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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 7694
V. L. Chufa
CAPE COD,
THE RIGHT ARM OF MASSACHUSETTS
AN HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
BY CHARLES F. SWIFT, AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF OLD YARMOUTH."
"Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts; the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow or crazy bone at Cape Mallebarre; the wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at Provincetown- behind which the state stands ou her guard."-HENRY D. THOREAU.
YARMOUTH: REGISTER PUBLISHING COMPANY 1897.
Copyright, 1897, By CHARLES F. SWIFT.
Illustrations by JOSEPH E. BAKER.
Goodspaid $ 12.50
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.
1169811
HAT Cape Cod is the Right Arm of Massa- chusetts, was not said with reference alone to its physical characteristics. Regard, undoubtedly, was had to the important and beneficent transactions which had been enacted in its borders and participated in by its people. No part of the country has had a more intimate relation to the great events on this continent during the last two and a half centuries than Cape Cod and its inhabitants. It is with the purpose of bringing within the limits of a single volume a full and continuous record of the history of this people, and making our fellow-citizens better acquainted with the details of that varied and interesting story, that the author has gathered, from many sources, the scattered threads of this narrative. It begins with the signing of the Compact on board the Mayflower in Cape Cod harbor; shows the exalted character of the men who settled here; how its fisheries were taxed to lay the foundation of our common school system; how the first successful resistance to persecution for religious opinions was made by the disciples of Robinson in the case of the Quakers in our Cape towns; how her people resisted taxa- tion without representation, and gave to the country her peerless orator and her men of valor and endurance, in the Revolutionary struggle ; how in the courts of law, in the
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.
marts of commerce, on shipboard, her citizens have stood with the wisest and bravest ; how, in later time, her sons, with the same devotion to the cause of liberty and duty that distinguished their ancestors, rallied to the support of their country's flag and the defence of its honor. These things will not be set down in a spirit of boasting and vain glory, but that adequate justice may be done to the fathers, and that their posterity may be instructed and encouraged by their example.
The plan and limits of this volume necessarily exclude the presentation of genealogical details. It will be a narrative of Cape Cod as a community and as a people. The leading families, who have given it some added dignity, only serve to embody in a larger degree, the concrete character- istics of the whole. To be regarded as a good citizen of Cape Cod ought to carry with it sufficient endorsement, without the added lineage to which many of her people are entitled, of belonging to old families of the fatherland. A considerable number, however, of those who have been conspicnous for what they have done or endured, will be commemorated in biographical notices, as occasion may seem to render it appropriate.
By no means all, nor the greater proportion, of those who are natives of the Cape now live on the peninsula of their birthplace. They are found in large numbers in all the cities of the east, in the west and on the Pacific slope. And wherever they are, they have carried with them the old-time traits, and their affection for, and loyalty to, the old home by the sea.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I.
TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL FEATURES, 1-7
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST EXPLORERS, 8-18
CHAPTER III.
THE MAYFLOWER'S COMPANY AND THEIR EXPLORATIONS,
19-36
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS,
37-61
CHAPTER V.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST COMERS, 62-74
CHAPTER VI.
EVENTS FOLLOWING THE SETTLEMENTS, 75-89
CHAPTER VII.
THE EARLIEST QUAKERS,
90-106
CHAPTER VIII.
KING PHILIP'S WAR, 107-120
CHAPTER IX.
FROM PHILIP'S WAR TO THE UNION WITH MASSACHUSETTS, 121-132
CHAPTER X.
THE CAPE IN THE OLD FRENCH WARS,
133-162
CHAPTER XI.
GATHERING OF THE STORM,
163-181
CHAPTER XII.
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR,
182-213
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM THE PEACE OF 1783 TO THE WAR OF 1812-15,
214-234
CHAPTER XIV.
WAR OF 1812-15, 235-252
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV. FROM WAR OF 1812-15 TO SOUTHERN REBELLION, 253-272 CHAPTER XVI.
CAPE COD IN THE REBELLION, 273-281
CHAPTER XVII.
FROM WAR OF THE REBELLION TO OUR OWN TIMES, 282-310
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FISHERIES AND WHALING, 311-320
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NATIVE INDIANS,
321-337
CHAPTER XX.
CAPE AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS, 338-360
CHAPTER XXI.
POPULATION, CIVIL LISTS, SOCIETIES, ETC.,
361-383
To my fellow-members of the CAPE COD HISTORICAL SOCIETY, who have labored with me to do justice to the memory of the fathers and mothers of Cape Cod, this recital of the history of our native county is fraternally inscribed, by THE AUTHOR.
CAPE COD.
CHAPTER I.
TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL FEATURES.
Cape Cod and Barustable County Synonymous-Incorporation of the several towns-General Formation-Soil, Forests and Flora- Native Animals, Fish and Shellfish-Difference in Northerly and Southerly Waters-Statistics and Characteristics of Population.
HE name CAPE COD was originally intended to apply to the extreme end of the County of Barnstable. In its more extended designation, it includes the entire County, with its fifteen towns, viz. : Barnstable, Sandwich, Yarmouth, inc. 1639; Eastham, 1646; Falmouth, 1686; Harwich, 1694; Truro, 1709; Chatham, 1712; Provincetown, 1727; Wellfleet, 1763; Dennis, 1793; Orleans, 1797; Brewster, 1803; Mashpee, 1870; Bourne, 1884. It is situated between 42º 3' and 41º 31' N. latitude and 69º 57' and 70° 41' W. from Greenwich, England.
It is a peninsula of somewhat irregular outline, about sixty-five miles in length on the north shore, and eighty miles on the south and east, and from three to twenty miles in breadth. Its average width is about six miles. In the interior, the land rises to the height of some two hundred feet above the sea. Scargo Hill, in Dennis, the highest point in the county, is about three hundred feet above the sea level.
According to Professor Hitchcock, former state geologist, the region is composed entirely of sand, even to the depth of three hundred feet in some places, though there is probably
2
CAPE COD.
a concealed core of rock a little beneath the surface ; and it is of diluvian origin, excepting a small portion at the extremity and elsewhere along the shores, which is alluvial. For the first half of the Cape large blocks of stone are found, here and there, mixed with the sand, but for the last thirty miles boulders, or even gravel, are rarely met with. Above the sand, if the surface is subjected to agricultural tests, there is found to be a layer of soil of considerable thickness in the upper portion of the county, gradually diminishing from Barnstable to Truro, when it almost ceases; "but there are many holes and rents in this weather-beaten garment, not likely to be stitched in time, which reveal the naked flesh of the Cape, and its extremity is completely bare."*
The land was originally covered with wood, except in the few fields or planting grounds of the Indians, which comprised only an inconsiderable region. Archer, who wrote an account of Gosnold's voyage, in 1602, spoke of Cape Cod, which Gosnold named, as having "wooded hills ;" and Captain John Smith, who was here twelve years after- wards, described it as "a headland of high hills, overgrown with shrubby pines." To the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, just from the dunes and marshes of Holland, the bay seemed " compassed about to the very sea, with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras and other sweet wood." Of the trees that are indigenous in the county are the pitch pine and the white, in the upper towns ; oak, white, red, black and scrub, sassafras, red cedar, birch, white and black, holly, somewhat scarce, ash, beach, maple, walnut, loeust, in some localities. The red cedar, or savin, called by "Mourt" and other writers, "juniper," was once plentiful, but is not now so productive. Gosnold and Smith called it "cypress," but the real cypress has a different form. Wild grape vines, green briar, *Hitchcock's Report.
3
TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL FEATURES.
Virginia creeper and ivy are shrubs found in all the region of the Cape.
The blackberry, blueberry and wortleberry are abundant in their season. The wild grape is found in the swamps and forests. The wild strawberry grows by the border of highways and in open fields. The checkerberry, sometimes known as boxberry, wintergreen or partridge berry, is abundant in the open woods.
The flora of the Cape is profuse and embraces the golden aster, golden rod, crowberry, pimpernel, violet, smilax, azalia, and the mayflower, the welcome harbinger of spring, hiding its bright blossoms and odorous breath under the covering of rough leaves. The bearberry, or hog cranberry, with evergreen leaves and bright crimson berries, covers acres on the borders of the forests with a thick carpet of foliage and fruit.
Extensive salt marshes skirt the northern and northwesterly shores of the Cape, and these were a great inducement to the early settlers, in seeking for a place of settlement. What is known as salt hay, was formerly much used by our farmers, but of late years is not so well esteemed. Within the last half century an extensive system of dyking has converted many acres into valuable fresh meadow land.
The surface of the county is dotted with hundreds of fresh water ponds, some of them containing an area of hundreds of aeres. The aggregate of our fresh water acreage amounts to a fifth of that of the whole State, viz : Barnstable 8,140; Brewster 1,400; Chatham 5,960; Dennis 979; Eastham 880; Falmouth 4,838; Harwich 1,974; Mashpee, 1,420; Orleans 2,748; Provincetown 320; Sand- wich (including Bourne, ) 1,600; Truro 1,265; Wellfleet. 4,868 ; Yarmouth 3,100. Total 39,492 acres .*
*Internal Fishery Commission Report.
