visit. President Grover Cleveland made Cape Cod his summer home. He purchased Gray Gables in Bourne in 1890 (it burned down in 1973). It was his summer white house during his second term in office. Cleveland loved to fish. Charles Cory had developed West Yarmouth’s Great Island both for game and for fishing, and he stocked the ponds with trout and other game fish. To ensure sufficient water flowing through them, he built an underground piping system with water pumped by windmills. President Cleveland visited Cory and for four days the two fished the ponds where Cleveland caught a three pound trout.

Cleveland’s Gray Gables.

Aside from President Kennedy, Cleveland is probably the best known president on Cape Cod and stayed more time in Yarmouth than any president. In between Cleveland’s two separated terms as president, President Benjamin Harrison paid a brief visit to Nantucket. 

It was Teddy Roosevelt who next came to Cape Cod. His first visit was only into the waters of Cape Cod Bay near Barnstable where he watched, from the deck of a battleship, the US Navy take part in target practice with big 12 inch guns, rattling windows all along the bay. Provincetown was a major naval base during this time.

Teddy didn’t come ashore during this review, but in 1907 he did attend the laying of the cornerstone of the Pilgrim Monument and gave the main address. He had sailed into Provincetown harbor that day on the presidential yacht Mayflower, accompanied by his wife, son, and daughter. The entourage took two carriages to the monument.  Three years later, President William Howard Taft came to Provincetown to celebrate the monument’s completion.

Theodore Roosevelt at the 1907 Pilgrim Monument cornerstone ceremony.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t become president until 1932, but he visited Cape Cod 18 years earlier. Roosevelt, as Undersecretary of the Navy, was aboard the destroyer McDougall during the parade of ships through the Cape Cod Canal when it opened in 1914. Later, in 1933 while president, he was supposed to visit Provincetown aboard his yacht Amberjack II, but poor weather made him by-pass Provincetown on his way to Gloucester.

FDR was on hand for the opening of the Cape Cod Canal in 1914.

The next visitor was President Woodrow Wilson, who in 1917 went to Nantucket on a private visit to see his daughter.

There is a question as to whether President Calvin Coolidge visited Cape Cod looking for perfect clams. However, it appears that two Cape Codders took those clams to Washington and he ate them there.

George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush first visited the Cape as a Navy pilot during World War II. He was stationed at the airport in Hyannis where he perfected his take-offs and landings on a simulated carrier strip at that airport. It was the only night lighted civilian airport on Cape Cod before World War II, and during the war was a very busy training facility. It operated three 4,000 foot paved runways, built by WPA workers. President Bush also visited Mashpee in 1990 and in 2005 visited Martha’s Vineyard.

Before being elected president, General Dwight Eisenhower, visited General Lucius Clay in Dennis on Wrinkle Point. The two swam across Bass River to the a dock belonging to Sally Parker. Not recognizing them, she told them to leave, they were on private property.  Word went around that Ike could cross the English Channel and invade Europe, but couldn’t secure a landing in South Yarmouth! In 1957, there were rumors that Ike was going to celebrate the 4th of July in Osterville. Did he? This writer never found out.

The next visited Cape Cod in 1950, more than 20 years before he became President. Jimmy Carter was stationed in the Navy in Provincetown for a year. Wife Rosalyn recalled their time there in her memoir – First Lady From Plains. “We rented an upstairs apartment in a big old house, and there the children and I could sit at the breakfast room table and watch the submarines operate and dive just off shore. ... And we bought the boys their first sleds even though they had to compete with us to use them.” Apparently the Carters didn’t know the Cape ditty – “Cape Cod boys they have no sleds; they slide down dunes on codfish heads.”

Jimmy Carter on board a submarine.

 We all know John Kennedy’s attachment to Cape Cod and his lifelong love of sailing the waters around the Cape. He also played a crucial role in creating the Cape Cod National Seashore. Plan a visit to the Kennedy Museum in Hyannis to get a full account of his life and times on the Cape. 

President Bill Clinton made four trips to Martha’s Vineyard during his presidency, landing at Otis Air Base and then transferring to the island.

The Obamas spent several vacations on Martha’s Vineyard while he was President, again landing first at Otis. Cape newspapers reported almost every sighting of him, every time he came.

Donald Trump visited the Cape as a candidate in August of 2016, stopping on Nantucket and then in Osterville. There is no record of any tweets that he might have made.

