USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Eastham > Eastham, Massachusetts, 1651-1951 > Part 5
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Next, the whole length of the County way through East- ham was widened and relocated in 1857, on petition of Abijah Mayo and sixty-two other Eastham citizens. This major opera- tion again began at Jeremiah's Gutter, and continued to the Wellfleet line-a widening to fifty feet, with thirty feet turn- piked, and eighteen feet in the center gravelled. By and by
FIRST OFFICIAL MAP
Rare 1795 map of Eastham, which then included the present Orleans. It is the first official town survey, made in compliance with a state law. Note "sand heaps" from bay to cove, windmills, meetinghouses. Redrawn for clarity, from the original, which has not previously been published, by Schofield Brothers.
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EASTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
the State took over the County way and surfaced it; within the past two decades the State widened it again and built the broad four-lane highway traversing the old town today. A much named way is the ancient way through Eastham: first, the In- dian trail, then the King's Highway, then the County Way, now the State highway, designated by Massachusetts as Grand Army of the Republic Highway, and numbered by the Federal government, U. S. Route 6.
V
Eastham as a
A
1651
1951
Maritime Town,
Eastham, having no good deepwater harbor of its own, yet for more than two centuries was a great maritime town be- cause of its many men who, as one expressed it, "beat the seas for a living." And also because by nature it is a town by and of the sea, with a long dangerous outer beach on the open Atlantic and a bay shore always perilous in storm and fog. To tell Eastham's maritime story four themes have been suggested here: accounts of some of the many shipwrecks along these shores, something of the life-savers who have performed val- orous deeds in organized rescue work, something of the light- houses at Nauset and the now vanished Billingsgate, and final- ly, of some of the Eastham mariners who sailed the seven seas and left names not to be forgotten.
STORM AND SHIPWRECK
"Nauset Beach is not rock bound nor iron bound, but for mariners it is spell bound," a Cape Codder wrote more than a century ago, contemplating the wrecks of a single storm. And so it would seem. The first shipwreck here occurred in 1626, the latest in 1948. In between, an endless procession of ships have gone to their graves in the outer beach and bars, and with them countless human lives.
The first shipwreck was that of the Sparrowhawk, in the Orleans portion of Old Eastham; Bradford gives a good ac- count of it, and its ribs, dug from the beach in 1865, repose in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth. Records of the first century's toll are sparing in detail, but we begin with a sentence from the diary of Deacon Moses Paine: "November ye 29, 1717, this day Captain Joshua Doane, Thomas Pitty, George Vickery, William Shustan, Joseph Sweat (Sweet) and Sam Charles (an
A RECENT WRECK-Here the New Bedford scallop dragger Cape Ann wallows in the surf at Nauset on March 6, 1948, not long after Nauset Coast Guardsmen had rescued five men by breeches buoy. Cargo and gear saved, vessel a total loss.
Indian) were drowned in going from Eastham Harbor to Bill- insgate." Next year was noted the wreck of the pirate ship Whidah, on the backside, in that part now South Wellfleet.
A searcher of pirate and shipwreck lore may find many good accounts of the Whidah's sad end. Her master was the notorious Richard Bellamy; he and all but two of her 144 men were drowned. From a companion vessel, the pink Mary Anne, wrecked further south, seven survived and five, after trial in Boston, were hanged. The Province governor at once despatched Captain Cyprian Southack from Boston to round up what might be salvaged from the Whidah but he got little;
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EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
Cape Codders had reached the wreck first. He did leave an old Naval chart which has always been interesting because it in- dicates, in his own clear lettering, that he crossed Eastham from bay to ocean, via Jeremiah's Gutter: "The place where I came through with a whale boat, being ordered by ye Governm't to look after ye Pirate Ship Whido, Bellame, command'r, cast away ye 26 of April 1717, where I buried one hundred two men drowned."
During the Revolution the brig Wilkes, Captain Williams, was cast away at Nauset with great loss of life, and so much property disappeared from the wrecked brig that the town ap- pointed a committee "to detect and bring to justice if possible any persons who had committed this robbery, and take measures to clear the character of the town in this affair." Here, as elsewhere along the backside, there was always much of the "finding's keeping" philosophy about what nature deigned to strew on the shore. But not as much as some make it or the romantic term "mooncusser" for deliberate wreckers implies.
Finders of shipwrecked property, by law required to give rublic notice, often did, and Eastham town records contain many pages of such entries-more, probably, than the records of any other town.
