The first trip by car to Provincetown

The arrival of the first automobiles on America’s roads in the early twentieth century fundamentally changed everyday life on Cape Cod. For residents and tourists alike, motor vehicles opened a path to faster, easier and more pleasant journeys than were previously possible by ship, coach or train.  

In 1901 a first ‘around-the-Cape’ trip was accomplished by two friends aboard a red, steam-powered Stanley Steamer car. The automobile owner was Charles Lincoln Ayling, a Boston resident who spent summers in Centerville. His was one of just 600 cars registered in Massachusetts in 1901. He and William Morgan Butler left at dawn and returned home by dusk next day. That 36 hour dash led north to Old Kings’ Highway (now Route 6A), northeast to Provincetown then back along what is now Route 28. 

Charles Ayling as a young, then older man

Subsequently, Ayling was to claim (with the backing of others) that his was the first-ever round trip by car to span the full length of the Cape. He later would achieve success as businessman and philanthropist, well-known on the Cape as a benefactor of Cape Cod Hospital, the Centerville Historical Museum, and a founder of the Hyannis Airport, among other things.

The Main Streets of Yarmouth Port, Dennis, Brewster and other villages were described at the time as well-curbed, incorporating lengthy strips of macadamized surfaces while being shaded by fine trees. These roads offered striking views of quaint houses, neat farms, cranberry bogs, marshlands and pristine local waters. However, beyond downtown areas roads typically were unpaved and blighted by deep ruts engraved into their surfaces. These had been formed by grinding of the wheels of the endless flow of carts, wagons and coaches.  Unfortunately, these permanent ruts or tracks were some 6-to-12 inches further apart than the standard gage adopted for automobiles. This caused a problem for Ayling’s companion who was forced to spend hours in discomfort, perched at an awkward angle with his head way above that of the driver!

Nevertheless, the 1901 vintage ‘Steamer’ made a 15 mph average and at times hit 30 mph even on rough roads. The vehicle was a big hit among early car owners, who on account of its odd shape, affectionately named it ‘The Flying Teapot.’ It had a gas-fueled boiler under the front seat to generate steam, then transferred energy to the rear axle to power the car. The chassis was wood.

But the ‘Steamer’ could also be a travelers’ nightmare, especially on roads that were rutted, winding, hilly and plagued by sand build-up. So Ayling’s progress was punctuated by lots of slowdowns and even dead stops.

The greater challenge came upon reaching the Outer Cape where roads had been labeled by a travel guide as ‘worst in State.’ Old maps show that these roads faded into a spider’s web of tangled, narrow trails. At this time auto service providers on the Outer Cape were pretty much non-existent. 

Ironically, progress in other means of transport had exacerbated the wretched state of Outer Cape roads. Steam ships gave the region access to the outside world by providing reliable packet and ferry services and the Cape Cod Railroad had stretched all the way to P-town by 1873. Both advances undermined the incentive to improve Outer Cape roads and left the area poorly prepared for the emergence of autos.

A hardship for ‘Steamers’ was an insatiable thirst for water, necessitating many refills once initial supplies were gone. Luckily, drinking troughs for horses existed in most villages, making it easy for car drivers to refill their radiators. 

Obtaining gas was another hurdle, so long-distance drivers had either to carry gas cans or bargain for fuel from local businesses (e.g. painters, hardware stores) that held stocks for their own use and tires of early cars were troublesome due to their smooth, no-tread design. Ayling was forced to make time-consuming tire changes and patch-fixes several times during the trip.

Another obstacle was that at various points Ayling found himself stalled by a curious, excited yet fearful crowd of onlookers, many of whom had never before seen a ‘horseless carriage.’ He also found himself blocked at times by horse-drawn vehicles passing from both directions. This required one of the men to get out and to cajole nervous horses on their way.

Despite everything, at dusk some 12 hours after his departure, Ayling arrived in P-town only to be greeted by the Town Crier. Bearing a flag and clanging a bell, this official guided his visitors through an enthusiastic throng and on to Gifford House, a local lodging place.

