USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Truro > Truro-Cape Cod; or, Land marks and sea marks > Part 10
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corn in Libia. This was two thousand years before the Portuguese De Gama, in 1497, discovered the Cape of Good Hope, and the same path to the Indies by which these bold mariners proceeded.
The path to the Indies, and the rich trade of India, has been the grand prize of nations for thousands of years. It is a fact worthy of a better understanding, that nations have become enriched with its flow and declined with its ebb.
A path to India by the west we know was the dream of Columbus which he did not live to see. In the interpretation of his dream a remarkable paper was written in Virginia in 1623. It will be remembered Virginia extended from sea to sea.
Sir Francis Drake was on the back side of Virginia in his voyage about the world, in thirty-seven degrees, just opposite to Virginia, and called Nova Albion, and by the natives kindly used : and now all the question is, only, How broad the land may be at that place from the James River above the falls ; but all men conclude it to be not narrow, yet that there is, and will be found the like rivers issuing into a South Sea, or a West Sea, on the other side of these hills, as there is on this side where they run from the west down into the east after a course of one hundred and fifty miles; but of this certainty M. Henri Brigs, that most judicious and learned mathematician, wrote a small tractate and presented it to that most noble Earl of Southampton, the Governor of the Vir- ginia company in England, Annus 1623, to which I refer for full information. And by such a discovery the planters in Virginia shall gain the rich trade of the East Indies and so cause it to be driven through the continent of Virginia, part by land and part by water, and in a most gainful way and safe, and far less expenseful and dangerous than it now is. And they doubt not to find some rich and beneficial country and commodities not yet known to the world, that lies west and by south now from the present plantation.
It must be admitted that they saw the Sleeping Giant. True they were sadly at sea in their geography and dead reckoning. West by south from James River in thirty-seven degrees would almost strike San Francisco ; nearer four thou- sand miles than three hundred as they estimated, from James River to "the back side of Virginia." As Sir Francis Drake died in 1597 on board his celebrated ship Golden Hind, at Porto Bello, this was more than two hundred years before a railroad had been thought of ; but these " adventurous " men practically grasped the situation, prophetically realized the
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results of the Pacific Railroad, and anticipated the long dream of Columbus and Europe, so forcibly expressed, "To gain the rich trade of the Indies, and so cause it to be driven through the continent of Virginia."
The San Francisco of these thoughtful men would have been near Parkersburg. The great. valley of the Ohio and the Mississippi and Missouri, the great Rocky Mountain Range, and the Great Western slope, would have seemed a chiaro-oscuro to their wondering eyes.
In 1714 the Province Lands hitherto for municipal convenience regarded part of Truro, were constituted a distinct precinct entitled the precinct of Cape Cod. Sept. 24 of the same year the line was settled between the Province lands and Truro, beginning at the easterly end of a cliff near the Cape Harbor, called by the Indians Hetsconoyet, and by the English Comorant Hill, at the jaw-bone of a whale set in the ground by the side of a red oak stump, and thence running by marked range trees nearly on a north and west line about half a point more westerly, to a marked pine-tree, standing by a reedy pond, called by the Indians Wocknotchcoyisset ; and from thence by marked range trees to a high hill on the north side near the North Sea (Atlantic) with a cedar post set in the sand hill ; and thence to run in the same line to the sea, and running back on the contrary line to the harbor. Signed by JOHN OTIS, WILLIAM BASSETT, S Com. app. by Gen. Court.
And by Thomas Mulford, Thomas Paine, Joseph Doane, Hezekiah Purington. Jedediah Lumbert and Samuel Knowles; endorsed, Thomas Paine Esq., and Mr. Jedediah Lumbert, agents for the proprietors.
At a meeting of the proprietors April 26th, 1715, it was voted to make appli- cation to the next Court of Quarter Sessions, for the County of Barnstable, for a highway to be laid out from Eastham to Truro, and through Truro down to and through the Province lands upon Cape Cod as the law directs.
The following year, 1715, Truro people became restive under frequent difficulties growing out of the anomalous position or municipal character of the new precinct, and presented a petition to the General Court, by Constant Freeman, their representative, praying "that Cape Cod (the precinct) be declared either a part of Truro, or not a part of Truro, that the town may know how to act in regard to some persons."
An order of notice was issued, summoning the inhabitants of the Precinct, "to show cause why they do not entertain a
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learned orthodox minister of the gospel to dispense the word of God to them as required by law.
The first public legislation upon the Province lands at Cape Cod, resulted in the following : " An act for preserv- ing the harbor at Cape Cod, and regulating the inhabitants and sojourners there." No doubt the squatter and itinerant element of the Precinct, denominated sojourners, produced the anomalous and independent sentiment which provoked the more substantial orthodox settlers.