"Easthamers even in those days, showed as much vigor in wrecking as their Wellfleet neighbors, and some of them, at least, were more honest about what they got," Henry C. Kitt- redge wrote. After a wreck at Mulford's Cliffs in 1731 John Bee, Josiah Harding and Elisha Cobb registered everything from two masts to a frying-pan, an iron pot and a silver buckle. After loss of the ship Confidence in the bay in 1806 several pages were filled. Captain Samuel Knowles faithfully entered a haul of "seven casks wine, one box fish, three barrels flour, two bbl. rum, three boxes candles, two boxes soap, two boxes and a quart of oil, one Keg crackers, two part boxes raisen, two half barrel port, two half bb. tongue, one keg ditto, one bb. molasses, some old junk." After that same wreck Philip Smith, William Knowles, Parker Brown, Captain Cushing Horton
КАТА
WRECKED BUT NOT LOST-The Katie J. Barrett, a big four-master, gave salvagers a headache after stranding near the entrance to Nauset harbor February 16, 1890. Two tugs pulled on her for two days, then moved off to lay out a blow. Katie, without cables or anchors, floated off, drifted over the bar and went high on the beach. Her owners stripped her, sold the hull, and the smart wrecker who bought her for a song, got her off next August and sold her for $15,000. Renamed the Star of the Sea she sailed for many more years.
and Obed Knowles all dutifully informed the town clerk of their pickings.
While Eastham during the 18th century saw more than enough shipwrecks, the 19th century with its increase in mari- time activity witnessed a far heavier toll. There was the Vir- ginia coaster which came ashore in 1799 whose wise owners allowed one-fourth of her cargo of tobacco to Eastham salvag- ers. After the Rolla, Surinam for Newburyport, was lost at Nauset in December, 1820, with all but three of her crew and
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EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
passengers, Freeman Doane entertained those three for ten days without compensation. The same year the brig Massachusetts, Bremen to Boston, came ashore at Nauset and all her cargo was carted across the Cape and freighted to its destination by Messrs. Doane and Knowles, a partnership of Eastham sal- vagers who handled many cargos which otherwise might have been lost.
In 1827 Nauset Beach took the measure of the ship Maine, Batavia for Boston, but her salt, lead and $80,000 in specie were saved; in 1829 when the ship Creole, New Orleans for Boston with cotton stranded, Doane and Knowles got off both cargo and ship for $1,150. Then, in 1832 occurred the interesting wreck of the Java, which, bound for Boston from Batavia, struck during a snowstorm. Before she broke up some of her cargo of 600,000 pounds of coffee, nutmegs and block tin was saved, but the coffee swelled and burst in its bags, and casks of nut- megs broke. For a long time, it is related, cod caught where the Java was wrecked had both nutmegs and coffee "in their clam-baskets."
The gales of 1839 piled Nauset Beach with wreckage. Three separate storms blew up that December, storms of "un- equalled fury and destructiveness." The toll on Cape Cod shores was 21 vessels: one brig and two schooners lost with crews; three brigs and one sloop total losses but crews saved; balance sunk at their moorings or ashore. Eastham saw sev- eral of these. "Alas! What destruction ... " begins the old account of the 1839 gales. Before two years had elapsed came the even more terrible gale of October, 1841, most disastrous in history to the Cape fishing fleet. "Nauset Beach is strewn with barrels, cabin furniture and pieces of all parts of vessels," ran one account. The stern of the Mary Ann of Hingham came ashore at Nauset; part of the stern of another vessel, showing only "Gov .... ngston" was another bit of flotsam, la- ter believed from the Governor Kingston. A head board of the Nautilus and the bowsprit of a fourth vessel-such were sombre sights that met the eyes of Eastham men as they paced the shore after the gale of 1841.
ASHORE AT NAUSET-The big four-master Haroldine stranded on Nauset Beach in November, 1895, but no lives were lost and she was later refloated.
Less sad to relate is the story of the bark Oregon, Charles- town for Boston with 1,056 bales of cotton, which struck five years later at Nauset. Her crew landed safely and most of the
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EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
cotton, damaged, was removed. Then began a tug of war be- tween Nauset sands which held the Oregon and the famous old towboat R. B. Forbes of Boston. The Forbes battled val- iantly between January 30th, date of the wreck, and March 30th, but when the towboat pulled out her foremast, the beach won and the Forbes retired. "Oregon Question Settled" was the topical headline in a Boston newspaper. While the Forbes never returned, eight months later a New York salvage firm gave the job a try and on November 12th its towboat won a temporary victory by getting the Oregon afloat. Then the cables parted and the ship went ashore again. This time Nauset sands won for good; the Oregon went to pieces.