President Joe Biden has visited Nantucket every Thanksgiving since 1975.

Adding it up, nearly two-thirds of US Presidents have visited Cape Cod and/or the islands since 1870. Only two have missed us in the last 40 years. Their loss!

Researched and written by Duncan Oliver

Presidential yacht Mayflower at Marblehead, 1925.

The Adventures of Captain Cyrus Sears

Captain Cyrus Sears was born in 1831 in West Yarmouth, the son of Odlin and Thankful Sears. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed on the ship Leland commanded by his uncle, Christopher Lewis of West Yarmouth. He rose rapidly through the ranks and, at the age of twenty six, he was in command of the ship Orissa, so fast and with such a spread of canvas that she was known as “Legs and Arms.” She was one of the first ships to carry ice from Boston to Calcutta. After a number of voyages to China and India, she was lost in a terrible winter gale in January 1857, off Nauset. The weather was such that it took Captain Sears three days just to report the loss to the Boston owners.

Cyrus married Martha Russell Baker of Yarmouth in 1857. Apparently a romantic, on the vest he wore at his wedding, he enscribed his name with his wife’s in ink, over his heart.

Martha Russell Baker

Wedding vest of Cyrus Sears, now in the collection of the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth.

Captain Sears was known for his navigational expertise, charting and mapping the northwest coast of North America, where some areas still bear the names he gave them. He was also an expert on the soundings and currents of the Atlantic ocean and was consulted by Lieutenant Matthew Maury at the time of the laying of the first transatlantic cable in the 1850s.

His various adventures included being entertained by the Czar of Russia and escaping Malayan and Chinese pirates. In his younger days, while acting as first officer of the ship Sheffield, under the command of Captain Joshua Sears of East Dennis, he was left in command while, in the port of Kronstadt, Captain Joshua Sears journeyed to St. Petersburg. When it was learned that the Czar (likely Nicholas I) was going to visit the port, all the ships put out flags, all except for the Sheffield, which had its flags placed in “stops”, something new at the time. When the Czar approached the ship, Cyrus Sears pulled the cord opening the stops and the ship was suddenly ablaze with flags. This greatly pleased the Czar, who came on board and marveled at other new things which were shown to him. The next day Cyrus Sears was invited to come to Peterhof as a guest of the Czar, where a fine lunch was served, and wonderful fountains played to entertain them. 

What the Sheffield may have looked like in Kronstadt.

He made numerous voyages in command of such ships as Augustus, Magenta, Visurgis and Pocahontas to places such as Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Shanghai, Fuzhou and Hong Kong. On one such voyage, around Cape Horn to Vancouver and Puget Sound, he brought back to the Crystal Palace Exposition in London, England, a complete collection of furs and minerals, along with a spar of Douglas fir, 175 feet long and perfect in shape. Being too late to serve as a flagstaff for the Exposition building, it was put up at Frogmore and was later transferred to Kew Gardens. 

The Sears home in Ashby, where they lived from 1860-1874.

Captain Sears joined the Navy at the beginning of the Civil War and was assigned to the East Coast Blockading Squadron, under Rear Admiral Bailey, where he was in command of the gunboats Clyde and Honeysuckle and the man-of-war Dale.

After his Naval service, Captain Sears went back to merchant ships and assumed command of the clipper Herald of the Morning, completing several record passages around Cape Horn.

Cyrus Sears, left, with members of the Naval Veterans Association.

Eventually, after thirty two years at sea, he retired and moved from his home in Ashby, Massachusetts, to Baltimore, where he became Port Captain and for a time Consul for Cuba. He died in Baltimore in 1914 at the age of 82, leaving his wife Martha, and two daughters, M. Isabel, wife of George H. Hunneman of Boston, and Annie Russell Sears.

At his death, the following poem by Lizzie Clark Hardy was found in his pocket and was read at his funeral:  

         The Unknown Shore
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away,
With no response to the friendly hail
Of kindred craft in the busy bay.
In the silent hush of the twilight pale,
When the night stoops down to embrace the day,
And the voices call in the water’s flow-
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away.

Through purple shadows that darkly trail
O’er the ebbing tide of the Unknown Sea,
I shall fare me away with a dip of sail
And a ripple of waters to tell the tale
Of a lonely voyager sailing away
To Mystic Isles, where at anchor lay
The craft of those who have sailed before
O’er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.

