USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Falmouth > Suckanesset; wherein may be read a history of Falmouth, Massachusetts > Part 9
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silent drive. George was 14 years old on that day, and the year he was 21, he married his fragile and beautiful sister-in-law and continued to adore her all his life, as well he might for Frances Swift, "Fannie Fales" was a rarely lovely character and a gifted poetess.
It was in 1816 that Elijah and Thomas Swift com- menced their successful operations in supplying live oak timber from the Southern seaboard to the Navy Depart- ment, which were to be carried on for many years and contribute greatly to the prosperity of many Falmouth men concerned in it, in one capacity or another.
The files of the Navy Department show contracts with Falmouth men as follows:
1816, Elijah and Thomas Swift.
1817-18-21, Elijah Swift.
1825-27, E. Swift & Son.
1833-37, Reuben Swift.
1833-34, Elijah Swift.
1837, Oliver C. Swift.
1856-6-, John N. Parker of East Falmouth,
The effects of Elijah Swift's first live oak venture were soon manifested in the increased prosperity of his home in Falmouth.
The venerable Deacon Timothy Crocker, who lived in the large house facing the Green, who in his time had been so influential in the town, died in 1800. His son, Captain Joseph Crocker, whose wife was Martha Dim- mick, a daughter of General Joseph Dimmick, inherited the old house and lived there, bringing up a good old- fashioned family of ten children. Captain Joseph Crock- er was interested in the Southern coasting trade, building and owning his vessels, and at one time having a store in Beaufort, S. C.
He also kept a store in the east end of his house, which, for a time, was the only store in Falmouth village. The embargo of 1807 and the subsequent depression in shipping circles which lasted until after the close of the War of 1812, severely effected Captain Crocker's interests, and eventually he was forced to sell the old home, and removed to Charleston, S. C., where he died in 1824.
Before the misfortunes caused by the war had broken up this old home, it had been the scene of a most roman- tic marriage which resulted in establishing Captain Crocker's daughter, Mary, in a large and elegant mansion across the Green from her parents' dwelling.
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On January 30, 1812, Captain William Bodfish, of Sandwich, married Deborah, daughter of Shubael Hatch, host of the old inn that stood on the corner occupied (1930) by the house of Mrs. James Watson.
Shortly thereafter, in 1814 according to tradition, Captain Bodfish built for his Deborah the large square mansion next north of the Congregational Church. At that date, of course, the church was out in the middle of the Green and Captain Bodfish had as neighbors Dr. Francis Wicks and, to the southward, on the site of Mr. Frank Crocker's home, a worthy physician, Dr. Elisha P. Fearing who was married to a daughter of the dominie, Rev. Henry Lincoln.
Deborah Bodfish died on July 14, 1815, aged only twenty-three, and leaving two little children. Eighteen months later we perceive that Captain William Bodfish has found opportunity, for all his sea-faring to woo Mary Crocker. Captain Bodfish must have been a man of masterful type; we read that when, as a lad of nineteen he went on a voyage to the African coasts'as mate in a brig owned by his father, at the death of the captain he assumed command and successfully brought the vessel home, and was a fully licensed master before he had reached the age of twenty-one.
There is a delightful tradition that towards the end of November, 1816, Captain Bodfish wrote to Captain William Davis of Quissett, who had formerly been mate under him on a previous voyage, informing Captain Davis that he was loading with oil for Bremen and would touch at Falmouth on his way across the Atlantic. Captain Davis was to keep a vigilant eye out for the Bodfish ves- sel, which would fly a pre-arranged signal as she neared the Falmouth coast, and to be waiting on the shore with a horse and carriage when Captain Bodfish had himself rowed ashore.
When the letter arrived, we may imagine the ensuing bustle. Captain Davis would have to drive over to the old house facing the Green, where now stands the Church of St. Barnabas, and give the news that started all the women-folk to scouring and baking; and dressing the bride; and Captain Davis, himself, probably got out a huge old-fashioned spy-glass and stationed himself on a convenient vantage point somewhere in the Quissett hills to watch for the in-coming vessel.
Sometime in the afternoon of December first, 1816,
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Captain William Bodfish, in tailed brodacloth coat and tall beaver hat, was rowed ashore, met by Captain Davis and galloped to Falmouth to the home of his waiting bride. Unfortunately, his arrival had been timed at the whim of the winds, and when he reached the house, to find the wedding supper ready, the bride robed and the guests assembled, the indispensable functionary was ab- sent-the Rev. Henry Lincoln, brother-in-law of the bride, had been called away on parochial duties.