But the proprietor had one final surprise for Ayling: he was worried that his guest’s ‘steam dragon’ might be too great a fire hazard for it to be parked in the inn’s courtyard. This decision forced our travelers to scurry around and find an abandoned barn as the haven for the little red ‘Steamer’ for the night.

Gifford House

Excerpted from an article by HSOY member Bob Leaversuch

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1902 Stanley Steamer.

The Great October Gale of 1841

Being in the thick of the Atlantic hurricane season, it’s a good time to look at the one storm which had the greatest impact on Cape Cod history. If you asked twenty Cape Codders which storm this was, there’s a very good chance that they wouldn’t choose the Great October Gale of 1841. The 1938 Hurricane, the twin Hurricanes Carol and Edna of 1954 arriving just 11 days apart, or Hurricane Bob might be mentioned. Reaching back to the 19th century, the Blizzard of 1888 even could be an answer. 

However, Cape Cod was rebuilt after each of these massive storms and continued on. Only one storm, the Great October Gale of 1841, changed the course of Cape Cod’s economic history. Today, this storm would have been classified as a large hurricane, and its direct fury as a storm lasted four days. Its impact on the Cape’s economy is still felt today.

Lasting from October 2-6, the outer beach was strewn with the parts of 50 wrecks and 100 bodies were taken up and buried. Cape fishing fleets were decimated by the storm. The Cape fleet was at George’s Bank fishing for mackerel at that time, and was destroyed as the storm hit both the Cape and George’s Bank. Truro lost 57 men and seven vessels; Dennis lost 22 men, and Yarmouth lost 10 men - a tragic loss for those small tight-knit communities. On the south side of the Cape, Falmouth lost as many men as all of the north side. Fishing fleets never recovered from the damage and there was neither money nor manpower to rebuild the fleet. It was shortly after this storm that fishing weirs began to appear along beaches and inlets of Cape Cod. The fish weirs were a less expensive method of fishing, but were far less successful, and never replaced the fleets. Only Provincetown’s fleet was rebuilt to its former size.

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Places where fish weirs had been in use before the storm were decimated by it. Follins Pond at the northerly end of Bass River silted in so badly that fishing on that salt water pond could no longer remain a viable economic force. The Weir Village section of Yarmouth, which bordered Follins Pond and Mill Pond, became a ghost town. Houses were even moved to other sections of the town after the storm. Today, Weir Road in Yarmouth gives few clues to the former active fishing village of the area.

Chase Garden Creek took in so much silt that it lost its tidal force and ability to float schooners down to Bass Hole. From the October Gale on, the tide never came into Bass Hole as it had. Prior to 1841, it was Chase Garden River. While the old-timers continued to call it that, within 25 years of the storm, maps had started referring to it as a creek. The two ropeworks in Yarmouth, one by the Yarmouth Port playground and another along Bass River, stopped production by 1850, and perhaps a few years earlier.

The only exception to the loss of shipbuilding was at the Shiverick shipyard in East Dennis. Starting in 1848 and lasting until 1863, Shiverick built some of the best clipper ships ever to sail. 

Image from Dennis Historical Society.

Saltworks, once so common around the Cape, took an incredible hit. With fewer fishing vessels to buy their salt, and the cheapness of imported salt, many saltworks were never rebuilt after the October Gale of 1841. Some of the wood from these saltworks was used in construction. One of the more notable was the Kelley Chapel, now on the Historical Society’s grounds.

Saltworks along Bass River.

Few storms have hit at a worse economic time. Starting in the decade after the storm, the Cape Cod’s population experienced a decline that wasn’t reversed until the century ended. Only the rise of tourism, which began after the Civil War, brought the economy of Cape Cod some new hope.

The Nobscusset Hotel, courtesy of the Dennis Historical Society.

Excerpted from an article by Duncan Oliver.
For more details about the October Gale, watch this interesting video, courtesy of Friends of Ancient Cemetery.

The story of Baxter Mill

Baxter Mill is a gristmill that has existed for more than three hundred years. If it weren’t for a severe injury to a hand during the King Philip’s War, the mill never would have been built. And, if Edward Sturgis hadn’t died at a fairly young age, Thomas Baxter, the man with the injured hand, wouldn’t have married his widow. 