A grant of one hundred and fifty pounds was made in 1717, toward the expense of building a meeting-house at Cape Cod, " The money to be expended under the direction of Thomas Paine, Ebenezer Doane, and John Snow of Truro. The edifice to be thirty-two feet by twenty-eight stud, and to have a gallery on three sides. The inhabitants to sustain the balance of expense, and keep the premises in repair." Such was the beginning of church building in Provincetown : a government grant to support the ministry and build the meeting-house, and a building committee from Truro. Strictly a missionary enterprise. Compare the Government Mission of 1717, with the stately temples of 1877, pointing tall spires heavenward. Architecturally considered, the Provincetown churches of to-day compare favorably with any in New Eng- land.
In 1727 the number of inhabitants of the Province lands were so much increased that the Precinct of Cape Cod was incorporated June 14th as a township, by the name of Provincetown. Doctor Freeman says : "Owing to the pecu- liar location and anomalous relation, the inhabitants though allowed the right of representation, were exempt from taxation except for town and military duty. The provincial govern- ment still continued to provide for the ministry." The fol- lowing is the act of incorporation :
Be it enacted, etc., that all the lands on said Cape (being Province lands) be, and hereby are, constituted a township by the name of Provincetown, and that the inhabitants thereof be invested with the powers, privileges, and immuni- ties that any of the inhabitants of any of the towns within the Province by law are, or ought to be invested with, Saving always the right of this Province to said
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land, which is to be in no wise prejudiced. And provided that no person or persons, be hindered and obstructed in building such wharves, stages, work- houses, and flakes, and other things, as shall be necessary for the salting, keep- ing and packing their fish, or in cutting down and taking such trees and other materials, growing on said Province lands, as shall be needful for that purpose, or in any sort of fishing, whaling, or getting of bait at the said Cape; but that the same be held as common as heretofore, with all the privileges and advan- tages thereunto in any wise belonging.
All lands sold in Provincetown to this day are sold subject to the above conditions, with a quit-claim title. For many years Provincetown had a precarious existence. Having no interest in the soil, the inhabitants were easily afloat - they were a barometer of the fluctuating interests of the fisheries.
A few years after the incorporation in 1727 a reaction began, and in 1748 only two or three families remained. In 1755 only three houses were standing, and not a family remained. Toward the close of the French war, the tide of fortune again turned, and at the breaking out of the Revo- lutionary War, there were twenty houses, thirty-six families, and two hundred and five souls. During the war it was in the hands of the enemy ; when the war closed, every family had again vanished. Mr. Spear, the minister, formerly the Truro schoolmaster, followed his people.
With the dawn of peace, Provincetown began a new and permanent career of prosperity, which with slight check has continued to the present day. The first eighteen years of the new departure were quite unparalled for a New England town.
In 1800 the population was nine hundred and forty-six, dwellings one hundred and forty-four, eight of which were in the limits of Truro. Later, the eastern district was largely in Truro. This was another "anomalous" feature of this town of many anomalies.
The village stretched along the shore east and west. The easternmost wing soon overran the original boundary line, and a large number of families found themselves legally and geographically in a foreign town, between whom rolled six or eight miles of blue water and nearly twice that of sand hills.
Their social and business life was completely identified
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with Rome, but they were not Romans. After frequent petitions, the General Court came to their rescue from time to time, till the present boundary line near the railroad bridge at Beach Point was fixed. Provincetown thinks her buildings will not run over this line for the present, and is not ambi- tious for more territory. Truro says to her neighbor, to the County Commissioners, and to the General Court, move this boundary at least half-way, and maintain the highways, for which we are oppressively taxed, and your town receives the benefit.
So these miles of most valuable territory that bind the city of the Pilgrims to the rest of the world, and preserve the grand harbor from destruction, go a-begging.
In 1795 King Philip's Lodge of Free Masons was opened, and the building known as the Masonic Hall was built.
Whales in the sea God's voice obey. - N. E. Primer.
The whaling business that has been carried on so exten- sively and profitably in New England originated in Truro, became a flourishing business in Wellfleet, but finally as a Cape enterprise settled in Provincetown, where it has been continued with varying success during the history of the town. From the Cape, whaling extended to the Vineyard, Nantucket and New Bedford, giving them great prosperity and wealth. The whalemen of Truro were distinguished for their enterprise and success, and from the best authority gave the first impulse to the country, and ultimately to Europe.
Whaling was the most important branch of the fisheries on the Cape. When the English first visited our coast, the favorite ground for whale was in the bay, and near the shores. They were undisturbed and found much better food, in pursuit of which were often drawn into shoal water, and not unfrequently left by the ebbing tide, or water-boned, so as to become an easy prey to the Indians. It will be remembered the Pilgrims named Wellfleet Harbor Grampus Bay, on account of the abundance of this species, which the Indians were cutting up.
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.
The tortoise, seal, and shark, and in your bay The mighty whale and porpoise sporting, they The power and wondrous works of God display For our beholding.
These were the "drift whale " so often referred to in the laws of the Old Colony towns, a part of which belonged to the minister and sometimes to the schools.
The English early settlers first pursued the whale in boats, but being soon disturbed in their old hunting-grounds, retired as did the Indians, to new reservations and the frontier.