Of shipwrecks on Nauset before establishment of the life saving service there is no complete record. One study, cover- ing the seventeen years ending in 1860, showed lost at Nauset fourteen brigs, twelve schooners, six barks and three ships. An- other study, of wrecks where loss of life and value of vessels was recorded, for the years 1837-60, showed thirty-one vessels, fifty-six lives and property-ships and cargoes-worth just under a million dollars!
Some shipwrecks on Nauset after the life saving station was placed here will be mentioned later. It is sometimes re- marked that shipwrecks on Cape Cod are of small note in the stream of local affairs since few of the mariners or vessels be- longed to the Cape. In a sense this is true, but perhaps less true of Eastham than many other towns, since many have en- gaged in the salvaging business here. And grief did come to Eastham homes from shipwreck at sea very often during the last century. In 1837 alone this town lost eight seamen, six of them young men who perished on St. George's Shoals. In Eastham that year there lived thirty-one widows of seamen- which fact tells its own story.
OF NAUSET BEACH LIFE SAVERS
On Cape Cod shores through life saving efforts and light- houses men have always sought to lessen the toll of storm and
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EASTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
shipwreck. The first organized enterprise to aid shipwrecked seamen on the Cape began in 1802 when the Humane Society of Massachusetts erected five huts along the outer beach: near Race Point, at Stout's Beach in Truro, at Nauset Beach, be- tween Nauset and Chatham, and on Monomoy. The poor shipwrecked sailor who made his way to the Nauset hut found a structure eight feet square, with sliding door on the south, sliding shutter, and within a supply of hay or straw and a bench. Not a warm welcome, but shelter from the elements.
For those who might be shipwrecked on the Cape's outer beach, a pamphlet distributed to customs houses and in- surance offices, "A Description of the Eastern Coast of the County of Barnstable ... " by Dr. James Freeman, gave this helpful description of the Eastham shore:
Nauset beach begins in latitude 41° 51' and extends south to latitude 41° 41'. It is divided into two parts by a breach, which the ocean has made through it. This breach is the mouth of Nauset or Stage harbour; and from the opening the beach extends north two miles and a quarter, till it joins the main land. It is about a furlong wide and forms Nauset harbour; which is of little value, its entrance being obstructed by a bar. This northern part of the beach may be distinguished from the southern part by its being of a less regular form. Storms have made frequent ir- ruptions through the ridge, on which beach grass grows. On an elevated part of the beach, stands the hut, about a mile and a half north of the mouth of Nauset harbour. Eastham meeting house lies from it west south west, distant a mile and three quarters. The meeting house is without a steeple; but it may be distinguished from the dwelling houses near it by its situation, which is between two small groves of locusts, one on the south and one on the north, that on the south being three times as long as the other. About a mile and a quarter from the hut, west by north, appear the top and arms of a windmill. The Rev. Mr. Shaw and Elisha Mayo, Esq. of Eastham have engaged to inspect this building.
How often the Nauset hut sheltered shipwrecked seamen from storms no records relate, but it was at least a worthy be- ginning. By 1840 the society had placed a lifeboat here, and the town had organized a company of volunteer life savers with Henry Hatch as captain. In 1855 the old hut was replaced with a larger one, and Jonathan Snow given charge. With as- sistance from the Federal government the society supplied the.
FIRST LIFE SAVING STATION-Here is the first Nauset Life Saving station, built in 1872. Shift- ing sands compelled its removal to a site some distance north.
new hut at "Nawsett" with a surfboat, listed as "a large metallic boat," and an iron mortar of about three-inch calibre capable of firing a line aboard wrecked vessels. Because of the steadily increasing toll of shipwrecks during the middle years of the cen- tury the Federal government gradually entered into life saving efforts. When, in 1872, Congress voted the money needed, nine life saving stations were erected on the outer beach of Cape Cod, one being at Nauset.
The new Nauset station was well equipped, with two surfboats, two beach carts with breeches buoy and life car. It had a crew of eight men and, of course, a horse to drag the equipment into action. Captain Marcus M. Pierce was the first keeper. From that year until quite recent times, except dur- ing the summer season, the beach was nightly patrolled by surf- men from Nauset station who walked north about four and one-half miles to meet and exchange checks with Cahoon's Hol-
THE ALBERT MILLER-Life savers of Nauset and Orleans, and Humane Society volunteers, got a line aboard this two-master, loaded with lumber from St. John, N. B., for New York, when she struck June 10, 1897, and brought to safety five men and the captain's wife. Vessel a total loss.
low surfmen, and south to the Nauset harbor entrance, a dis- tance of just over three miles.