It was a situation that a hundred years later would have made a movie scenario. Off shore, as the sun went down, the graceful vessel tugging at her anchor; Captain Bodfish knowing full well that at a certain stage of the tide he must be off; friendly Captain Davis dashing out doors to scan the road for the approaching dust of the errant clergyman; housewives anxiously figuring whether to 'hold back' the supper yet a little while or eat it while it was hot; the two small children of Captain Bodfish's marriage doubtless growing very sleepy in the midst of this strange situation of which they had no understand- ing. No knowing how many times fat old-fashioned time- pieces had been pulled from pockets and consulted before finally the Rev. Henry Lincoln put in his belated appear- ance, but it was ten o'clock of a frosty winter night before Captain William Bodfish and Mary Crocker were made man and wife ..
Their wedding trip was a hasty drive around the Green to the Bodfish house on the north-east corner. Perhaps the sleepy babies had already been carried over and put to bed under the guardianship of an accommo- dating maiden aunt. .
Captain Bodfish took his bride to her new home, kissed her hastily, and was whirled off by fidus Achates Davis to the shore where the small boat waited to row him to his vessel, and so to Bremen!
It was in December, 1816, that Captain William Bod- fish, after a wedding tour of half-way around the Village . Green, installed his bride, Mary Crocker Bodfish, in the big white house on the corner, and set sail for Bremen since time and tide waited for no honeymoon.
It was that same year that Elijah and Thomas Swift took their first contract for live-oak timbers for the Navy Department. Elijah's star of fortune was just rising, while that of the Crocker's was about to be obscured by clouds. Captain Joseph Crocker, son of old Deacon Timo-
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thy Crocker, had suffered severely from the depression re- sulting in shipping circles from the War of 1812.
In 1817 the mortage was foreclosed on his house, built by his father in 1755; the house in which Captain William Bodfish and his wife had waited interminable hours for the parson to come back from his parochial calls in time to marry them before the vessel sailed for Bremen. Cap- tain Joseph Crocker left Falmouth for South Carolina, where the tide of prosperity appeared to be turning, and where he already had a store and wide acquaintance, and there, in Charleston, S. C., he died seven years later.
Perhaps Elijah Swift already held the mortgage on Captain Crocker's property; perhaps he only had his eye on it as a desirable place of residence; or it may be that his home farther down Main Street, where the lawn is now in front of the Public Library was becoming cramped as his family grew, for in 1817, besides the three children left by his first wife, Chloe Price Swift, there was now little Chloe, born July 10, 1808, Thomas Lawrence Swift, born June 9, 1810, and a baby, Cornelia, that lived but a year, dying in 1816; these being the children of the sec- ond wife, Hannah Lawrence Swift.
At any rate, the old deeds allege that Elijah Swift purchased a tract of land from Captain Joseph Crocker in 1817 for three hundred dollars, and shortly thereafter raised $1275 from a Boston banker, giving a mortgage on the same property as security, which in due season was promptly discharged.
In 1817 this property was bounded "on the north- east corner by the County Road and John Hatch, junior, thence south-west 331/2 rods to fresh pond, north east by Consider Hatch, thence on the same course by Timothy Parker's land to the north east corner of said Parker's at the road, and easterly 211/2 rods on the County Road" and it included three cores of meadow west of Fresh Pond with one Price and Shubael Hatch adjoining.
It included all the land now the site of St. Barnabas Memorial Church; it extended from the "County Road" at the Green clear through to Fresh Pond; it took in the white house occupied by Mrs. J. E. Dwight, though there was no house there in 1817; and it did not include the present Rectory of St. Barnabas, that being in 1817 the John Hatch place.
To this estate then, moved Elijah Swift, with his wife, Mrs. Hannah Lawrence Swift, his six children and his
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lares and penates. Being a "housewright" originally by trade, and an aesthete by nature, we are probably not unduly exercising our imagination in surmising that Elijah had his new property very thoroughly renovated before moving in.
It was a large and rambling wooden house, with no particular architectural aspirations but plenty of room for a large family. The southern aspect, looking toward Fresh Pond, was given over to tacked-on additions neces- sary to all homes in the days when houses were heated by wood stoves and fireplaces and transport accomplished by horses. The woodshed was reached through the kitchen and in turn gave access to the barns. This prosaic fact brings up an anecdote of Elijah Swift that gives us a very pleasant glimpse of appreciation of beauty instinct in the character of this highly successful "self-made" man.