A few who have watched me sail away
Will miss my craft from the busy bay;
Some friendly barks that were anchored near
Some loving souls that my heart felt dear
In silent sorrow will drop a tear.
But I shall have peacefully furled my sail
In moorings sheltered from storm and gale,
And greeted the friends who have sailed before
O’er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.  

Researched and written by William Painter.

See Capt. Sears’s wedding vest during She Said Yes, an exhibit of vintage wedding gowns, through June 30, 2024

The grave of Cyrus and Martha Sears, Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore.

The Boys of Yarmouth in World War I

In June, 1917, Albert Chase of West Yarmouth left home for the bloody battlefields of France. Chase was one of 35 young men from Old Mattacheese who volunteered in World War One, and miraculously, all but one of the 35 native sons of Yarmouth came home alive.

Albert T. Chase and Arthur Graham in France.

How did our hometown boys fare on the front? How did they adjust from playing alongside the icy shores of Dennis Pond, and sand lot baseball, to a foreign battleground?

“My dear Mildred,” wrote Private Alfred C. Baker to his cousin on Christmas Day, 1917, “we all had a very nice dinner of turkey, pies, pudding, nuts, and potatoes, all we could eat.” Private Baker wrote he was lonesome, but “a good many boys are here…”

Young Baker asked cousin Mildred to “tell anyone to write to me” and “remember to all the Yarmouth people.” Baker served with the 103rd Machine Gun Battalion, Company C.

Henry Eldridge wrote home and said he sees Alfred Baker frequently, and looks ”eagerly for Yarmouth boys.” [Can you imagine being in France amidst fighting a war, and turning around to see someone you hung out with at Hallet’s store?]

Merrill Baker reported that he was in good health, and Russell Dodge claimed to have “motored 75 miles to play baseball for the amusement of the wounded in the American hospital.” The countryside of France, reported John Matthews, was very beautiful, and also of the promotion to Captain of Lieutenant Nathaniel Simpkins of Sandyside (on Summer Street in Yarmouth Port). During the war only one serious injury was reported. “Somewhere in France,” wrote Arthur Ryder, he was gassed, but eventually recovered.

Yarmouthites eagerly followed the global conflict from the trusty pages of the Register newspaper. In an editorial on April 21, 1917, the Register wrote “only a fool can imagine that this will be the last of all wars. There can be no permanent peace while the world is divided into different nationalities, each swayed by its on traditions of language and race.”

World War I political cartoon.

One by one letters trickled home. “I am somewhere near where most of the boys are stationed and expect every day to run into them,” wrote Earl Davidson in August 1918. “I can’t begin to describe the feeling one has during his first shell fire. However, I stuck to my post as a good American should.” Davidson wrote that friends and family back home have no idea what real warfare is, “but if you could pass through some of the little French villages that have been shot to pieces you would surely say Sherman was right when he said ‘War is hell.’”

Historians are revisiting World War One, and with good reason. That conflict left us with new technologies of death: tanks, planes, and submarines; reliable rapid-fire machine guns and artillery, and motorized cavalry. It also ushered in new tactics of warfare: shipping convoys and U-boat packs, dogfights and reconnaissance air support. And it left us terrors we still cannot control: poison gas and chemical warfare, strategic bombing of civilian targets, massacres and atrocities against entire population groups.

But most of all, it changed our world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole political systems were realigned. Revolution swept into power ideologies of the left and right. And, the social order shifted dramatically. Manners, mores, and codes of behavior, literature and the arts, education and class distinctions: all underwent a vast sea of change.

Nathaniel Simpkins, who died shortly after the end of the war.

Yarmouth proudly participated in the war effort, adhering to the Department of Agriculture’s request that housewives across the nation “join in the food production movement,” and cultivate potatoes, field beans, and root crops in case they were needed overseas or at home. In August 1917, the Friday Club donated toothbrushes, toothpaste, small mirrors and face cloths to the war effort, along with needles, writing papers and envelopes, pencils, and bandanas. The Bass River branch of the Italian War Relief Fund of America held a meeting in September 1918 and made infants’ outfits including 12 children’s aprons.

