USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Eastham > Eastham, Massachusetts, 1651-1951 > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11
THE THREE SISTERS OF NAUSET
Built in 1839 this original trio of brick lighthouses served mariners passing Nauset beach until 1892, when they toppled over the bluff worn away by the ocean-not long after three wooden towers had replaced them.
AAA
متجمد
--
NAUSET LIGHT AND KEEPER'S HOUSE
Collins probably mixed opposition over his getting the Nauset plum with resistance to a new light. But he did get the post.
The ocean steadily carved away the bank on which the first Three Sisters stood and in 1892 they were in danger of toppling over. Three new wooden towers were built that year, and shortly after the brick trio did go over the bluff. In 1911 a single new beacon replaced the three brick towers. In 1923 when the Chatham twin lights were split up, one of the pair was sent to Nauset for solitary duty. As to technical de- tails, the tower rises 48 feet above the bluff and the light 114 feet above the water. The light is of fourth order, incandes- cent oil vapor, of 25,000 candlepower and may be seen seven- teen miles at sea. It is a group flashing white light with ten- second interval, consisting of three flashes each of 0.2 seconds duration, two eclipses of 1.4 seconds and one of 6.6 seconds.
75
EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
Five miles out at a 30-degree angle from Nauset Beach Light in 126 feet of water bobs the Nauset lighted whistle buoy, which sends out a red flashing light .4 seconds duration, of 350 candlepower.
OF EASTHAM SHIPMASTERS
Eastham's sons, like all Cape Codders, took to the sea naturally because it lay at both their front and back doors. Dur- ing the 18th century they went mostly fishing and coasting; during the 19th, especially the first half, most of the able bodied men in town went to sea, whether in the foreign service, coasting, packets or fishing vessels. Many deserve remem- brance, but space permits naming only a few.
In the 18th century, for instance, there was Captain Cor- nelius Knowles, born in 1695, who for many years sailed regu- larly between Boston and Connecticut; there was Captain Jede- diah Higgins, born in 1700, who sailed to Surinam and died at Antigua in 1733. There was Captain Isaac Freeman, master of the privateer Bethel, who in 1748 captured a Spanish ship laden with gold and silver. There was Captain Ebenezer Paine, whose whaling ship sank on Nantucket Shoals in 1734 with all hands. There was Captain Ephraim Linnell, who carried fifty bushels of corn to Boston in 1775, "for the relief of the unhappy sufferers," from the "benevolent, sympathathiz- ing bretheren" of Eastham.
A good many mariners gravitated from Eastham to Connecticut ports during the 18th century: Captain Israel Hig- gins moved to Haddam; Captain Joseph Higgins went to Say- brook, later Lyme, and was long in the West Indies trade; his son, Captain Christian Higgins, born in Eastham in 1726, for many years ran between Lyme and Boston in the packet sloop Ruby. Then there was Captain Seth Harding, who sailed out of Norwich.
Seth Harding, born in Eastham in 1734, son of Theodore and Sarah (Hamilton) Harding, learned his seamanship and navigation in his youth in the hard way. Ten days after his
76
EASTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
19th birthday he wed Abigail Doane, who died soon after the birth of their daughter. In his early twenties he removed to Norwich, commanded several merchant vessels during the French and Indian wars, and when the Revolution came had already participated in nine engagements at sea.
During the Revolution this Eastham native earned one of the really distinguished records in the young American navy. Given command of the Connecticut brig Defence, 14 guns, in June, 1776, he at once set sail to hunt the British around Cape Cod. Not far from his native Nauset shores Harding, in com- pany with the small Massachusetts schooner Lee, 8 guns, fell in at night with two armed British transports. "Will you strike?" Captain Harding shouted. "Yes, we'll strike," cried the Brit- isher, as he poured a terrific broadside into the Defence. When the hour-long fight ended Harding had captured both trans- ports, and next day took a third. With the three vessels Harding captured 466 officers and men of the 71st Highlanders, and an invaluable cargo of small arms, tents, munitions and other supplies badly needed by General Washington's army. Among the prisoners was Lieut. Col. Archibald Campbell, for two years the highest ranking Britisher held by the Continent- als and who, in 1778, was exchanged for Colonel Ethan Allen.