To list all the shipwrecks, or all the occasions when Nau- set surfmen aided vessels in trouble, saved the lives of seamen and passengers, and rescued property, would require many pages. For example, in the ten-year period ending in 1902, fourteen vessels were listed as stranding on Nauset Beach.
A Nauset shipwreck of recent memory was that of the schooner J. H. Ells, of Camden, Maine, from Perth Amboy to Boston with railroad ties and pig iron. She struck March 15, 1887, in a northeast storm. Nauset life savers tried time after time to get a line over her, but at first she was too far out
NAUSET COAST GUARD STATION-From its lookout tower Coast Guard men keep unceasing vigil over Nauset Beach. This structure, occupied in 1937, is successor to that built in 1872.
for the shot to carry to her. Later, when Keeper Walter D. Knowles did get a line across her, the half-frozen sailors aboard could not haul it out. One by one the Ells crew froze and dropped off into the sea; all, save two, who next morning were taken off by a tug. Joseph C. Lincoln's novel Rugged Water is woven around this shipwreck.
Happier to relate was the rescue of the crew of five men and the captain's wife from the schooner Albert Miller at Nauset June 10, 1897. Bound from St. John, N. B., for New York with lumber, she struck at 4 A. M. The volunteers of the Humane Society's crew together with life savers from the Nauset and Orleans stations got a line to her in short order and
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EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
all six aboard were dragged through the surf to safety. It was the last wreck and rescue in which the old Humane Society's crew and equipment were used.
Nauset life savers well remember the Portland storm of 1898, when many bodies and much wreckage came ashore here. Shipwrecks of the last half century which stand out in Nauset records include that of the Lily, in 1901, of the Livoria in 1905, of the Italian bark Castagna in 1914, the grounding of the submarine S-19 in 1925, loss of the Montclair and five men at Orleans in 1927, the Anna Sophia in 1934, and the dragger Cape Ann in 1948. Well remembered, too, is the Sunday morning during World War I, July 21, 1918, when a German submarine came to the surface off the entrance to Nau- set Harbor and scored a victory over a peaceful little tug towing four empty barges. Some 147 shots were counted, and at least one dropped on Cape Cod soil; the casualties were four barges sunk.
In 1915 by a reorganization the old Life Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter service became the Coast Guard and since that year our life saving station has officially been the Nauset Coast Guard station. Its first home was built about one thousand feet south of the present site. This was later moved and set back for safety from the encroaching sea. In 1937 a fine new station was built, and set some four hundred yards back from the beach. Fewer stations are now in active status on the Cape's backside but those remaining, such as Nau- set, with modern equipment of all sorts, are better able than ever to maintain the fine record and high traditions of the life saving service.
JUST BEFORE THE END
Schooner Lily, leaking badly, mainsail and outer jib torn to shreds, struck on the beach about two miles south of Nauset station not long after this photograph was taken the morning of January 3, 1901. Her crew of eight reached shore safely but the Lily lies buried in the sands of Nauset beach.
ـيدلي
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EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
EASTHAM'S TWO LIGHTHOUSES
Once Eastham had lighthouses on Nauset Beach and at Billingsgate, five miles off the bay shore. Now only Nauset Beach Light remains. Billingsgate came first, in 1822. Its story demonstrates the immense power of tides, currents and storms on our shores. Four islands once extended southerly from the west side of Wellfleet harbor: Bound Brook, Griffins, Great and Billingsgate-once called the Old Point. Now the first three join the mainland and Billingsgate is only a memory. When the light was built here, and until the 1890s, Cape Cod Bay was an important fishing ground with large fleets from Eastham and neighboring towns using it for safe guidance. In mackerel season the bay would be white with sails. The old lighthouse journal, now in possession of Harry W. Collins, gives one a picture of old scenes about Billingsgate. Here are a few entries of Keeper Heman Dill:
1872 September 8 928 Vessels past the lighthouse the last quarter.
October 3 Seen from the lighthouse about 150 sail of vessels in sight.
Asnowing Again to Knight 4 Knights in Succession.
December 21 1873 August 3 There is nothing to speak of to-day unless I speak of the flys, for I never saw the like before. The house is black with them.