When the war ended in 1918, more than nine million soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed. Another five million civilians were estimated to have perished under occupation, bombardment, hunger and disease. Over four million Americans, including female Army nurses – served overseas. In October 1919, after the war ended, Captain Nathaniel Simpkins – a staff office in the 26th Yankee Division – died of a sudden illness (pneumonia – presumed to be Spanish Flu); he was 32. [The metal arch at the corner of Summer Street and Route 6A was erected in his memory. It is currently being refurbished and will be reinstalled in the fall of 2024.]

In 1926, a memorial on the town common listing the names of Yarmouth’s war heroes was dedicated. One of the speakers at the ceremony was General Clarence Edwards, Captain Simpkins’ boss, and commander of the Yankee Division, for whom Camp Edwards is named. Pulling the cord to unveil the marker were Oliver and Nathaniel Simpkins, sons of the dead captain.

by Theresa Barbo, originally published in 2002 in HSOY’s Beechcomber

Bass Hole and the Clam Factory

When you stand on the boardwalk at Bass Hole, and look toward Dennis, a strange looking group of buildings, known by locals as “the clam factory,” sits prominently on the edge of Chase Garden Creek, on the inside of Chapin Beach. At night, a green glow seems to emanate from it, further adding to its mystery. 

The area where this “factory” is located has a rich and storied history. The indigenous peoples were the first to see the benefits of this area. They probably practiced the first aquaculture in America, when they went shellfishing. Many times, they must have gathered more than they needed, and they kept the ones not used in known locations to make them easier to find the next time. Evidence of their having been in the area are common, and shell middens (piles of shells) can still be seen on Sandy Neck. Sandy Neck was likely a nicer place for them than Bass Hole, for the summer winds there kept off the dreaded gnats, mosquitoes, and greenheads. 

Photo by Christopher Seufert

The early colonials called this large area Bass Hole, evidence of nature’s bounty. 

To the west of the creek, a sandy beach stretched from Bass Hole all the way around to Mill Creek on the Barnstable town line. Yarmouth people were calling this beach “Gray’s Beach” before 1700. The beach lasted until after World War II, when a series of hurricanes in the 1950s washed away the sand. The town of Yarmouth had to dig out the present small crescent of beach to recreate a bathing section for townspeople on the north side. One of the evidences that Gray’s Beach used to extend much further than it does today is the remains of pilings in Clay’s Creek. Where the boardwalk now ends, you can see cut off pilings below the water in the creek in mute testimony to a longer boardwalk and extensive beaches which used to exist on the other side of that creek. 

A family group enjoying Gray’s beach in the 1940s.

Ship building thrived on the island in the middle of Chase Garden Creek (then called a river). The island, very near the present clam factory, was known as the “Horseshoe shipyards”, and vessels were built there after the American Revolution until the 1820s weighing up to 100 tons burthen. Further up stream, other shipbuilding enterprises thrived as well, at Bray’s shipyard, and at Hull’s and Homer’s docks.

Yarmouth had its first Town Dock right here at Bass Hole, and during the American Revolution, the British recognized this area as one of the two major ports on Cape Cod. One British map, printed in 1776, identifies only two harbors on Cape Cod: what is now Provincetown and Bass Hole. The silting in of the area in the 1820s led to moving the town wharf further west over to the Mill Creek area. 

Until the hurricanes hit in the 1950s, George Chapin had a large duck hunting camp on the Dennis side of Chase Garden Creek. It was from him that Chapin Beach was acquired by the town of Dennis and the Aquacultural Research Corporation was able to purchase its property in 1960 to begin growing clams. Founded by two men who served on a US Navy submarine together, W. Van Alan Clark, Jr and Dick Loring talked about what to do when they left the service. According to ARC’s website, “they decided to try developing a system of growing shellfish from the hatchery stage through growout to market size. They chose to start with steamers, or soft-shelled clams – and Aquacultural Research Corporation was born in 1960.”

Aquacultural Research Corporation has tried growing both soft shelled clams as well as hard shelled clams, but has found more success with hard shelled clams. Cape Codders would call them quahogs, but that name isn’t known across the country.

A 1990s aerial image of ARC.

At the clam factory (even the people who work there called it that - or the clam farm), they developed aquacultural processes to grow hard shelled clams. Their research is privately funded and is aimed toward their own products. A broad based staff of marine biologists, engineers, and technicians culture the clams and monitor quality from the hatchery right up to shipping. Control of the growth processes provides a reliable, consistent supply of clams throughout the year.