Captain Harding figured in several more engagements and captures and in 1778 Congress gave him command of the new frigate Confederacy, 36 guns. In 1779 he carried John Jay, minister to Spain, to his post. In 1780 his vessel was one of the eleven which comprised the Continental navy. In 1781, convoying merchantmen off the Delaware Capes Harding ran into bad luck in the shape of two British frigates, which he fought long enough for his merchantmen to escape, then hauled down his colors. After a stay as prisoner in England he was exchanged and entered the war again as master of the letter of marque Diana. Setting forth into seas largely controlled by the British-they had at that time seventy vessels on this sta- tion to the Continental navy's two-Harding again ran into bad luck when a British man-of-war captured the Diana and took him prisoner to Jamaica. There he found in command
77
EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
the Lt. Col. Campbell who had been his prisoner five years be- fore, and who afterward had led the expedition which captured Savannah and brought Georgia under British control. Colonel Campbell soon fixed up an exchange for his old captor. Chos- ing a post as second officer of the Alliance under Captain John Barry to going as captain of a French privateer, Harding was picked up at Haiti by Barry.
Soon the Alliance and another vessel ran into a British squadron off Havana, and the Eastham man participated in an encounter historic in one respect: Cornwallis had surrendered the previous October and this naval battle of March 10, 1783- a standoff-saw the last guns fired during the Revolution. After the war Harding had his ups and downs in the merchant trade. John Quincy Adams helped secure him a pension, and he died at Schoharie, N. Y., in 1814. During World War I a destroyer was named the Harding for this Eastham naval hero.
From the 18th century we turn to an Eastham family of shipmasters of the last century as distinguished as any Cape Cod town can boast-the Knowleses. Winslow Lewis Knowles and Sally Knowles had five sons: Allen H., Winslow L., Jr., Ebenezer H., Thomas and Josiah N. Father and four sons were master mariners: two died young and two, in addition to Captain Knowles himself, belong on the roll of great pre- clipper and clipper commanders.
Captain Knowles, born in 1789, appears in Eastham's history first as a companion to Matthew "Hoppy" Mayo when the British captured their vessel. While Mayo was leading the British into trouble on Eastham flats, Captain Knowles was in Boston seeking ransom money. He later commanded sev- eral ships in the South American and California trade. Among them were the Chile, Edward Everett, Sophia, Coquimbo and Albatross, the latter having an harrowing voyage out to San Francisco after which, before returning, he took her to nearly all the seven seas. Captain Knowles removed with all his family to Brewster in 1843, where he died in 1870.
Captain Allen H. Knowles, oldest of the sons, at various times commanded the Coquimbo, Albatross, R. C. Winthrop,
----
Carl Wingate >1928
....... Nothern: 99-1021 Ton Bu of South Boston in 1851
79
EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
Western Star, Chariot of Fame and Conqueror, a widely known and superior type of shipmaster. He died at Yarmouth in 1875. Winslow L., Jr., was with his father on the Albatross, then commanded several vessels in the East Indian trade, and died at Calcutta in 1863. Captain Thomas died at the age of twenty-nine on a passage to San Francisco, where he was buried. Captain Josiah won fame as a great clipper commander, figur- ing in one great disaster and in several record passages.
He was master of the Wild Wave in 1858 on a passage from San Francisco for Valparaiso when she struck a reef near Oeno island. He only reached Frisco again some seven months later after adventures all over the south Pacific. From 1863 to 1865 Captain Josiah was master of the medium clipper Charger, risking the Confederate raiders in the Boston-San Francisco trade. In 1871 he took command of the Glory of the Seas, last clipper built by Donald McKay and in her made a passage from Boston to Frisco in 1874 in 94 days, a record beaten by sailing vessels only eight times before, and never since. Next year he set an unchallenged record between 'Frisco and Sydney of 35 days 11 hours-an average of better than eight knots an hour over 7,026 miles. Captain Josiah later entered business in San Francisco and there died in 1896.
