USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 14
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 14
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 14
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"Surprise Was Launched in 1850-Previous to 1832 ships had been built on "the cod's head and mackerel tail" plan, but when there came a call for faster ships of larger dimensions and there was a real reason for speed, builders gave their vessels a water line that was concave in- stead of convex at the bow and stern, and the clipper ships were launched. These were especially brought into play in the rush for the goldfields of California in 1849 and later years. Massachusetts ship- builders were unparalleled in their ability to provide ships of size and speed to meet any emergency. The first New England clipper ship was launched in 1850 from the East Boston yard of Samuel Hall. It was the "Surprise" of 126 tons.
When the "Surprise" was launched the men who had worked on the beautiful craft were invited to bring their wives, mothers and sweet- hearts to see the ship glide into the water and partake of a dinner which Mr. Hall had provided for the occasion. The new clipper was launched, fully rigged and with her three skysail yards crossed. A more beauti- ful ship never plunged into the bay and it was a great event in New England shipbuilding annals. On her maiden voyage to California the "Surprise" reached San Francisco from Boston in ninety-six days, breaking all records. The following year the "Surprise" won twenty thousand dollars in a race to San Francisco against the "Sea Witch" for her backers. She continued on to China, loaded tea for London, and earned for her backers $50,000 over her entire cost and the expense of the voyage.
The stories which came from California thrilled the young and mid- dle-aged men of this vicinity who lost no time in embarking on the clipper ships, singing as they sailed for the Golden Gate:
Oh, California, That's the land for me! I'm going to Sacramento With my washbowl on my knee.
Many were the men on the seaboard of Massachusetts who engaged in building the clipper ships and they put pride and skill into their work. Many other men sailed in the clipper ships as captains or crew, and many constituted a third class who took passage for California to try their luck in the goldfields. The shipyards hummed with industry and
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the ocean became a race course over which the ships sailed with every bit of canvas set. They were under command of marvelous captains, many of them from Cape Cod, who dared to carry royals and studding sails when more conservative mariners had two reefs in their topsails. There were traditions how these skippers drove around Cape Horn to San Francisco with rackings on the topsail halyards and locks on the chainsheets, so that no timid seamen, frightened at the captain's seem- ing rashness, should tamper with the gear. The Cape Cod shipmasters were masterly navigators, and around the Horn and across to China and Australia the time was cut in halves.
The greatest of all clipper shipbuilders was Donald McKay. He launched at his yards in East Boston in 1850, the pioneer of the fifteen hundred-ton class, the "Stag-hound" of 1,534 tons, whose record of thir- teen days for a sailing-ship from Boston Light to the equator was never broken. Mckay built an even larger clipper, encouraged by the suc- cess of the first. The second was the "Flying Cloud," said to have been the fastest sailing ship on long voyages that has ever flown the Ameri- can flag. On her first voyage she made the run from New York to San Francisco in eighty-nine days.
There were eleven voyages in less than one hundred days made from Atlantic ports to San Francisco by ships constructed in Massachusetts and of this number seven were made by ships built by Donald McKay. The material used was the finest oak and southern pine, copper fastened and sheathed with yellow metal. Mahogany and rose wood furnished the stanchions, rails and cabins. Some of the captains had a share in the ships which they drove through the seas off Cape Horn at top speed. Some of them received three thousand dollars for the voyage to San Francisco with a bonus of two thousand dollars additional if they ar- rived within one hundred days.
While the pay for the captain was regarded as almost a fortune in those days, if he won the bonus, wages paid seamen averaged from eight to twelve dollars a month on the California voyages. Cape Cod boys were inclined, although bred to sea faring life, to cast their lot with the gold hunters upon their arrival in California. Frequently their places were taken by foreigners of a poor type and shanghaiing was a common practice. Discipline was harsh and food was poor and it was small wonder that the men were enticed to the streams of Cali- fornia where fortune was said to be found in every pan of gravel.
In one month in 1850 sixteen ships sailed into the harbor of San Francisco from Massachusetts ports.