1
CAPE COD.
The shores and bays of the county abound with shellfish in great variety. Oysters were indigenous here, but by the wholesale taking of them the native variety has become scarce ; when brought from abroad and transplanted, espe- cially in regions having a flow of alternate salt and fresh water, they grow with great rapidity and of fine flavor. The m.ya renaria, soft-shell clam, is the most productive of the conchiferous family. Capt. John Smith wrote, in 1616, "You shall scarce find any bay or shallow shore or cove of sand, where you may not take many clampes or lobsters, or both, at your pleasure." Says an old writer, "The most productive land in the State is the clam flats. They cost nothing for fencing or top dressing; they are self-planting and self-supporting, and the more the soil is turned, the faster the crop matures, and the greater its abundance." Some towns annually dig and ship several thousands of bushels, besides what are consumed by the inhabitants. The mactra solidissima, or sea clam, sometimes called the sea hen, grows in the soft sand near the shore, or on the bars, and is caught by raking at low tides. They are much used by the winter bank fishermen, for bait. The mesodesma aictata is a small clam of the giant species, which is sometimes washed ashore on the Cape. The quahaug is a round, thick-shelled clam, tight as an oyster, with hard, firm flesh, greatly esteemed by epicures. The scallop, pectrenconcentricus, is washed ashore in abundance after severe storms, or raked from the shoal water. The eye only is eaten, and is highly esteemed. The mussel, mytilus edulis, is abundant, but not eaten on the Cape, though in France and other countries it is largely cultivated for food. The razor-fish (solen) is named from its resemblance in size and shape to the haft of a razor. It is said to force itself, not only upwards and downwards, but diagonally. It is
5
TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL FEATURES.
excellent eating. Cockles are also found in several varieties.
Of crustacea are the lobster, crab, horsefoot or king-crab, with which the Indians taught our fathers to enrich their corn at planting, by placing a piece in the hill, as they sometimes did fish.
There is a difference in the product of the northerly and southerly waters of the Cape. Prof. Farlow, of the U. S. Fish Commission, makes Cape Cod the dividing line between the Arctic and the Adriatic flow. Here the Gulf Stream loses its force and strikes toward the European coast. Above this line marine vegetation is of an Arctic flora, distinct in many features from that of Long Island. The difference between the flora of Massachusetts and Buzzards Bays is greater than between Massachusetts Bay and the Bay of Fundy, or Nantucket and Norfolk.
Of the fishes which are found in the waters of Cape Cod, the following list was made in 1855 by the eminent native ichthyologist, Capt. Nathaniel E. Atwood. The names by which they are known to fishermen is used, as better adapted to the comprehension of the general reader than the designa- tions employed by scientific writers :
Striped bass, flying sculpin, deep water sculpin, Weymouth or Marblehead eel, stickleback, scapaug, common mackerel, striped bonito, horse mackerel, spotted mackerel (rare), yellow mackerel (rare), bluefish, skipjack, silverside, spotted gunnel, snake-shaped blemry (new), motella (rare), goosefish, tautog, conner, brook minnow, gasse try, bill fish, smelt, herring, blue-back herring (new), alewife, white shad, hickory shad, menhaden, cod, tom cod, haddock, pollock, American hake, whiting, flounder, deep-water flounder, halibut, American turbot, tom-spotted flounder (new), sand dob, eel, sand eel, Peck's pipe fish, sun fish, cat fish, swingle tailed shark, mackerel shark, man-eater shark
&
CAPE COD.
(rare ), more shark, hammerhead shark (rare), blue shark, dog fish shark, skate, cramp fish or torpedo (rare), American lamprey, blueish lamprey. The ponds abound with pickerel, perch, black bass, and in the streams are trout and salmon tront (rare).
Of the wild beasts that were found in the forests of the Cape the wolf alone has been exterminated. In the early settlement of the county the people were greatly annoyed and injured by the depredations of these animals, which came by night to prey upon their cattle. Wolf traps were maintained by public charge throughout the connty, and the bounties offered for their heads by the authorities at last had the effect to lead to their extermination. Red deer were also quite numerous, and owing to the protection afforded by the state, these beautiful animals are now found ranging our forests in the woods of Sandwich, Falmouth, Bourne and in some portions of Barnstable and Yarmouth. The red fox is found all over the county, and, though persistently pursued by hunters, is still apparently undiminished in numbers. The mink and the muskrat are numerous on the borders of ponds and streams; the woodcock and polecat in the fields ; the striped and grey squirrel, rabbit and chipmunk in the forests. The raccoon is not so often scen, and the flying squirrel and ferret but occasionally.