In 1993, the corporation reorganized, and at that time gave 220 acres of marshland to the Dennis Conservation Trust. Much of the marsh visible from the road when driving to Chapin Beach is part of these 220 acres. The remaining land and buildings continue to grow clams for the clam factory’s national market.

The process of growing clams starts in the winter. From December to spring, the hatchery portion of the clam factory is in full operation. Select parent stock of shellfish are carefully bred in the facility’s hatchery and are reared in specially designed tanks and systems. The “seed” produced is, in fact, juvenile shellfish, and must be fed. The large aquatic greenhouses on the property exist so that Aquacultural Research Corporation can grow microscopic algae to feed these new clams. Algae only grow when there is light, and winter light is at best marginal, so lights are installed in these greenhouses. The light shines through the plastic green roofs, giving off the strange glow that can be seen there at night.

Following the larval stages, young clams are moved to an indoor nursery system where heated seawater and the cultured food produce accelerated growth before their transfer to protected field cages. Final “grow out” occurs in a natural bottom in certified tidal areas to ensure pure natural flavor and highest quality. That Aquacultural Research Corporation can use the waters around Bass Hole speaks highly for the quality of water there.

The clams, after harvesting, are bagged and sent in refrigerator trucks, or in insulated boxes if being shipped by air. In less than 48 hours, the clams go from the waters at Cape Cod to the customers’ plates.

The clam factory also grows surf clams, scallops, and oysters to sell to other growers.  The town of Yarmouth buys some of its quahogs to stock its beds from Aquacultural Research Corporation. If you’ve purchased a shellfish license in Yarmouth and gone “clamming”, you probably have eaten some of the mollusks raised right on Chase Garden Creek. Other towns also make purchases from the company.

Click the image to visit their website.

Unfortunately for those who would like to visit, there is no insurance to cover the liability of having visitors, nor are there workers who can give tours to those who show up. This is a private corporation and for that reason there is a privacy sign posted as you enter from Chapin Beach road.

For Cape Codders, it’s reassuring to know that efforts are being made by Aquacultural Research Corporation to insure the future quality of  hard shelled clams on Cape Cod. About the only thing that might make one shudder in fright, would be at the thought that these Cape Cod clams could be sent to New York and be ruined by the addition of tomatoes to the clam chowder!

Researched and written by Duncan Oliver.

Salty Women: Savvy Owners of South Yarmouth’s Saltworks

The saltworks industry in Yarmouth, which prevailed for one hundred years, began at Bass River in 1809. Its roots, cultivated by Capt. John Sears and Hattil Killey, were in the East Precinct of Yarmouth, which became Dennis in 1793. The first surviving salt manufacturing deed, dated 1811, references Seth and Zeno Killey, Abiel Akin, and Isaiah Crowell’s existing saltworks along Bass River. Seth Killey’s business journal records salt stocks in 1810.

Saltworks (denoted by the checkerboard pattern) along Bass River.

In Friends Village, saltworks were built continuously from Wing Street to 175 Old Main Street and along Bass River. Significant saltworks were built west of Old Main Street, some nearly three quarters of the way to Long Pond. Almost all of the salt manufacturing in this area was owned by members of the Society of Friends.

The Yarmouth Friends (Quakers), who were a self-contained community, took care of their sick, their poor, and their legal issues. Believing in equal opportunities for all, the women conducted their own business meetings as early as 1681. 

Under normal conditions at this time, when a man died, his estate was distributed according to his will. Usually, the wife would receive one third of his estate; however, there were six women living in Friends Village, all members of the Society of Friends, who became owners of salt manufacturing businesses after their husbands or fathers died. These women were: Rebecca Frye, Tamsen Gifford, Tamsen Freeman (Gifford) Baker, Rebecca (Wing) Steere, Rhoda (Gifford) Wing, and Eliza Wood. The following is a testament to their business acumen.

Rebecca Frye was the daughter of Thomas Akin who owned saltworks in Friends Village until his sudden death in 1841. In the distribution of his estate in 1844, David Kelley was entrusted to manage fourteen hundred feet of saltworks for Akin’s two minor children, Rebecca and Abiel. Rebecca managed her portion of the works for six years and in 1853, at twenty-seven years old, Rebecca sold her share of the works to her uncle David K. Akin.