A few of the "Forty-niners" from Southeastern Massachusetts returned from the California goldfields with wealth, but most of them returned, if they returned at all, with less than they had when they started. More
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made money by selling supplies than by digging or panning gold. Hun- dreds remained in California after the gold rush was a matter of his- tory, indulging in excitement and adventure in the new country.
Nautical Training Ship-An attempt was made in 1927 by Governor Alvan T. Fuller to have the U. S. S. "Nantucket," the Massachusetts Nautical Training ship, given up as an economy measure, but the re- action on the part of the newspapers and the people was such that the bill in the General Court was defeated, and the "Nantucket" still proudly rides the waves. One might as well try to tear down the "sacred cod- fish" in the State house or get rid of the New England conscience by means of a surgical operation.
The "Nantucket" is a barkentine-rigged steamer of 1,261 tons register, with iron hull, 244 feet over all, thirty-two feet beam and draws fifteen feet of water. Her equipment includes a wireless telegraph outfit, sub- marine signal apparatus, a steam capstan, steam steering gear, complete electrical outfit and the latest appliances for the art of navigation. She has been the instrument for a cadet school which has made her inter- nationally famous. The governor recommended that she be turned back to the navy and that the cadet school be abolished. The conten- tion of Governor Fuller was that the Massachusetts Nautical School was "an elaborate service for the few at the expense of the many, inconsis- tent with the urgent needs of the commonwealth in other directions."
The opposition on the part of the governor focused attention on the Massachusetts Nautical School and immediately the "Nantucket" had its defenders rise up plentifully. It had never before had so many old friends rise in its behalf and many new ones arose who had never be- fore given any attention to the ship or perhaps ever knew of its exis- tence.
The nautical school was founded pursuant to an act passed by Con- gress in 1874, authorizing the establishment of public marine schools. By the provisions of this act the governor of Massachusetts applied to the charts, books and instruments of navigation, to train citizens of Massachusetts to become mariners, under instruction of naval officers. In 1892 the U. S. S. "Enterprise" was assigned by the Navy Department for use as a school, but she was not suitable in some ways and was re- called and replaced by the U. S. S. "Ranger." This was rechristened the "Nantucket," when a new ship was built and the name "Ranger" given to it. The new name was selected in recognition of the fact that the first nautical training school in America was established in Nantucket in 1829, by Admiral Isaac Coffin. It was not deemed wise nor appropriate to call it the "Coffin."
The school had been in operation five years when the Spanish War
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broke out and one hundred graduates entered the Naval Reserve and gave a good account of themselves. During the World War, in 1917 and 1918, about 300 graduates served as officers in the Navy, Naval Re- serve Force and the Marine Corps. Their commissions ran from en- sign to commander. Another one hundred and fifty graduates served in the merchant marine as officers, twenty-five of them in command of vessels. There is a bronze tablet on the "Nantucket" in honor of eleven men who lost their lives.
There is a course of study requiring two years and during that time the boys are under as rigid discipline as those who attend the Annapolis Naval or the Military Academy at West Point. Within a month or two of graduation ninety per cent of the boys have started as third officers in the merchant service. The lowest pay received by a third officer is $150 a month. According to one of the instructors: "We seldom have any difficulty in placing one of our graduates. One steamship line will take all we can send it. There is not a port of the world in which a man showing a diploma from the 'Nantucket' cannot find a berth. There are many Harvard graduates who do not get $150 a month. The same is true of graduates from the Normal schools and State Agricultural Col- lege.”
According to Captain Armistead Rush, commander of the "Nantucket" since 1919: "The school adds as much to the maritime prestige of the State as any other single influence. Ninety per cent of its graduates are actively engaged in all branches of shipping. More trained officers are supplied to our merchant vessels and more executives in the 'shore per- sonnel' of our various shipping companies from this school than from any other individual source in the United States. The purpose of the school is to train citizens of Massachusetts for a lucrative profession. This school is remarkably successful in accomplishing its purpose." The statement by Commander Rush is taken from an interview published in the Boston "Transcript," January 22, 1927.