In the 1840's, the barn on the Swift property was discovered to be on fire one night. Zebulon Bowman of West Falmouth, who for thirty-four years was the trusted and trusty factotum looking after the place, woke to find his room full of smoke. He hastily roused the sleeping family and hurried to the barn to try to save the five horses kept there. So rapidly had the flames made headway, however, that every horse was dead already. Across the street was the 'new' Town Hall, built in 1840, and Elijah Swift himself had donated the bell that topped it. Someone was despatched, doubtless, to ring the bell, and from all the neighboring houses volunteers came pouring in various stages of dress and undress, each snatching from the front 'entry' as he hurried out the old-fashioned leather fire-buckets that were an indispen- sable part of household equipment in those days.
Bucket-lines were quickly formed and slopping, heavy leather buckets passed up from the pond, and back to be re-filled. The barn was hopelessly in conflagration, no need to waste time on trying to save it once it was as- certained that the horses were dead; the woodshed was ignited, sparks flying, flames roaring up in the dark, waves of heat sweeping over. As dawn broke, with beams still smouldering, embers not yet quenched, someone found Elijah Swift walking on the far side of the house. Elijah explained. He could not wait longer to find out if the oak tree in the yard had been hurt by the blaze. To his immense relief it was safe.
"I could build me another house" said Elijah, "but
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'twould take too long to grow another tree as fine as that."
The old oak still stands, stately and graceful, far larger than ever Elijah lived to see it, guardian of the beautiful stone church to which Elijah's old home yielded place when it was bought in 1888 by the Beebe family and moved to its present location in the rear of Judah Nick- erson's shop.
After the fire, when the barn was rebuilt, the wood- shed no longer joined the barn to the house.
Elijah Swift had an enduring passion for trees, and it is to him solely that we of today owe the leafy charm of the Green in season and the exquisite tracery of its bare black boughs against the sky in winter.
In 1832, the town by a vote in town meeting, con- sented to permit Elijah Swift to plant a ring of trees around the circumference of the Green, provided that it was done at his own expense and with the further stipula- tion that if they should become a nuisance, Elijah Swift would have them removed. The latter clause, probably, with a thrifty eye to seeing that if the trees did not flour- ish after transplanting they should not become an eye- sore and a wilderness of bleak trunks forever.
Elijah Swift duly had the trees set out, and when the summer that year proved to be one of unusual drought, he further employed a man to carry water daily from Shiverick's Pond and drench the soil about each sapling.
Not all the trees about the Green are those originally set out by Elijah Swift. In 1857, when the First Con- gregational Church was moved from its site in the center of the Green to its present location across the street to the northward, it was necessary to take down one of the large trees to allow its passage, and the two smaller trees standing today directly opposite the Church, were planted after its removal to fill the gap.
Incidentally, the old stepping stone of the Church, on which in the past so many grave and reverend gentle- men have alighted, or pious ladies of the old days been helped down from pillions, is still in situ on the Green, almost directly opposite Dr. Wiswall's house.
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CHAPTER XI
WHALERS OF FALMOUTH
T HE roots of the whaling history go deep into the character of the country roundabout Falmouth.
When the Pilgrims first came to Cape Cod and Ply- mouth, they found the Indians already expert in whaling, which they carried on in canoes, with stone-headed ar- rows and spears to which were attached short lines with wooden floats.
Waymouth's Journal of a voyage to America in 1605 has left us an interesting description of the Indian methods of whaling on the New England coast during the winter months from November to April which was the 'season.'
"One especial thing is their manner of killing the whale which they call a powdawe; and will describe his form; how he bloweth up the water; and that he is twelve. fathoms long; that they go in company of their king with a multitude of their boats; and strike him with a bone made in fashion of a harping iron fastened to a rope, which they make great and strong of the bark of trees, which they veer out after him; then all their boats come about him as he riseth above water, with their arrows they shoot him to death; when they have killed him and dragged him to shore, they call all their chief lords to- gether and sing a song of joy; and those chief lords, whom they call sagamores, divide the spoil and give to every man a share, which pieces so distributed, they hang up about their houses for provisions; and when they boil them they blow off the fat and put to their pease, maize and other pulse which they eat."
Recently we were handed by Willard N. Chadwick of North Falmouth a list of names of Falmouth men who went to sea and became masters of ships or smaller ves- sels .. As we will encounter many of these names in the narrative of the whaling epoch of Falmouth's history, it
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seems advisable to publish Mr. Chadwick's compilation in order that readers may seek therein for relatives or ancestors of their own to give an added interest to the town history through linking it with their family bio- graphy.
Mr. Chadwick did not hand us the list with any claim that it was complete, but merely as representing the names that had occurred to him, many of them men whom he had known personally in the past.