Of birds, there are the fish-hawk, red-tailed hawk, the red, snow and cat-owl, which are the most common birds of prey; eagles are occasionally scen scaling the air; the omniverons birds, like the erow, bluejay, chickadee, meadow- lark, Baltimore oriole, red-winged erow, crow-blackbird, bobolink, cedar-bird, are abundant ; of insectivorons birds, are the robin, pewit, bluebird, brown thrush, wood-thrush and house-wren ; various specimens of the passarine species ; the woodpecker and swallow of several varieties; the night-
TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL FEATURES.
hawk, the whippoorwill, the humming-bird. The heath-hen was formerly found here, but is now extinct, so far as this region is concerned. Quail and partridge are found in almost every forest. Woodcock and snipe are also found, and plover, eurlew, heron, sand-piper, duck, brant and other water birds, are hunted on our beaches and shores.
The county contained, according to the State census of 1895, a population of 27,654 inhabitants. The females out-numbered the males by 963. The hazardous business pursuits of the people accounts in a great measure, though not wholly, for this disparity in the numbers of the sexes. Nearly 90 per cent. of the population are of native birth, and are of purer descent from the first English settlers than in any other portion of the State. With their lineage they have inherited the love of order and progress, and the attachment for free institutions, which distinguished their ancestors, and which all the subsequent generations that followed, maintained and upheld with vigor and determina- tion. From these shores have gone forth thousands of her sons to populate and develop the communities in the West and on the Pacific slope, to which regions they have contributed some of the best elements of their progress and success ; so that, while Barnstable county is their home and the place of their origin, the whole country is a witness to the qualities of mind and heart of the fathers and mothers of Cape Cod, whose achievements it is the purpose of the following pages to record and illustrate.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST EXPLORERS.
Probable visit of the Northmen-Verrazzano, Allefonsce, Bartholo- mew Gosnold, Pring, Champlain and De Monts, Capt. John Smith, Thomas Dermer-Pestilence Among the Natives.
ISTORIANS have been accustomed to ascribe to Bartholomew Gosnold and his companions, in 1602, the first discovery and landing upon the coast of Cape Cod. But it had several times before been explored by Europeans. The Icelandic sagas furnish overwhelming evidence that the Northmen visited this coast some five centuries before the English navigator embarked on his adventurous voyage to the Western continent. The chronicles of these intrepid explorers, especially of Thorfinn Karlsefne, contain references to localities visited, which can apply to no other region of the North American coast but Cape Cod. Setting forth in the year 1006, in two ships, from Iceland to Greenland, and thence following along the coast of Labrador and Sable Island, they "sailed some time southwest with land to star- board, when they reached Kjalarnes, where were trackless and white sandy beaches, of such length as to obtain the name of Furdurstrandir" (Marvellous Strands.) Continuing their course they entered a bay, off the mouth of which was an island, past which ran a strong current, evidently Nantucket Bay and Vineyard Sound, and also sailed further
9
THE FIRST EXPLORERS.
up the bay, where they landed and spent the winter. One of the ships then sailed northward, but after passing the. coast of Kjlarnes, was driven to sea and landed on the coast of Iceland. The other ship sailed southwest and explored the region known to the Scandinavians as Vinland, which the best of authorities now unite in locating somewhere upon the coast of Mount Hope Bay.
The description of this coast by the historians of this. voyage is startling in its reality. As to the Furdurstrandir, or Marvellous Strands, of the Northmen, they correspond
NORSE SHIP.
so exactly with the coast of the Nauset peninsula, and the Chatham and Monomoy beaches, that no description could be more accurate. Dr. Hitchcock says, speaking of this region : "The dunes, or sand-hills, which are often nearly quite barren of vegetation, and of snowy whiteness, forcibly attract the attention on account of their peculiarity. As we. approached the extremity of the Cape, the sand and the barrenness increase, and in not a few places it would need only a party of Bedouin Arabs to cross the traveller's path, to make him feel that he was in the depths of an Arabian or
10
CAPE COD.
Lybian desert." Prof. Rafn (of the Copenhagen Royal Society) thinks that the name of Marvellous Strands may be chiefly due to the phenomena of the mirage, witnessed there by the Northmen, and in support of this conjecture Hitchcock remarks that "In crossing the sands of the Cape, I noticed a singular mirage or deception. In Orleans, for instance, we seemed to be ascending at an angle of three or or four degrees, nor was I convinced that such was not the case, until turning about, I perceived that a similar ascent appeared on the road just passed over." If these bold navigators landed on the Cape they made no extended tarry here, and for over four centuries more, so far as any record sets forth, our waters were unvexed by the keels of European explorers.