The commissioners of the Massachusetts Nautical School: Admiral Francis T. Bowles, chairman; William E. Mckay, Clarence E. Perkins and William H. Dimick. The latter is secretary. It costs approxi- mately $1,529 to put a boy through the school. His earning power six months after graduation averages $2,451. The per capita cost to the citizens of Massachusetts, it was brought out when the bill before the General Court for its abolition came up for consideration, was $0.0165. According to the official report, the ship accommodates 116 students. The Federal Government grants a subsidy of $25,000 to the State to help pay operating expenses. The cost to the State is less than $70,000.
During the thirty-five years the school has offered an opportunity for Massachusetts boys who wished to follow the traditions of the Old Bay
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State by becoming officers and marine executives, it has enrolled 2,465 students. The number of graduates is 1,231. During the past twelve years more than ninety per cent of its graduates have entered maritime services afloat or ashore. More than seventy of them are master mari- ners in charge of ships, more than fifty are first officers, seventy-five are second officers, sixty-nine third officers, fifty-one chief engineers, one hundred and forty-six first, second or third engineers in ships scattered all over the world. One graduate is vice-president of the Shipping Board. The commander of the "Leviathan," the largest steamer in the world, is another.
The Boston "Globe" asked pointedly in an editorial about the time the governor's bill was coming up for action : "Our State does not feel it is, indulging in favoritism when it educates teachers, farmers, mechanics. This school was established by our legislature, years ago, to meet a void in our school system-to enable boys to receive a first-class nau- tical training for marine positions. Does Massachusetts today wish to cut off the last link that binds her sons to the sea, enabling them to take their place in the marine world, to help guide American com- merce today and tomorrow?"
"Jolly Roger" Often in the Offing-There is another side to the busi- ness of seamanship off the Massachusetts coast which contains romance sufficient to feed the spirit of adventure in the make-up of readers of novels and of truth stranger than fiction. The stories of Epenow, Squanto and Samoset have been referred to. The visits of the Norse- men who had the blood of Vikings in their veins are related somewhat in the chapters relating to Plymouth County and something has already been written concerning those who trod the decks under the "Jolly Roger."
As if it were not enough that the colonists had the Indians to contend with, the New England winters which were more severe then than now, and the problems of wresting a living from the rock-ribbed, thin and stubborn soil, with few proper implements to make the task pleasant or otherwise than the hardest physical labor, there were pirates who infested the coast and laid in wait for any opportunity to slaughter the simple agriculturists, smash their houses and meeting-houses in their frantic anxiety to accumulate gold.
Undoubtedly the principal reason that the Pilgrims were not wiped out of existence by the Indians was the fact that the great sickness which had visited these shores before the sailing of the ""Mayflower" had reduced them to comparatively small numbers and interfered sadly with their fighting morale. Massasoit may have been actuated by the kindest motives in making friends with the Pilgrims. On the other
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hand he might have determined it wise to include them with their fire- arms and military strength with his other allies for a time experi- mentally, in the belief that white faces worse than the Pilgrims might be coming next. There had been vessels touching the shore of Massa- chusetts for fifteen years or so and most of those who had landed had been bad actors. The Pilgrims may have appeared to Massasoit as "something else again" and worth trying out as friends, inasmuch as he had it in his power to wipe them out at any time should his disposi- tion and war policy change. By the time the strenuous Philip perched upon the throne of the Wampanoags, it was too late, as Philip found out, through his early entrance into the "happy hunting ground."
The reason the Plymouth Colony was not wiped out by pirates was, perhaps, because there was so little wealth contained in the colony that pirating was more profitable on the Spanish Main, and destroying and sacking Old Panama was the favorite outdoor sport of these cutthroats, with cutlasses in their teeth, gleaming eyes and terrifying mustachios, who constituted "big business" in their day.
