USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Provincetown > One hundred years of growing with Provincetown : 1854-1954 > Part 1
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FIRST NATIONAL BANK
One Hundred Years of
Growing
With
PROVINCETOWN
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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One Hundred Years of
Growing With
PROVINCETOWN
Mass.
1854-1954
1
A
HE. FIRST NATIONAL
PR
OVINCETOWN . MASS
-
1.
1865
Published on its ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY by THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK of
PROVINCETOWN
Copyrighted 1954 by Gaylon J. Harrison
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the First National Bank of Provincetown.
AN
1854
E.FIRST NATIONAL
PROVINCETOWN . MASS
1954
1.18
Ex LIBRIS
2025201
Old Whale Ship Drying Sails Frederick J. and Coulton Waugh
This painting is one of eight oil canvases of ships painted for the First National Bank of Provincetown by Frederick J. and Coulton Waugh. Aside from their being a project of, perhaps, America's most noted portrayer of the sea, these paintings also represent eight of ten paintings in which the master and his son collaborated. A second painting, "Lancing a Whale", is reproduced in black and white on Page 7. The whole series is hung in the lobby of the bank.
Windmills and ships' masts dominated Provincetown's waterfront in 1854, as is evident in this old woodcut of the Town. You are looking west from a spot near the Art Association.
PROVINCETOWN . .. 1854
Fishermen ready the Georges-Banker "Provincetown" in this old line sketch. In the background is one of the Town's eight sail lofts.
SATIN
PROVINCETOWN
1854 --- J AMES BUCHANAN sat in the White House. In six more years Abraham Lincoln would become President in an era tragic for him and the Nation. Stephen Foster sat in a New York rooming house writing "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair". Postage stamps celebrated their seventh birthday, and in the next decade the Civil War and discovery of oil in Pennsylvania would toll the death knell of the whaling industry.
But, to busy, quiet and prosperous Provincetown-1854 meant activity ashore and asea. The Town was quiet. Most of her 56 whalers were at sea. It was busy. The business of the sea insisted that men and ships be ready to sail at all times. It was prosperous- the richest town per capita in Massachusetts.
With nearly 700 ships: whalers, Grand-Bankers, Georges- Bankers, mackerel-catchers and line fishermen crowding the har- bor, the Town had to keep busy to supply their needs. One-hundred 90-ton cod-fishing schooners, catching nearly double the total of all the rest of the Cape, required a lot of salt. And, the sea-salt makers kept their windmills pumping the sea into drying pans. A mackerel fleet large enough to fill Marblehead Harbor meant nets to be made, sails to be mended. And, a whaling fleet that sailed away from home, for several years at a time meant harpoons, lines and provisions to be made and accumulated.
Let us climb a hill and look about at Provincetown. Not as it is today, but as it was one-hundred years ago. Over there on Long Point, the "eyes" of 38 houses solemnly watch the mackerel fleet as it retraces the course of the Mayflower around Wood End into the Harbor. And just down there, where the "hook" runs out toward Long Point, the Pilgrims first landed.
Bustling on the wharves below, whalemen provision their barks, brigs and schooners for long two and three year voyages. Windmills line the shore pumping the sea into the salt works on Gull Hill and Long Point. In almost every yard the sun reflects brilliantly from salt fish laid upon the wicker-work flakes about houses and barns.
Along planked Front Street, men trundle barrows filled with odds and ends: fish, rope, lumber; yes, even sand. There goes a horse and wagon-the only one in Town. Notice how wide are the treads of its wheels, keeping it "afloat" on the sands of the beach. There's Nickerson's dry goods store and Bowley's, the ship chand-
prologue 1854
1
. 3 . ..
lers. And, all along the shore, over fifty wharves stretch out to meet the tide. Among them, the thousand-foot Central, Union and Lewis's wharves. All about them, the business of Provincetown, 1854- Ships and the Sea.
Ships, the Sea, and great Prosperity. All tied together in one great package: a great package containing a great problem. That problem was credit capital.
Whaling vessels were expensive to build, to provision, man and maintain. While they often paid for themselves in a single voyage, a great deal of money had first to be obtained and paid out before that voyage began. And, in a three-year voyage, provisions had to be bought over and over again in lands where Captain and owners were unknown.