FALMOUTH CAPTAINS
Lewis N. Herendeen, Thomas Lawrence, Lewis Law- rence,Issachar Aikin, Silas Jones, Joseph Dimmick, Sam- uel F. Davis, Benjamin Franklin Jones, Moses R. Fish, John R. Lawrence, Oliver C. Swift, William F. Jones, Solo- mon L. Hamlin, Silas Bourne, Obed Pierce, Arza Fish, Silas Baker, Nehemiah P. Baker, Elnathan B. Fisher, John Tobey, Lewis Baker, Weston Swift, Solomon Swift, Charles Childs, Roland Phinney, Charles Tobey, Zenas Hamblin, William Childs, Abishai Phinney, Edward Phinney, Peter Lewis, Charles Turner, James N. Fisher, Watson Fisher, William W. Eldredge, Freeman Robinson.
Aseph S. Weeks, John C. Hamblin, Caleb O. Hamblin, Samuel Eldred, Charles Nye, Avlin E. Nye, James M. Witherell, John C. Nye, Peter E. Childs, James. Nye, An- drew M. Shiverick, Warren N. Bourne, Charles E. Davis, Benjamin Swift, Hiram Nye, James D. Hoxie, Josiah Jones, James Hinckley, Isaac Hatch, Oliver Robinson, John Phinney, Arnold Small, Allen Green, William Ellis, Thomas G. Nye, Thomas J. McLane, Edwin F. Lawrence, David B. Nye, Alvin E. Nye, Ira W. Hatch, James C .. Davis, Andrew Baker, Robert P. Gifford, Silas Eldred, Ebenezer Bowman, Joseph Bowman, Elihu Fish, Elial T. Fish, Daniel Jennings, Warren Nye, Clayton Collins, George F. Nye, Freeman Burgess, Charles G. Borden, Israel Davis, Mica- jah Fisher, Charles J. . Nye, Nathaniel Eldred, Frank Baker.
Additional names of Falmouth captains include:
Joseph Baker, Silas G. Baker, Russell S. Bodfish, Wil- liam Bodfish, William P. Boggs, Silas J. Bourne, William A. Bourne, Henry C. Bunker, Herbert F. Burrill, John Crocker, Rowland R. Crocker, Heman Crocker, Seth Col- lins, Louis Callott, Nathaniel H. Coleman, Noah Davis, Francis Davis, William Davis, Levi F. Doty, Lemuel El- dred, William Eldred, Ward Eldred, Sr., Ward Eldred, Ben-
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jamin J. Edwards, Stanton C. Fisher, Frederick Fish, Isaac R. Fish, Abner C. Fish, Joseph W. Gardner, Harrison Goodspeed, William Gifford, Henry F. Gifford, Seth Gif- ford, Thomas Hamblin, Thomas Hinckley, Alonzo O. Her- endeen, Rowland Jones, Samuel Lawrence, Augustus Lawrence, George S. Lawrence, Peleg Lawrence, Thomas H. Lawrence, John C. Lincoln, Freeman B. Lewis, Frank- lin Nye, Joseph P. Nye, David G. Pierce, Ephraim Phinney, Edward B. Phinney, Sylvanus Robinson, William Robin- son, Oliver F. Robinson, D. Rogers, Silas F. Swift, John Swift, Micah L. Swift, Weston J. Swift, Joseph Swift, Jos- eph Swift, 3d., Reuben Swift, Edward P. Shiverick, Elihu F. Turner, Isaiah N. Tobey, Henry Tobey, Asa S. Tobey, Peter Wainwright, R. D. Wicks, Sumner A. Withington.
From these two lists, we thus have sea captains to the number of 148 known to have gone forth from Fal- mouth. When we remember that in the first fifty years of the nineteenth century the population of Falmouth ranged in the neighborhood of 2000 souls, which in that day of large families would average about 300 households, it comes home to us how strongly the sea drew and dom- inated the men of the town.
From the earliest days of the colony the sea had been both source of food, of livelihood and of communication. The people, of the old Anglo-Saxon stock that had pro- duced Drake, Gosnold, John Smith, came naturally by their innate seamanship, fearlessness and enterprise.
As early as 1715 we find evidence of the way in which the young men looked forward to their first sea voyage in much the manner that today a youth expects to go to college, in a quaint little letter found about 1892 by the Rev. Benjamin Rowley Gifford of Woods Hole in a false bottom of an old chest. £ It, with other deeds, came into the possesssion of the late Henry H. Fay who de- posited them in the keeping of the Falmouth Historical Society.
This letter, with its touch of filial solicitude, its homely concern over herrings and cotton garments, and its matter-of-fact preparation for a voyage to the Ba- hamas in a small sailing vessel before the days of steam, of Government charts, of charts, of radio, is a delightful link with the past.