The pirates were, however, a menace and Captain William Kidd, Sir Henry Morgan and especially Edward Teach, more familiarly called "Blackbeard" were undesirable neighbors. While they did not actually call upon the Plymouth colonists they were frequently in the offing and the feeling that there is a pirate ship about is always a creepy feeling and not disposed to tranquillity. Whether Mary Read and Ann Bonny, the two women pirates whose stories add to the romance of the days of the buccaneers, took part in any of the acts of piracy off the coast of Massachusetts is not actually known, as these emancipated flappers of their day were not even known as such to their companions in cut- throat circles until nearly the end of their undesirable careers. The life of Ann Bonny, the daughter of a man of considerable wealth, who had been brought up to shine in English society, how she ran away with a young sailor and later became enamored by the dashing young adventurer John Rackam, makes a good story but has, so far as we know, no connection with this historical record. The same is probably true of Mary Read, who at one time conducted the Three Horse Shoes tea room and naturally took the next step into giving nothing at all in exchange for the gold she took.
Captain Thomas Joanes or Jones, for whom the Jones River, flowing from Silver Lake, through Kingston, in Kingston Bay, has been named, has been mentioned by several historians as a most undesirable person, and his record seems to fall far short of that left by most of the passen- gers on the "Mayflower." Captain Jones, however, remained in Plymouth and Provincetown harbors, with the "Mayflower" and crew, from No-
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vember until April, during which time the Pilgrims had the use of the "Mayflower" as a shelter and the use of the "Mayflower's" shallop to do their exploring. They were also assisted by the crew of the "May- flower" in whatever undertakings they set their hands to do.
According to the records, Captain Jones had sailed the Eastern seas in the corsair "Lion," had been a prisoner in London for misconduct, according to the English law of that day ; master of the cattle ship "Fal- con" on a voyage to Virginia, and, after bringing the Pilgrims or Sep- aratists from Leyden in Holland to Plymouth Colony, became a buc- caneer. In this capacity he commanded the little ship "Discovery" off the coast of New England and Virginia. He captured a Spanish frigate in the West Indies, sailed it into the port of Jamestown, was arrested and shared a pirate's fate.
Possibly he might have had intentions of turning the "Mayflower" into a pirate ship, under the "Jolly Roger," but have decided he would have a most undesirable crew for such a mission, if he attempted to change his passengers into pirates. It is said the "Mayflower" carried several guns, the heavier ones mounted on the spar-deck amidships, the lighter astern and on the rail, with a gun of longer range and a larger caliber upon the forecastle, the guns numbering eight or more in all. All merchant ships of the time carried guns, to defend them- selves from buccaneers, and many innocent appearing ships turned piratical crafts after the shore restrictions were removed and the skippers began to feel the freedom and absolute monarchical govern- ment which begins after there is about so much water beneath the keel and the shore line is a memory.
Whether Captain Jones would have attacked the Plymouth colonists whom he had landed at Plymouth, if they had possessed sufficient wealth to make it worth his while, while he was a buccaneer off the coast, is a matter of opinion. Had he done so, it would have been in line with the performances of others who are to be rated as heroes or villains, according to preference. Take for instance those historical characters whose exploits interest the youth who studies early Colonial history, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. They were pirates and rascals to the Spaniards. The wealth of the Spanish West Indies and the Spanish Main furnished magnificent adventures and rich plunder, so why bother with the poor colonists at Plymouth and Virginia?
At the present time excavations are being made at Old Panama and riches unearthed which were buried when Morgan destroyed the city, carrying away everything in the way of treasure which did not escape his notice. For such acts as this he was knighted by King Charles II
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of England and made governor of Jamaica. This same king had "heard of the harbouring of pyrates and ordered such persons brought to justice," but this evidently meant such pirates as robbed English instead of Spanish, and a swaggering buccaneer chief with plenty of doubloons to squander in the English towns was always welcome, since his ill- gotten wealth was obtained from Spanish galleons. Colonial mer- chants received goods brought in by the buccaneers, smuggled under eyes of officers who took a share of the loot. Some of the merchants were partners in these buccaneering ventures, to say nothing of making large profits by receiving the goods obtained by force and murder.