The money problems of the whaling industry were not new ones. Whenever and wherever merchants and seaman extended themselves beyond simple one to seven day journeys outside the confines of coastal waters, they ran into the problem of credit
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prologue 1854
capital. In the Middle Ages the Lombards of Venice answered the problem. Merchants took gold, sil- ver and other valuables to them and, in exchange, received letters of credit which guaranteed payment of the merchants' obligations. In Provincetown, the Union Wharf Company performed much the same service. That, after a fashion, took care of the long voyage. When expenses were small, the cost of outfitting could be handled by selling shares in the vessel. When expenses were larger, as ships became larger, individuals lacked sufficient capital to invest. At best these were but short term measures. In the long view more was needed to build and keep growth growing whether we speak of ships or cottages and shops.
In a house on Front Street, Eben S. Smith, the Underwriters' Agent with an office on Union Wharf, was host to a group of men interested in the long view. There was Joshua E. Bowley, who, with his brother, owned whaling ships and was a ship chandler and grocer. There was Henry Cook, in the same business, and brother and relative to the long line of Cooks who captained so many of the whaling fleet; Enos Nickerson, owner of the schooner Helen M.
Schooners, sails and fish drying in the sun. Salted and sun-dried these fish will will be packed in barrels for the market.
prologue 1854
3
Seated before the first Bank building are its Board of Directors, probably the first Board. While the date of this picture is unknown, it is believed to date to the 1870's. Woodward, and dry goods mer- chant; and Isaiah Gifford, a ** *** "submarine contractor". Nathan Freeman II, Joseph P. Johnson, Nathaniel Holmes - merchants ******** and ship owners, and Daniel F. Small and Samuel Soper were ********* **** ***** there. They had come to discuss credit capital.
They didn't call it that. They called it "getting together to im- prove the fleet". They called it "finding the answer to the prob- blems that put Yarmouth out of
25 LINCETOWNE
25
AHX
Paper nickels, dimes and quarters were issued by the Bank during the early days of its life. These were legal tender and widely used.
prologue 18.54
4
the fish business". But credit capital was what they were talking about.
They talked about something relatively new: the commercial bank. In their travels these men had come across a new type of bank that did everything the Lombards had done and more. Where the Lombards merely exchanged paper worth so much for actual money or valuables worth the same amount, these new banks judged the worth and character of their customers and, when they saw fit, substituted their own obligations for those of their customers. In effect, this permitted the customer to increase his capital for he retained the use of his original valuables and added to them the credit extended to him by the bank.
Prior to 1800, this was virtually unknown. In fact, this type of banking did not become wide spread until the latter half of the 19th century was well advanced.
To the men at Eben Smith's house here was the purchasing power they needed: money available in any market wherever they might be, whether that be Provincetown or Timbuctoo. To achieve it they formed the "Provincetown Bank", a commercial institution. Capital Stock was set at $100,000 in shares of $100 each and every man subscribed to the stock.
On March 28, 1854, the subscribers were incorporated as the "Provincetown Bank". On May 21, the first Board of Directors met again at Eben Smith's. There, Nathan Freeman II was elected the first President. Shortly afterward, on June 2, the Joshua Cook estate on Front Street was purchased and the contract let for a building and a steel vault and safe. Plates for bills: the "letters of credit" so badly needed, were ordered. Now one last step remained before the Bank could be opened for business: the hard money paid in as Capital Stock had to be counted by the Banking Com- missioners. Elijah Smith, the first Cashier, was proud to show them that over half of the subscribed stock - $50,357.50 -had been paid.
The Provincetown Bank, first commercial bank on the Cape below Yarmouth, was opened for business.
Salt-fish drying in the sun
prologue 1854
5
T he 50's were Glory Years all over the Cape. Wellfleet had five whalers that doubled as cod-fishermen when whales were scarce; four 30-ton oyster carriers and a dozen smaller craft. Orleans, with no harbor of her own, put her men aboard the ships of other towns. Chatham had 25 ships at sea; Eastham three. Over 200 men sailed out of Harwich and a fleet of twenty 40-ton and smaller ships sailed from Dennis. Yarmouth had 10 ships and Barnstable 100 men engaged in fishing. Truro had sixty mackerel-catchers at sea and local shipyards rang with the carpenters' hammers.