The Eastham shipmaster best remembered for a record voyage is Freeman Hatch. His achievement is perpetuated on his gray granite tombstone in the Eastham cemetery: "Captain Freeman Hatch 1820-1889. In 1852 He Became Famous Making the Astonishing Passage in Clipper Ship Northern Light From 'Frisco to Boston in 76 days 6 hours, an Achieve- ment Won By No Other Mortal Before or Since."
Captain Hatch in this voyage set down the name of the Northern Light in the select company of the great ships of all time. He had pitted his vessel and skill against two New York
THE NORTHERN LIGHT
From drawing by Carl Wingate
80
EASTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
clippers, the Trade Wind, which sailed from San Francisco March 10th, and the Contest, which sailed on the 12th. Cap- tain Hatch in the Northern Light did not depart until the 13th, but he soon passed the Trade Wind. After a notable run to Cape Horn in 38 days, he came up with the Contest and for two days they were not out of sight of each other. The Con- test then forged ahead, but when they reached the equator Cap- tain Hatch led by forty miles, and led the race all the distance home, making Boston Light three days ahead of the Contest's arrival in New York.
The Northern Light was a beautiful California clipper, de- signed by Samuel Pook, built in 1851 by Briggs Brothers at South Boston, and owned by James Huckins, Boston and Barn- stable merchant. Her figure-head was "The full-length figure of an angelic creature in flowing white drapery, one graceful arm extended above her head, bearing in her slender hand a torch with golden flame." Describing her race with the Con- test Arthur H. Clark in The Clipper Ship era wrote: "Captain Hatch, her commander, was a thorough clipper ship captain, who never allowed his ship to suffer for want of canvas, and on this passage he brought his vessel across Massachusetts Bay be- fore a fresh easterly breeze, carrying her ringtail, skysails, and studding-sails on both sides, alow and aloft, until she was off Boston Light-a superb marine picture, and one seldom seen by landsmen even in those days."
And still another record made by an Eastham shipmaster was that of a contemporary of Captain Hatch, Captain Luther Hurd. Sailing the clipper Charger on his second voyage around the world in her, he made one of the five best passages on record between Calcutta and Boston. Leaving Sands Head on Christ- mas day, 1858, he brought the Charger into Boston on March 19, 1859-a passage of eighty-four days.
Of a generation later than Captains Hatch and Hurd was Captain Edward Penniman, a notable Cape Cod whaling cap- tain. He began as many Cape lads did, by sailing as cook on a schooner for the Grand Banks, at the age of eleven. At twen- ty-one he shipped on the bark Isabella on a whaling voyage to
81
EASTHAM AS A MARITIME TOWN
the north Pacific. Upon his return he married Betsy August Knowles, and next year, on his third long voyage, went as mas- ter of the Minerva. He took his wife along to the Arctic on his fourth whaling voyage. His fifth was to Patagonia, his sixth as master of the Europa to the Pacific and his seventh and last as master of the Jacob A. Howland, to the Arctic.
Captain Penniman in his seven whaling voyages never figured in a shipwreck, but curiously, all his vessels came to grief after he had left them. Captain Penniman and his wife lived on Fort Hill, in a squarish Victorian mansion with man- sard roof and cupola. A man of stalwart physique and com- manding features, he was also a genial man, warm in friend- ship and generous in philanthropy. He died in 1913 at the age of 82. In his long career he brought home many thou- sands of barrels of whale oil and enormous quantities of whale- bone. With Captain Penniman's passing went the last of Eastham's great mariners of the 19th century and one of the last Cape Cod whaling captains.