Two or three years after the Pilgrims arrived at Provincetown, fishermen and traders were being plundered in New England waters by Dixey Bull. It was estimated at the beginning of the eighteenth century that there were fifteen hundred pirates on the Atlantic coast, and with very feeble resistance offered them. "Letters of marque" were issued to trading vessels, authorizing them to capture enemy ships, should they encounter any on their voyages. Armed with such a license, a ship became a privateer. It was privately owned, not attached to the navy in any sense, and the "letter of marque" covered a multitude of sins and made respectable nearly any crime which a shipmaster and crew might choose to commit on the high seas. They were heavily armed. Morgan carried on his voyage to Panama twenty-two large guns and six small cannon of brass, and as vicious a crew as ever sunk a ship or cut a throat.
Captain Kidd, Blackbeard and Others-Captain William Kidd was an experienced privateersman. He was recommended by Colonel Robert Livingston and others of the gentry of New York as "a bold and honest man to suppress the prevailing piracies in the American seas." The English government turned loose this hijacker among the bootleggers of those days and Captain Kidd, in August, 1691, honestly turned over to the king his tenth share of a prize ship which he took into New York. The governor got a fifteenth share, being an official nearer at hand. Just what Colonel Livingston and his coterie of unscrupulous mer- chants and hypocritical royal officers received does not appear in the records, but they were evidently well pleased with Captain Kidd's "honesty" since Colonel Livingston secured for him command of the English ship "Adventure," in 1695. Captain Kidd sailed on a cruise to Madeira, Madagascar, and the Red Sea, captured a number of ships, and brought one of them, the "Quedah Merchant," four hundred tons, to the West Indies. Lord Bellomont, the royal governor at New York, waited until he appeared at his headquarters on Gardiner's Island, near New York, offered him a safe conduct to come ashore, and, so far as
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Captain Kidd knew, was ready to accept a share in the loot as had been his custom. But Captain Kidd was arrested, sent to England for trial as a pirate and there executed.
There were stories that he had hidden treasure at various places along the Atlantic Coast and, after three hundred years, these stories are still believed and it was not long ago that a company was formed and good money paid in to finance excavating in a spot where some tradition said pirates' gold had been buried.
Blackbeard, the most notorious and blood-thirsty pirate who ever raided the Atlantic Coast, had one of his rendevous at Charlotte Amelia, Virgin Islands, now owned by the United States and used as a naval base. The writer visited Blackbeard's Castle in 1924 and took "after- noon tea" with some nurses at the United States Naval Hospital on the porch of the castle. It is a beautiful location and the neighbors there are much more desirable since Blackbeard got his just deserts at the hand of Lieutenant Maynard of Virginia.
Blackbeard was so called from his long black beard which he wore plaited in two braids. He was a swash-buckler supreme. Dressed in silk and velvet with great silver-buckled shoes, Edward Teach-for such was his name-was wont to carry a dirk and cutlass, a brace of pistols in his belt, six additional pistols in a sling about his neck and chest, large earrings suspended from the lobes of his ears. Thus equipped he was in every way dressed to sing a song in a comic opera or to command other murderers of the sea. The latter was his trade, after serving apprenticeship as a privateersman against the French in the West Indies. As a pirate, his first ship was the "Queen Anne's Revenge," carrying forty guns. In this he raided the Atlantic Coast and became the terror of the deep, looking the part, bristling with arms.
Blackbeard's Castle on Government Hill, St. Thomas, was built by Carl Baggert in 1674. When Teach lived there, he is said to have had fourteen wives, and among his social diversions was to take his crew to his comrades in the hold of the ship, half suffocate them by burn- ing brimstone matches, blow out all the candles and blaze away with his many pistols, right and left, at random, relighting the candles to see what results had been obtained.
Blackbeard and his heavily armed ship and crew arrived off Charles- ton, South Carolina, one day in 1718, and a boat was sent ashore with a message from the pirate captain to Governor Johnson. The message contained a list of drugs and the notification that unless they were immediately sent out in his boat he would present to the city the heads of several citizens of that city whom he had captured and taken from a ship on its way to England. One of the men was a prominent
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Charleston merchant named Samuel Wragg. The drugs were sent and Captain Teach, after robbing the captives of their possessions, sent them ashore with thanks for the supply of medicines. He then sailed away, flying the black flag.
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