Tamsen Freeman (Gifford) Baker was the daughter of Prince Gifford who was a large salt manufacturer in Friends Village. The family lived on Union Street where the parking lot of the Cultural Center is today. Gifford owned multiple strings of saltworks that ran behind the row of residences along Old Main Street from Mill Lane to Saltworks Lane. One mill and a salt house was built at Bass River. Prince Gifford died in 1844, leaving his saltworks to his daughter Tamsen Freeman (Gifford) Baker. Under his daughter Tamsen’s ownership, the valuation of these works listed on the 1850 and 1860 census was two thousand dollars. She ran these works for seventeen years and in 1861 sold all the works to her mother Tamsen Gifford. Under Tamsen Gifford’s ownership, the 1870 census listed the valuation of her estate at twenty-five hundred dollars. In 1883, Tamsen deeded back to her daughter Tamsen F. Baker half the works. In 1885, she deeded the other half to her son Prince. 

Robert Wing was an extensive salt manufacturer whose business, Robert Wing & Company, was mainly in Bass River Village. In 1807, he married Elizabeth Killey, and lived on the corner of Union and Old Main Streets. They had one surviving  child named Rebecca. Wing later married Abigail Smith. His daughter, Rebecca married Thomas Ellwood Steere of Providence, RI. Wing’s saltworks were valued on the 1850 census at seven thousand dollars. He died in 1856, leaving all of his saltworks to his wife Abigail and daughter Rebecca Steere.

In 1860, Abigail Wing and Rebecca Steere sold over seven thousand feet of saltworks in Bass River Village to David Smith, Barnabas Sears Jr., Isaiah Crocker, and her first cousin David Kelley. Abigail left South Yarmouth to live the rest of her life in New Bedford among family. Rebecca Steere managed these saltworks at Bass River Village between the County Road and Bass River for thirty years. In 1885, she sold the remaining five thousand feet of works to David Kelley. These works were active until 1889 and were the last saltworks remaining in Bass River Village.

Rhoda (Gifford) Wing was the daughter of Prince Gifford and wife of Daniel Wing Sr. They lived at 6 Akin Street right behind the Gifford homestead. In 1841 Daniel Wing Sr. bought the works from Abraham Shearman Jr. and Isaiah Crowell northwest of the County Road. Wing died suddenly in 1842 and the works then were managed by his wife Rhoda. The value of these works listed on the 1850 and 1860 census was two thousand dollars. Rhoda is identified as a Merchant on the 1860 census. After managing the works for twenty-eight years, the heirs sold the works northwest of the County Road to Daniel Wing Jr. In 1872, the heirs sold the works adjoining Crosby Street to Capt. George Crocker. These were some of the last saltworks to be operable in Friends Village.

Eliza (Baker) Wood was the wife of Saltmaker Francis Wood. Their works were bought from Zeno Killey in 1849 and 1850. The land acquired in 1850, contained two and one quarter acres of saltworks, located on the south side of Homer Avenue between the County Road and Bass River. Francis died in 1853 leaving the works to his wife Eliza. She managed these works, referred to as “Aunt Eliza’s Saltworks”, for eighteen years until 1871 when she and her daughter deeded all this property to Isaiah Crocker.

These six remarkable women, with their savvy business-sense and steadfast determination, secured a lasting legacy in Yarmouth’s historic saltworks industry.

Researched and written by Robert Kelley.

To learn more about South Yarmouth’s saltworks, be sure to visit the Cultural Center of Cape Cod during March 2024 for the exhibit Lost History reDiscovered.

Noah W. Morgan : from southern slave to Yarmouth sea captain

When Noah Webster Morgan was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1845, he likely never dreamed he would someday be master of his own ship, plying the coasts of New England. Yet that is exactly what happened.

South Yarmouth Quaker David K. Akin and his wife Betsey were traveling through the south and visited a Friends meeting in Back Creek, North Carolina in the late 1850s. There they met a doctor who knew two bright half-black teenage boys and a black cousin he wanted to take north to freedom. Noah and Eli were brothers whose white Scottish father had died, and two of their sisters had been sold into slavery to settle large estate debts. It was feared the boys would soon be sold also. Dr. Nathan B. Hill, a Quaker, had agreed to accompany them if someone at the end of their journey would take them in. Dr. Hill was in the process of moving to Minnesota.