1874 May 8 The first three masted schooner that ever passed Billings- gate Island. Its a fisherman.
May 15 Arrived the Schooner Seavey for sand. (Several vessels loaded Billingsgate sand and carried it to Boston dur- ing those years. )
AN ISLAND THAT HAS VANISHED
This rare old photograph shows Billingsgate Island, its light and some of its dwellings, all of which have now vanished beneath the waters of Cape Cod bay. Taken about 1890 by Henry K. Cummings.
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EASTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
November 28
Drove on shore at Island 66 Black Fish. Also 175 at
Eastham. About 3 hundred people at the Sean.
1875
January 29 There is the most ice in and Round this Island that I ever
saw. Nothing but ice as far as I can Sea.
March
1 There is today 13 Schooners in the ice and one Brig and there are two Steamers a triing to get them out. The ice is piled 15 or 20 feet high in some places.
March 17 I left this Island for the first time for 70 days.
December 13 Was the highest tide that I ever saw here it came in from the North End of the Island. It maid A Clean sweep through inside.
1876
March 26 The very worst storm for the winter was Last Night.
Next day Keeper Dill was found dead in his lighthouse dory, and Thomas K. Payne took charge of the light. A few of his entries:
1878
April 17 Mr. J. F. Walker of Orleans arrived at this Island this morning about 4 o'clock brought news to Mr. Sparrow of the death of his Brother by the capsizing of his dory on the back side of Cape Cod his son was with him but was rescued by the crew of the Life Saving Station on Nausett beach.
1877 June 4 Man staying on Island going to Eastham to a supper at the Town Hall.
1878
May 17 Caught ten thousand macerel in the deep water wier at Eastham. (First deep water weir put down inside of Race Point. )
May 25 Twelve hundred blue fish were caught in one hall near this Island yesterday. August Changed from lard oil to Kerosene. I like burning Kerosene very much.
1880 January 1 This is the Twelveth New Year day I have spent on the Island (Mr. Payne had been keeper before Mr. Dill, also.) It is a hard place in the winter season to collect items to write in a journal.
1881 April 7 Eighteen whales have been shot in the bay the last ten days.
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BILLINGSGATE LIGHT-This brick tower and keeper's dwelling, erected in 1857, replaced another built in 1822 on this island off Eastham's bay shore. Taken about 1890 by Henry K. Cummings.
October 31 I found a finback whale which had run ashore on a bar NW from this Island. J. L. Hopkins and myself killed & secured him, sold him . .. for $100. His length was fifty-five feet.
So the entries go, often dwelling on the loneliness of the keeper, on curiosities, such as Keeper J. W. Ingalls' note of No- vember 30, 1887: "Killed two Mosquitoes this day," and the same keeper's note on going ashore in 1892: "We have had many pleasant hours but many more very lonely ones."
First the light was on Billingsgate Point, then the point became an island, and then, as the southerly part yielded to tides and currents, it became necessary in 1857 to move the light some distance north on the island. A dwelling for the keeper was added that year. The island was then a lively place during the fishing season; fishermen built small dwellings and
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brought their families out for the summer. As many as twen- ty-five families lived here and once the island even had its school. Weirs lined island and adjacent bay shores. But storm, tides and currents kept chewing away and by 1915 had so undermined the light tower that it threatened to collapse. It was temporarily moved to a private house, then to a steel skele- ton tower with automatic beacon. Even that yielded, and in 1922, after a full century of sending out its rays, Billingsgate light was darkened forever. Now only at very low tide may any trace of the island be made out.
On Eastham's ocean side is Nauset Beach Light, situated about mid-distance north and south on the great outer beach of Cape Cod. It marks the point where the Atlantic tides divide, running in currents northerly past Race Point and southerly past Monomoy. Three brick towers, the Three Sisters of Nau- set, were built here in 1839. Thoreau, seeing them ten years later, noted, "They were so many that they might be distin- guished from others; but this seemed a shiftless and costly way of accomplishing that object." For three-quarters of a century his criticism went unheeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson visited the Three Sisters, too, and noted in his journal for 1854: " ... to Nauset Light, on the back side of Cape Cod. Collins (Michael) the keeper, told us he found obstinate resistance on Cape Cod to the project of building a lighthouse on this coast, as it would injure the wrecking business." Which put things rather harshly, since the Cape already had Highland, Race Point and Chatham lights on the backside. Henry C. Kittredge suggests that in Emer- son's day three-quarters of the Cape's best citizens were at sea, and that sailors certainly wouldn't object to lighthouses. Fact was, lighthouse keeper's jobs were the choicest items of patron- age of the Collector of Customs over at Barnstable, and Captain
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