"fare haven March ye 22 1715.
honored father
I right to Let you know that we shall be ready to
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sale in four or five days We are going to the behames and then on the southand ground we shall make two trips in the run of the **** tell Mister pharman if he will fetch you **** herring that will pay him in porpus oyl you must go to Capt fish and Mister hamond when your in want of aney thing that you want so **** i remain your son
Benjn Rowly
send my cotton **** over by Peter Coknin if he comes on to go with us."
Peter Coknin was, perhaps, a Mashpee Indian, the name has a guttural sound, and we know that in the early days the Indians were much about the houses and farms of Falmouth as servants, and also that they were then, and later, excellent seamen.
The 'Rowleys' lived at Quissett and Benjamin doubt- less went to 'fare haven' to join his ship by coasting ves- sel from Woods Hole, and sent back this two-hundred- year-old letter sheet by the same means.
Another letter from the same collection of Rowley- Gifford papers is a generation later but still keeping to the tradition of Falmouth's connection with the sea.
"A memerandum of A Bargain or An Agreement made Between JUDAH WEST and JOHN PRICE Both of falmouth in ye County of Barnstable on the one Part and THEOPHILUS DIMICK, SOLOMON DAVIS and THEODORE MORSE on ye other Part, all of falmouth Abovesaid, Have Bargained and Agreed as foloweth, that is to say, The former Part doth promise upon the for- feiture of All Damigies To Built a Sloop By 30th day of Ogust next which will be In the year Ang dy 1749 To Build Hir Good and strong Workmanlike in every per- ticular Part and Pece About Hir And By the Dementions As foloweth That is forty feet straight Rabit Sixteen foot Beam and six foot and ** inches deep in the Hoole and to finish Hir off in ******** according to Comon Custom of ship Carpendry. By the time aforesaid and also to find Keel **** Kilson and Weals in the shipyard where the abovesaid WEST Built his last sloop and We the later Part dew Oblige our **** upon the same for- feiture to find in the Aforesaid shipyard All the remain- ing timber Plank and Iron Work And All Tools Cus- tomary to be found in such a call suitable for the afore- said sloop and find them as they want them without
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aney detrement or Hindrance to the Work of the said sloop and we the aforesaid THEOPHILUS DIMUCK, SOLOMON DAVIS and THEODORE MORSE do give unto the aforesaid JUDAH WEST and JOHN PRICE for Building the aforesaid sloop Eleven Pound Ten Shillings old tener per ton and Twenty Five Pound old tener for the Keel Kilson and Weals found as abovesaid. This we have all agreed unto thereunto we have set our hands in presence of, further we are to find a ship saw set bolts king bolts file and Rain Ropes stable for sd sloop.
JUDAH WEST JOHN PRICE THEOPHILUS DIMUCK SOLOMON DAVIS THEODORE MORSE
Witnesses: JOSEPH BAIRN SAML HATCH
Who Judah West was, we do not know, but the fact that the document mentions a previous vessel built by him, and the fact that the document was among the Rowley-Gifford papers leads us to infer that his shipyard was in Quissett, and perhaps on the Rowley property, much of which is today the Fay estate.
Dimock or Dimuck (Theophilus appears to have been thoroughly catholic in his choice of spellings) is of course a name familiar to us who have already followed the Revolutionary history in which General Joseph Dimmick was so prominent, and the history of the Village Green in which we identified the present home of Dr. E. H. Tripp as built in 1804 by Braddock Dimmick, son of the doughty General.
The Town of Falmouth was late in entering the list of ports from which whaling vessels put forth; it is not until 1820 that the first mention of a whaling vessel from Falmouth is. found.
Nantucket had been hard at it for a century before Falmouth sent out a vessel, for it was in 1712 that Chris- topher Hussey, blown out to sea while cruising along the coast, killed a sperm whale which he met on what was later to be called "the off-shore grounds", and by his dis- covery inaugurated the increase in size of whaling vessels and the extension of voyages up to four and five years. Nantucket was the only port to carry on whaling during the war, but so many of their vessels were captured, over
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1200 Nantucket men being made prisoners or killed, that the industry was severely crippled and William Rotch, Quaker whaling magnate, made his migration, first to Dunkirk in Normandy, and finally to New Bedford.
There was always much commerce between Nan- tucket and Falmouth in the old days, Woods Hole harbor being the point of embarkation in coasting vessels for travel to the Vineyard or Nantucket, and it is probable that many Falmouth lads from time to time shipped in the Nantucket whalers and learned this highly specialised profession.
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