VI
1
1651
1951
Three Centuries In Retrospect
Eastham's citizens earned their daily bread during the town's first century largely from tilling the soil, during its sec- ond century mostly from the sea, and during the past three- quarters of a century from both soil and sea, and from the va- rious pursuits which derive from the town's being a seaside va- cation town. So one may generalize. A glance backward over these centuries will fill out the picture of how past generations lived here, of farming, salt making, fishing.
SOME EASTHAM INDUSTRIES
Eastham's soil brought the first families here from Plym- outh. Needy Pilgrims, on a single visit before they had deter- mined on the Nauset settlement, fetched home "eight or ten hogsheads" of Indian corn. For many years after they came the plains of Nauset served as a granary for neighboring settle- ments and provided corn and rye for export, too. Windmills and a tide mill ground the grain, and millers skilled at their craft were important citizens. For the town's first century working the soil was the principal occupation.
Things seem to go in cycles, and before the first century had ended the soil began yielding less, and the stripping off of the pine and oak forests began yielding unhappy fruits. From 1750 the law books are full of acts passed to prevent horses and cattle from feeding on and near the beach on the bay side, that their feeding might not release the sands to swirl over the fields. By 1800 all travellers through Eastham commented on the waste of dunes between highway and bay. The town map of 1795 shows what the town fathers called "sand heaps" stretching from town cove to bay shore. "The winds have torn away all vegetables and have ploughed up hundreds of
83
THREE CENTURIES IN RETROSPECT
acres in many places to the depth of six feet," noted a 1791 visitor. "In some places the sands have drifted into the high way, till they have risen nearly as high as the fence on each side. Many fields have become so wandering that the possessors have removed their fences, they being insufficient to keep them with- in due limits." But with all this, Eastham still continued to produce more corn and rye than its residents consumed and for many years was the only Cape town exporting these grains.
During the town's second century men turned more and more to the sea for their livelihood, and farming waned. But soon after the Civil War the cycle came around again to a point where maritime affairs declined, and in the years from 1870 on, with the discovery that asparagus, turnips, melons and many other vegetables grew well here, small farming increased stead- ily. In the early 1920s came the peak. A Barnstable Fair program for 1920 tells that Eastham Grange featured an ex- hibit showing the town then had 150 acres of asparagus under cultivation, with an investment of $70,000, and an annual yield of about 7,000 boxes or about 336,000 pounds. East- ham "grass" won a reputation as the tastiest and best obtain- able. Growers united in 1924 to sponsor Nauset Brand, and for a decade asparagus brought about $50,000 annually to Eastham farmers. Talk of varieties such as Palmatto, Reading Giant, Argenteil and Washington was as common as of makes of cars or radio sets today. The turnip crop followed asparagus in rounding out the growing season. But when southern as- paragus under refrigeration began to remain on the shelves all winter Eastham asparagus growing waned; not much is grown here today.
Another Eastham occupation vanished now as completely as Billingsgate Light was salt making. The process of making salt through solar evaporation first came into use on the Cape shortly after 1800, and Deacon John Knowles built Eastham's first works. The 1831 town map shows salt works all along the bay shore, where eleven are indicated; and around Town Cove, where one may count nine. A state return in 1837 shows the number then at fifty-four vats and, as salt works
OLD SALT WORKS-A familiar sight along Eastham's bay shore and along the Town Cove were the old salt works where, from early 1800s to the Civil War, the sun, sea water and evaporation com- bined to produce salt. This photograph shows the tumbling ruins of a once flourishing business.
were measured, one hundred thousand feet of them. The yield that year was 22,370 bushels. Eastham salt works proprietors at various times included: Nathan and Elkanah Cobb, Edward C. Clark, Joshua Higgins, Barnabas Mayo, George Collins, Peter Walker, Benjamin and George Clark, Timothy and Joshua Cole, Joshua and Seth Paine, Joel Snow and Benjamin Walker, on the bay shore; and round Town Cove, Heman Doane, Thomas Cobb, Michael and B. H. A. Collins, George Seabury, Joshua Knowles, Samuel Knowles, Samuel Snow, Joshua and Seth Paine, William and Harding Knowles, and Barnabas Freeman.