Provincetown, though, led them all. Here was the largest fleet on the Cape catching twice the total of the rest combined. Over 12,000 hogsheads of salt were made a year by Provincetown's salt- makers and every grain of it was used by Provincetown's cod-fisher-
the glory years
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men and mackerel-catchers. Five buildings were devoted to smoking herring and ninety to storing fish. In 1854 Provincetown fishermen landed 79,000 quintals-27,416,340 pounds of fish! With its whal- ers, Grand-Bankers, Georges-Bankers, mackerel-catchers and line fishermen, Provincetown Harbor was nearer crowded than ever be- fore or since.
It was Provincetown that found the answer to the treacherous Georges Banks. The water at Georges is so shoal in places that it breaks in every easterly blow. A nasty sea gets up in minutes. The older blunt-bowed cod-fishermen weren't up to these dangerous waters so the Town developed a new vessel.
She was a schooner and fast as lightning. She could go to wind- ward under shortened sail and take a tremendous pounding at the same time. She had a clipper bow and tapered stern, was long- sparred, like a yacht, and-in the opinion of local experts-was the most beautiful ship that ever entered the Harbor.
The Bank helped build a fleet of these new ships as it helped send whalers to the Arctic and the South-Seas, and cod-fishermen to the Grand-Banks. In doing so it gained the confidence of the Town.
Herman Jennings, in his book Provincetown, attributes much of the popularity and success of the Bank in those early days to Nathan Freeman II and Elijah Smith. "Mr. Nathan Freeman, the President from the organization as a State Bank ... by his keen judgement and conservativeness placed it in a sound financial con- dition and made its stock a very desirable investment". Of Elijah Smith, " ... by his kind and genial manners, won many friends and did much toward making the Bank popular with the community".
Year after year we find semi-annual dividends of 312% to 5 and 6% recorded in the Bank's records: evidence that investing in the Town was profitable to both Town and Bank.
To be of more service to the Town, the Board of Directors voted to become a "Banking Association" under the National Bank Act of 1864. Its name was changed to "The First National Bank of Provincetown" and its capital increased. From $100,000 and 12 stockholders in 1854, the Bank had grown to $200,000 in Capital Stock held by 188 citizens of the Town. Resources had almost doubled in just ten years. Now, they stood at $430,000, ready to help the people of Provincetown prosper.
The Advocate editor, looking out over the harbor, could write, "The harbor looked splendid Sunday night, so thickly studded with vessels' nights. No city is as brilliant at night as this display". Else- where in its columns he reported the Chicago Fire, and carried an advertisement of the Union Pacific Railroad.
the glory years
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UNE
First National Bank 2344
PROVINCETOWN
:286192
NATIONAL:
CURRENCY do
This is a sample of the money issued by the Bank. It was legal tender anywhere in the World. On its obverse was depicted the first landing of the Pilgrims, in Provincetown, of course. This bill was issued in 1865.
ONE
CONE'S
ONE'S
Published by special permission of the Chief, U. S. Secret Service, Treasury Department. Further reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.
Looking west from Mayflower Heights-1895
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8
the glory years
And, on the front page, the Advocate carried "Look Out For The Engine!" The days of the lumbering, cumbersome, uncomfort- able stage coach were numbered. The railroad was coming to Town.
To bring the railroad to Provincetown it was necessary for the Town to subscribe for stock in the extension from Wellfleet in the amount of 5% of its valuation. As Town Moderator, Joseph P. John- son appointed on February 13, 1871, a committee of nine to meet with railroad officials and arrange the terms of the subscription.
A director of the bank, Johnson had started life as an apprentice sail-maker, an ap- propriate beginning in a sea- port. A sailmaker, grocer, ship chandler, vessel outfitter, packer, dealer in cod and mackerel, and underwriter, his driving interests were Pro- vincetown and its advance- ment. He represented his peo- ple in the General Court for 10 terms; in Town Govern- ment for 30 years.
Town Hall Hill-1895
As bank director he urged Looking east on Commercial-1905. Adams' Pharmacy in left foreground. Note the planked sidewalk. the need for the Railroad so strongly that one of the di- rectors is reported to have saidd, "Johnson became so tiresome on that engine I dreaded going to meetings,,. But he made his point. The Board instructed Nathan Freeman to "negotiate a loan with the town for the purpose of building a railroad to this place" and it was done.