David K. Akin

Dr. Nathan B. Hill

Akin and his wife agreed to accept responsibility for Noah Morgan, his brother Eli, and cousin Dempsey Ragsdale, once they arrived in Yarmouth. A plan was discussed and put in motion.

Dr. Hill soon set out with the three young men. They were stopped in Richmond, Virginia where someone offered Dr. Hill cash for the boys, but after refusing the offer, they were able to continue north. According to Hannah Sears, granddaughter of the Akins, “the doctor had a hard time getting them to New York and, after he had gotten them on a steamer for Fall River, locked them in a stateroom and went to eat his first meal. Still fearful, he went back and found a man trying to pick the lock!”

The group arrived safely in Bass River. The Akins provided a home for Noah and Eli, and David Kelley took in cousin Dempsey. They had received little if any education so the boys were tutored in their letters and taught to read, then later entered the South Yarmouth Grammar School, where Noah and Eli were noted in the Yarmouth Register as having perfect attendance in Spring 1859. Noah, in particular, was a “very good scholar.”

David K. Akin’s home in Bass River.

After the Civil War broke out Noah enlisted in 1863, first joining the army in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment under Col. Robert Shaw, one of the first African American regiments. He joined the Navy in 1864 out of New Bedford, and served on the steamer Nyanza which patrolled the Mississippi, and then supply ship USS Pampero. It is likely he learned his seamanship skills during this time. He survived the war, returned to Yarmouth in 1866 and later received a pension for his service.

The Navy was far more integrated during the Civil War.

By 1870 Noah was engaged in the salt making trade and that year married Mattie Knox of New Bedford. They settled into a house near the river on Pleasant Street and started a family. Their first child, a son, was named David Akin Morgan after their mentor. A daughter named Emily Mae followed a few years later. Hannah Sears fondly remembered her friend “Emmie” who she saw nearly every day as they whiled away the hours doing what kids do along the shore of Bass River.

The Morgans had a large garden and were known throughout the village for their sweet potatoes and delicious melons.

One of the houses Noah and his family lived in was this little white Cape at 50 Pleasant Street.

In early 1881 Noah was named master of the William H. Rowe and in 1883 the family moved to New Bedford; a larger port with more opportunities. By 1889 he was part owner of the schooner F. H. Odiorne and in 1895 he purchased a quarter interest in the schooner Oliver Ames, becoming her managing owner. The Oliver Ames was the largest two-masted schooner on the coast at 124’ long, with a 33’ beam. The vessel delivered coal to Maine and stone to Philadelphia along with other cargo. In 1909 Noah became half owner of the schooner and sailed her with his son David and other crew. Financial difficulties, in part due to the ship striking rocks near Bath and being stuck in port for the summer of 1910 on a broken marine railway after being hauled out for repairs, forced him to sell his share. David worked at ropemaking in New Bedford.

Schooner Oliver Ames under sail and inbound to Bay View Granite Works

Hannah Sears described her last visit with Noah Morgan in a letter later quoted in Florence Baker’s Yesterday’s Tide : “About ten years ago, in that city for a few hours, I decided to look him up. I knew that his wife, Mattie, had died and that my early playmate had become Mrs. Emily Morgan Tabb of Jersey City. As I went up the street toward his home, a tall stiffly-moving figure was sweeping off the pavement. The back, which for years had carried the scars from a boyhood lashing, was now bent and a shock of white hair made striking contrast to his face….as I introduced myself he gave his old familiar smile … and was again, “Emmie’s father,” as when he lived with his family in the little house near Bass River. We talked long of the changes that had taken place and he asked many questions about those he had known in South Yarmouth. As he bade me good-by, his face shining with friendliness, he patted me on the shoulder with a gentle, ‘Thank you so much, Missy, for coming to see me!’”

168 North Street, New Bedford, where Noah lived in the 1900s with his family.

Mattie died in 1921, Noah in 1924, and son David in 1928. They are all buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in New Bedford. Daughter Emily married Augustus Tabb, moved to New Jersey and had a son who later became an Episcopal priest. Eli, the older of the two brothers and found in later records as “Elias T. Morgan”, was in New Bedford by 1867, married there and had several children. There is no indication he became a sailor. Dempsey was rumored to have gone to sea and this author was not able to find any further trace of him.

Researched and written by Nancy Mumford

*note - unfortunately no images of Noah and his family were found.

Schooner Oliver Ames.