Salt making declined after the Civil War and no new works were built; the discovery of salt wells in upper New York, removal of the tariff on imported salt, and high cost of Maine lumber, spelled out their doom. Some living can still remember the abandoned works all along shore, visible remem- brance of the once vast scene of clacking windmills, pumping
DUNES AND SALTWORKS-An old painting showing the John Walker place on Bridge road, with salt works, windmills, and dunes in background. Original painting by J. Sherman, Jr., about 1869, owned by Miss Anna Hoyt, niece of John Walker; this is reproduction of a copy made by Miss Viola Wright, of Natick.
brine. No trace of the industry now remains save, perhaps, when a perceptive eye may note rusty nails in the silver gray boarding of an old barn or house, showing salvaged salt works lumber.
None of the windmills which pumped brine for the salt
86
EASTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
works survive, but Eastham is fortunate in having preserved here one of the large old windmills which ground grain in years past. According to tradition it was built in Plymouth in 1793, floated across Cape Cod Bay to Provincetown, and thence moved to Eastham early in the last century. The last full time miller was Thomas K. Paine, in the 1880s. After years of idleness or only occasional workings, the old mill was wisely acquired by the Village Improvement Society, which gave it to the town. It was restored in the 1930s, and now is in good working order-the only one of Cape Cod's numerous wind- mills, which once dotted the entire landscape, that is publicly owned and still in operation. A picturesque sight, it brings visitors from near and far each summer, when it is operated on special Saturdays. Its fans are twenty feet long, and the span of them, forty-eight feet.
Eastham's first windmill was built in 1684 by Thomas Paine, one of the first comers who was so skilled that he was called upon by Barnstable, Yarmouth and Truro to build mills in those places. The 1795 town map shows a windmill stand- ing near the Salt Pond. The 1833 map shows two: one on Nauset road just south of where Doane road branches off, and another on the main road just south of where Samoset road in- tersects. Each salt works also had its windmills and when all fans turned in the wind the Eastham landscape must have been a lively sight.
Whales frequented Cape Cod Bay when the Pilgrims came and offshore whaling helped fill the pockets of Eastham farm- ers for many years. Disputes often arose over whales, since the Crown and Colony both claimed a slice of the proceeds. In 1651 the Colony compelled Eastham and the other three Cape towns to contribute to it "2 bbls of oyle from each whale." In a 1661 case oft quoted to indicate the first fish story in America an Eastham man, "Ralph Smith, for lying in and about the neglect of his duty, about a warrant directed to him, and con- serning the seeing or not seeing of a whale . . . was fined twenty shillings" by the Plymouth court. Adding to the tax of two barrels for the Colony, Eastham in 1662 provided a part of the proceeds of each whale to support its minister.
87
THREE CENTURIES IN RETROSPECT
The bay shore of Eastham and Billingsgate were the great whaling places of the first century, where men kept their whale- boats in readiness to put out at the cry, "Whales in the bay," and where the try works were built. In an amusing episode of 1707, Thomas Houghton, a Boston merchant, came up with an advanced idea that he could make salt petre from the lean meat and bones of whales after the blubber had been stripped. He asked the General Court for a twenty-year monopoly on such leavings on the beach, and Eastham men backed him in a long petition which began:
Wee your petitioners whose Names are here unto subscribed being Inhabitants of Eastham and other places there unto adjoyning in regard all or most of us are concerned in fitting out Boats to Catch & take whales when ye season of ye year serves; And whereas when we have taken any whale or whales, our Costom is to cutt them up, and to take away ye fatt and ye Bone of such whales as are brought in, And afterward to let ye Rest of ye Boddy of ye Lean of whales Lye on shoar in lowe water, to be washt away by ye sea being of noe vallue nor worth any thing to us; we There- fore humbly begg yt an Act of ye Assembly may be made and granted to Thomas Houghton
Signing the long petition were "Simon Nucom, Nathll Coffin, Peter Newcomb, and John Jones." Then, with reser- vations, another group of Eastham men signed. Looking at the proposition with skeptical eyes, the hard-headed Eastham citizens appended that Mr. Houghton must agree to hire local men in his work, that the monopoly last only ten years, that Mr. Houghton must then "disclose and make publick his art and skill," and finally, that the Boston man should pay every whaleman a shilling "in money acknowledgment" every year. Having said that, "Samll Treat Senr, Samll Knowles, David Melvill, Samll Freeman Ju., Jona. Sparrow, Richard Sparrow, and Richard Godfree" also signed. Houghton was given a four- year crack at "rayseing of Salt Petre to supply the Province" but nothing came of it. He must have been ahead of his time, for he proposed to use "a New Invented gun called Ye Whale Gun"-and this some two centuries before such a gun came in- to common use.