Thomas Baxter was a bricklayer, and his injury prevented him from returning to his trade. Marrying Temperance Sturgis put him in contact with Shubael Gorham, his wife’s brother, and together they built a fulling mill on Swan Pond River, now Parker’s River.

His sons, together with his step-son and brother-in-law, then built a grist mill about 1710 to grind corn nearby on what is now known as Mill Brook. Corn was the most important vegetable at this time. Once dried, it could be ground by the miller and used as flour. Cornbread, often called Johnnycake by those along the south coast of New England, was a staple at every meal. A family of six needed 100 bushels each year.

A 19th century poem was written that is still known today:

"The Baxter boys, they built a mill. 
Sometimes it went, sometimes stood still; 
And when it went, it made no noise. 
Because ‘twas built by Baxter's boys." 

Before the mill could be built, the Baxters built the dam. The original mill had an undershot waterwheel on its east side. The pond wasn’t high enough to support an overshot wheel. The mill ownership passed from John and Shubael Baxter, sons of Thomas, to their children, Richard and Jennie, first cousins who married each other {not too unusual back then}. The mill stayed in the family – from their son Prince who made repairs and improvements, to his son Prince Jr. Junior’s guardian, David Scudder, sold half interest to the Bakers and the other half to 2nd cousin Alexander Baxter.

About 1860, the mill was changed from waterwheel to turbine, to limit the damage caused by water freezing around the wheel each winter. More was done in October of 1875. According to the Patriot on October 19, “The Baxter Mill, which is situated in the confines of the village of West Yarmouth, and which to a stranger would seem to belong to Hyannis, has lately been undergoing extensive repairs, some $2000 having been expended. Among improvements, a new stone has been put in, new hoppers and bins built. excellent arrangements have been perfected for the proper drainage of the main pond, a new road has been built, branching off from the main road, and running along by the old, between it and the pond, thereby enabling farmers to bring their corn to the door in the upper story of the mill, which, of course, enables them to unload and load with much less labor then by the old method.”

Baxter Grist Mill about 1875

Even though repaired and improved, operations ceased a few years later. Then, in 1890, “Mr. Q. T. Seabury has succeeded in purchasing about all the land surrounding the mill pond at West Yarmouth….After several hitches, we understand these gentlemen have succeeded in securing the old Baxter Mill and all the privileges connected therewith.” (Barnstable Patriot)

What happened next wasn’t anticipated. In March of 1904 the dam gave way, “so badly damaging part of the state road [now Route 28] that it will have to be rebuilt.” (Barnstable Patriot). But the dam wasn’t fully rebuilt. A 1915 article by Daniel Wing, Yarmouth historian, writing about West Yarmouth homes, said that “the dam has been allowed to wash away…this once beautiful and interesting spot is now grown up with rushes.”

Dr. E.F. Gleason, later achieving prominence by having his estate become the first Cape Cod Hospital, bought the land across from the mill from the Baxter family and in 1917 he acquired the land across the road, including the old mill.

During the 1920s, Route 28 in West Yarmouth blossomed into an entertainment center for Cape Cod, the automobile allowing people to travel further. Just east of the Baxter Mill an entertainment/eating spot opened in 1924. Called The Old Mill Tavern, the owners built a 40’ by 40’ building with a 12 foot piazza featuring both great food and dancing. With Prohibition in full swing, the Tavern was officially dry, and that, combined with the Great Depression starting just five years later, doomed the Tavern in the 1930s.

Old Mill Tavern

 It’s little known that Henry Ford approached Gleason about buying the Baxter Mill for his historic collection, but Gleason turned him down. The Mill languished through the Depression and World War II years, with a brief revival after the war as a gift shop and a lobster shack. At this point, A. Harold Castonguay, local lawyer and benefactor of many gifts to the town, including the West Yarmouth Library, bought the land and mill and started restoration in August 1960. All of this restoration is well documented in his 1962 booklet, “Two Men On A Mill.”

The mill was given to the Town of Yarmouth and is the only surviving 18th-century water-powered mill on Cape Cod. Baxter Grist Mill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

Excerpted from an article by Nate Rowe and Duncan Oliver

Baxter Mill today