The great day came with a huge celebration. Flags flew, bells rang, and a great crowd came down to meet the train. At about one in the afternoon of July 22, 1871, the engine chuffed around a curve and into the depot at Parallel and Center Streets, "crowded almost to suffocation" with townsmen who had ridden in from Wellfleet. Among the passengers was President Ulysses S. Grant.
And also, in an old, old story, was a little old lady. Every time the conductor passed her, she timorously requested that she
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9
be told when the train reached Provincetown. Near the Town she once more stopped the conductor. "Are you sure", she asked, "that the train will stop at Provincetown?" Exasperated, he replied, "Lady, if it doesn't there will be a dem big splash!"
Provincetown was growing up. Before the Revolutionary War it was an "inconsequential, half civilized settlement" of wreckers, outcasts and men too ornery to live with their fellows. During that war Provincetown was the headquarters of the British blockading fleet. In independence and rebelliousness the Tip-Enders bow to no man. In this instance it wasn't that they favored Tory over Patriot; they just didn't care. They were fishermen and they fished. King or Congress were the same to them-as long as the fish were biting!
There were ten houses on the Tip End when the first census was taken. Fifty years later there were 812 people in Provincetown. The town grew. Its fleet grew. And as they grew a whole new popu- lace grew up. No longer were they outcasts and anti-social. Now, with new wealth from whaling and Banks fishing, the shacks were replaced by beautiful homes and Townsmen looked about for ways to improve their town.
Nathan Freeman II donated the Public Library to the Town. The library had been begun in 1863 with a gift of $300. By 1874 the Town had raised, by subscription and appropri- ation, $3,466.12 for the pur- chase of books. On June 13 1874, books and building were combined and the Library was opened to the public. In constant use ever since, it stands today as a monument to the civic spirit prevalent Town Hall Hill with Bradford Street in foreground. then.
Weirs to catch bait for the fleet were set out; a new Town Hall had been built atop Town Hill in 1854. It burned in 1877 and a second was built in 1886 at the foot of the hill. Schools went up and new homes spread down- along toward Truro.
Commercial Street in the west end-1910
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The last of the whalers, the D. A. Small, awaits a favorable wind and change of tide. 1906.
HE 50's, the 60's, the 70's and the 80's-times of great prosperity in Provincetown.
The 70's opened with the basic staple of Provincetown economy -fishing-in a boom. $2,538,109 worth of fish and whale oil were landed on Provincetown's 53 wharves in 1871. Provincetown was the unquestioned leader of the Cape fishing industry. While Well- fleet and Truro fleets shrank, Provincetown's grew. While Truro's harbor silted and the Union Company's store crashed in bank- ruptcy; while lack of capital, according to Kittredge, put Yarmouth and Chatham out of the fish business, Provincetown's commercial bank put money into new and more modern fishing vessels and fish processing.
Within a decade, though, Provincetown's fleet had shrunk to 64 vessels. By 1900 only 18 boats remained of the great fishing fleet. In 1871 the cod-fishermen brought in 1,348,590 pounds of fish. In 1896 they could catch only 110,000 pounds. What happened?
Looking backward in time it often seems easy for the historian
a time of transition
11
Town Hall-1870. This building burned in 1877 and was replaced by the present Town Hall. Because it was a cold walk to the top of the Hill very few regretted its burning. really happened here at the Tip End.
to pinpoint change. History books, for example, often mark the end of whaling in America around the 1870's. In fact, whalers went out from Provincetown until 1916. A writer in the Boston Traveler, back in 1913, could attribute the decline of the fishing in- dustry here to failure to keep pace with modernizing busi- ness methods. Kittredge could attribute it to lack of capital to keep up with Boston and the company owned boats of Gloucester. Let us see what
Here in Provincetown, one well known firm of ship chandlers, worth $100,000 in cash and owners of 17 vessels-mostly whalers- in 1854, was broken, impoverished by 1881. On the other hand, Nickerson's Whale and Menhaden Oil Works was built in 1886 on Herring Cove between what is now the New Beach and Wood End Light. It employed 30 people and circulated, in wages, over $10,000 a year. Yet, in 1872, of twenty whalers only one was at sea; the remainder stayed at their docks with no prospects of fitting out.