When the large whales disappeared from the bay, their
N.
W E/
cars
---
Sunkel Metodo
RAILROAD
y
Rd
Horton (public) Londing
Sunken Meadow
Rood
GAR
ROAD
ASPINET
C
ROAO
STEELE
Silver Spring (public) Beach
COOKS BROOK ROAD
HIGGINS
HARTFORD ..
NAUSET LIGHT NAUSET BEACH
( public)
ROAO
ROAD
ROAD
OAK ROAO
ROAD
BRACKETT
7
ROAO
Campground (public) Landing
ROAD
ROAD
0
0
AND
ROAD
MC KOY
Molis Fond
T
Thumpertown ( public) Landing
Doone Tablet
- CG Station
Coast Guard ( public) Beach
- ROAD
Meetinghouse school Band
School
POND
1
A
LOCUSTT
ROAD.
U
Sait
1
Pond L'PUBLIC BEACH
5
Great
Pond
wDepot 2\ Pond
ROAD
E. T.
Brook
Town Hall
COD.
PIT
ROAD
ROAD
BEACH
ROAD
Nauset
C
Bay
Kingsbury ( public) Beach
GREAT
HAVEN
o
1
BROOK
771₦
NAUSET
AN
SHURTLEFF ROAD
ORCHARD
Road
MEETINGHOUSE
House
ROAD
THUMPERTOWN ROAD
HERRING
MASSASOIT
APE
A
North Easthon
NAUSET
T
CABLE
CAMPGROUND
HIGHWAY
NANTUCKET
SOUND
FLEET
CAPE| COD BAY
EASTH
No. Sunken Meadow
ATLANTIC OCEAN
.
Public
KINGS BURY
DOANE
Kong
FIRST ENCOUNTER
LAUGHTON RD
HIGHWAY
Hemming wayAKU
public ] Landing
AY
First Encounter! (public ) Beach
B
RIVE
BRIDGE
E .... A
PRENCE
YORK
GOVERNOR
NEW
GA
Riv
Boatmeadow (public) Landing
LBRIDGE
Hopkins 4 Island
ROAD
Rock
Harbor
Collins OVE (public) 01 Landing
A
E
TOWN OF
RT. 6
RT 28
TOWN
EASTHAM MASS.
TERCENTENARY 1651
1951
COMPILED BY
SCHOFIELD BROTHERS, CIVIL ENGINEERS ORLEANS, MASS,
OCEAN
O
SCALE
OF
MILES
4.
Muddy Pond
B
THE . INDIANS
ROAD
Herring. Pond
+
TABLET
ROAD
Hemingway
ROAD
H
IST
Nauset
S
Harbor
1
....
HOUSE
SAMOSET
P
91
THREE CENTURIES IN RETROSPECT
kin the blackfish kept coming, and continue to come to this day. A bitter dispute over whaling in the bay off Billingsgate which arose in the 1750s throws considerable light on the in- dustry in those years. A group of Indians of Harwich reg- istered complaint that Sylvanus Snow had forbidden them the right to use the beach, "and that there is not its like so conven- ient a place for whaling and other fishing within ye county, if within ye province and hath ever since ye memory of man and any of us, been improved to that end and no other."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.