In 1524, Giovanni Verrazzano, the great Florentine navigator, made a voyage of exploration to North America, and coasted from Cape Fear, Newfoundland, to New York Bay. In an outline map prepared by James Verrazzano in 1529, appears for the first time upon any chart of the New World an outline of the coast of Cape Cod sufficiently distinct for identification.
About 1542, Jehan Allefonsce, a French navigator, sailed down the coast from Canada, to latitude 42º north, and "entered a great bay," the end whereof he did not reach. Allefonsce's voyage to the New England coast was doubtless made in the interest of Roberval, who, in 1541, was made "Lord of Norombega," or Newfoundland, and of all New England, eighty years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. As Allefonsce was a veteran and accomplished navigator, perfectly acquainted with the astrolabe, it seems certain that the bay he visited in this latitude must have been Massachusetts Bay, thus anticipating Gosnold more than sixty years.
PROVINCETOWN
TRURO
WELLFLE
EASTHAM
.
NAMSKAKETT
CREEK/
5
BREWSTER
ILE NAWSET
Pr. CARE
1
HARWICH; CHATHAM
·a
3
4
PT.GILBERT
1. Site of former entrance to Potammagutt or old ship harbor. The locality of the old ship is represented in black.
2. Present entrance to Chatham harbor.
3. Island ledge.
4. Webb's island.
5. Nanskaket creek.
TUCKERS
ORLEANS
TERROR
YARMOUTH
DENNIS
12
CAPE COD.
On March 26, 1602, O. S., Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, who is regarded as the first Englishman to set foot upon the shores of Cape Cod, and the first European who erected a dwelling-house on the soil of Massachusetts, sailed from Falmouth, England, for the north part of Virginia, in a small bark called the Concord, they being in all, says one account, "thirty-two persons, whereof eight were mariners and sailors, twelve purposing upon discovery to return with the ship for England, the rest to remain there for population." The voyage was undertaken "by the permission of Sir Walter Raleigh" and at the cost of a company of gentlemen, one of whom was the Earl of Southampton, the friend and patron of Shakespeare. Gabriel Archer, "a gentleman of the said voyage," and John Brereton, "one of the voyage," wrote a "Brief and True Relation," from which it appeared that, instead of the indirect course by way of the Canaries and the West India Islands, Gosnold boldly took a straight course across the Atlantic. On the 14th of May he made land on the eastern coast of Massachusetts north of Cape Cod, and sailing south on the 15th, soon found himself "embayed with a mighty headland," which appeared like an island by the reason of the large sound that lay between it and the main. "This sound he called Shoal Hope, and near this Cape, within a league of the land, he came to anchor in fifteen fathoms of water. Having hoisted out onc-half of their shallop, Capt. Gosnold and four others went ashore, and ascending the hills obtained a view of the surrounding country, discovering that the headland was a part of the main, with "sandy islands lying round about it." Their vessels were "so pestered with codfish that numbers of them were thrown overboard, and Capt. Gosnold called the place Cape Cod," "a name," says Cotton Mather, "which it will never lose until shoals of
13
THE FIRST EXPLORERS.
codfish be seen swimming on its highest hills." Archer, one of the gentlemen of the company, describes the Cape as being in "42º North latitude, well nigh a mile broad, and extending northeast by east, the sand by the shore somewhat deep and the ground full of peas, whortleberries, etc., then unripe." They cut firewood, consisting of "cypress, birch, witch-hazel and beech." Gosnold anchored west of Long Point, and describes the shore as bold, and does not mention any lagoon with water between the Point and the site of the present village. His description indicates great changes in the configuration of the coast since that time. The next day he sailed east and south along the outer coast of the Cape, which, inland, was "somewhat woody." This coast differed widely from the present line. Off Nauset a point extended far out into the sea, surrounded by shoal water with breakers. This "beach" he called Tucker's Terror, and the headland, Point Care, which was the easterly cape of Isle Nauset. Passing this headland, and bearing again to the land, he anchored in the night-time, in eight fathoms of water, east of what is now Pleasant Bay. Several canoes here came alongside of the ship, the Indians bringing tobacco pipes studded with copper, skins and other trifles to barter ; one of them had a plate of copper hanging about his neck, and the rest pendants of copper. Five or six miles southeasterly from the present town of Chatham, another point extended far out into the sea, which Gosnold named Gilbert Point, anchoring a league or somewhat beyond it. Not a vestige of Gilbert Point or Isle Nauset now exists. A ledge half a mile from the shore, covered with four or five fathoms of water, in the direct course of vessels passing around the Cape, is all that remains of the latter. The sea broke over the former in two places, forming two islands, one of which soon drifted away. The
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