Whale ashore at Nickerson's Whale and Menhaden Oil Works. Man atop the whale holds a flensing knife.
a time of transition
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The years 1873 and 1893 saw depression in the big cities. There, the Nation suf- fered from the stock manip- ulations of Jay Gould and Fisk. In Provincetown, it was the fish manipulations of Nep- tune. Fish that had been plen- tiful locally suddenly dis- appeared. Where, no one knew. They had disappeared before and they had returned before. They would do so Mayflower Heights-1890 again, said the fishermen. But, before that, complications set in.
One complication was a shortage of young men. Here, men learned the sea as boys of 12 or 13. Working from dories close in- shore as hand-liners, they soon were working the Georges from dories or harpooning whales from small boats. With fish close at hand, young boys had a training ground for the deep sea.
With fish gone, men had to work farther and farther asea. Young men, unable to afford larger boats and lacking the knowledge to sail them; unable to fish from inexpensive dories, looked to the shore or moved to New Bedford, Boston or Gloucester. When fish returned a decade later only the older men and the few who chose the sea, come what may, remained.
Another factor lay in the rapid growth of the fresh fish in- dustry. The shore having tasted fresh fish rejected salt. Obviously, the fleets of Gloucester and Boston had the advantage. In the time
Old Central House dominates this view of Commercial Street looking west. 1905.
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it took Provincetown's fleet to take on a load of fish, the vessels of those towns had ventured out and gotten back. Distance from the market-place was and remains Provincetown's disadvantage.
Then, there was a difference in attitudes toward fishing. When draggers and small mesh nets were introduced by Gloucester-men, Provincetown's men firmly and angrily rejected such methods. To rip up the bottom with draggers and take the young fish with small mesh nets could mean but one thing-the destruction of fishing grounds.
The men of Provincetown were sea-farmers with their homes in the middle of their huge fields. Like the farmer, the fishermen of Provincetown believed that crops had to be left to grow and ripen before they should be gathered.
More than capital, more than business methods, more than national economic disaster lay behind Provincetown's decline as a great fishing port. There was also the competition of attitudes and ideas.
In the meantime, the Glory Years of the fishing industry were drawing to a close. The downward path is reflected in Bank de- posits. Year by year the Bank's depositors banked less and less. Year by year the Bank's stockholders felt the pinch as their per- sonal holdings were depleted. Finally, in 1899, the stockholders voted 1520 shares to 80 to reduce the Capital Stock by one-half. That meant less money to make available to others for improve- ments. It was a step no Bank takes willingly. But when Community and Bank grow together, what happens to the one, happens also to the other. They had hit a low point together with the gradual falling away of the fishing industry. Now, together, they would grow again in the development of two industries.
The economy of the Town was in transition. Two "industries" had passed each other in the darkling of time-one retreating and the other advancing-and neither realized what was happening to the other. For the future it would be the rebuilding of the fleet and the development of resort trade.
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a time of transition
A town surrounded by the sea sees at first hand the caprice of the wind and waves. Provincetowners know the peaceful sea. They also know the horrible destructive anger of the roused waves. With the knowledge that over 1,200 ships have met disaster along its outer shore in the past hundred years, Provincetowners know the great value of the Coast Guard.
There were no Coast Guard Stations when the Bank opened its doors in 1854. Not until 1872 did Congress get around to establishing lights and patrolling the beaches. The contrast is striking. From 1843 to 1880, 743 vessels met disaster; from 1880 to 1917-427; from 1917 to the present time-43. How many countless thousands lost their lives prior to 1872 is unknown. The heroic efforts of men like Captain Wallace Cook, Samuel Fisher, Levi Kelley, Charles Higgins, John Bangs, David Snow and others, have saved countless thousands. Now-a-days, shipwrecks are few and far be- tween as ships are warned away from treacherous bars and shoal by the Coast Guard, and amazing electronic devices like radar. But, just in case, the life saving service stands by-ready to go out. "They have to go out. They don't have to come back".
n transition, as in the Glory Years, the Town was fortunate. With the young men shunning the sea for shore careers it was Province- town's advantage for the long pull to have seasoned captains and the Portuguese-perhaps the world's finest fishermen. Born to the sea these men from the islands had come to Provincetown as whaling men and stayed to aid in the rebuilding of the fleet. Many served under Captain Manuel Enos, one of the last of the schooner cap- tains. Of them he says, "They couldn't read English, but they could fish!" By 1900 there were over 2,000 Portuguese citizens in Provincetown. And their children learned to read the language of their new country while also reading the language of their parents. I
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