The boats were then abandoned, and large sloops were adopted. Early in the present century, nine large sloops from Truro were en- gaged in whaling. One of these was the Lydia and Sophia, built in Truro under the bank north of the house of Mrs. Elkanah Paine. She was probably the first vessel built in Truro ; and was mostly THE DRIFT WHALE. owned by Capt. Heman
Smith Rich. Many of the names had an oily flavor when the Eastham settlers first came to Paomet, as, Try House Lot, Whale House Hill, etc. The last was the high bank near the South Truro Landing, where were kept the boats and try works and lookouts for the south part of the town.
Joshua Atwood's lance that he hath made on purpose to kill fin-backs with, hath a three-square head marked W. R.
Received, Feby., 1719-20. JOHN SNOW. Town Clerk.
Doctor Freeman wrote in 1794, of whaling in Truro :
Formerly whales of different species were common on the coast, and yielded a great profit to the inhabitants who pursued them in boats from the shore. But they are now rare, and the people who are the most dexterous whalemen in
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the world, are obliged to follow them into remote parts of the ocean. Two inhabitants of Truro, Captain David Smith and Captain Gamaliel Collins, were the first who adventured to the Falkland Islands in pursuit of whales. This voy- age was undertaken in the year 1774, by the advice of Admiral Montague of the British Navy, and was crowned with success. Since that period the whalemen of Truro have chiefly visited the coast of Guinea and Brazil. A want of a good market for their oil, has however of late compelled them to turn their attention to codfishing. The inhabitants of Truro are employed in the mer- chant's service. Being in general, industrious and faithful, they soon rise to the command of a vessel. Many of the masters employed from Boston and other ports are natives of Truro.
Burke's speech in Parliament on American conciliation, sometimes called the Argumentum Piscatorinm, is a glow- ing tribute to the whalemen of America.
Look at the manner in which the people of New England have carried on their fishery. While we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, penetrating into the deepest recesses of Hudson's Bay; while we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the oppo- site region of polar cold - that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of natural ambition, is but a stage and resting- place in the progress of their victorious industry. While some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue the gigantic game along the shores of Brazil.
" Ichabod Paddock went from Cape Cod to Nantucket to instruct the people in the art of killing whales in boats from the shore. " This was the beginning of the great whaling business in Nantucket, that gave this little island almost a commercial supremacy of the business fifty years ago; and that spreading to New Bedford, made her the richest commu- nity in the land. At one time one hundred and ninety-three men from Nantucket were sailing from English ports as cap- tains of whalemen. This means a large fleet of vessels and an immense amount of capital afloat. Some of the present large fortunes in England were begun in this profitable enterprise.
Mr. Richard Paine told the writer that he could remember when there were lookouts at the Pond Landing for whale, and a man was kept constantly on them. When a whale was discovered, the alarm was given by shouting from the lookout,
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Towner ! which was quickly taken up, and repeated and re- repeated with might of lung. And that he had heard on calm days, the shout at his father's house quite two miles distant. I inquired what was the meaning of Towner ; he could not tell, but afterwards, when reading Walter Folger's description of Nantucket, I found it was an Indian word, and signifies that they have seen the whale twice. I have referred to a similar practice in Cornwall during the pilchard season.
Rev. Levi Whitman writing from Wellfleet, 1793, says : " Whale-fishing was the original business ; none were more expert than the aboriginal Indians. Before the war of the Revolution, whaling was carried on to exceeding good advan- tage. The inhabitants had acquired large property which was destroyed and lost during the war. "
Captain Jesse Holbrook, father of Colonel Joseph, and that stanch old Democrat Robert, belonged to a famous whaling- gang known as "The Seed Corners." He killed fifty-four sperm whale on one voyage. His reputation as a skilful whaleman secured him an excellent position in a London company for twelve years, as a schoolmaster to teach the English youth the art of killing whale.
An attempt was made to revive whaling in Wellfleet less than twenty years ago, but one of their vessels was never heard from, and the business was abandoned. The Truro losses will be noticed in another place.
At one time a large proportion of the middle-aged men on Bound Brook Island were whaling captains. In 1810 a boat from South Truro, commanded by Miller, fastened to a right whale, whose antics baffled all approach. She stood on her nose and thrashed the water with her flukes, describing a circuit of three hundred feet. Nearer approach seemed impossible. A hurried messenger was sent for Captain Tom Atwood, a retired old whaleman. He was found at home, quietly reading his Bible. "Yes ; tell them I'll come and kill her, " said the old Triton, shutting up the good book. He was soon in the boat, and good as his word. He gave his orders according to her manœuvres, was rowed on to the safe side, and sent his lance to her life.
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And the whale it whistled, and the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold -
The ship Milton, an old New Bedford whaler, while cruising in the Northern Gulf, discovered a whistling whale, which they killed. When the headsman placed his feet in his spout holes to cut off his head, he found a harpoon running transversely, which had produced the whistling. By the stamp on the harpoon, it was found that the whale had worn this ornament fourteen years. He yielded one hundred and eighty barrels of oil. A tongue has been known to yield twenty-seven barrels of oil.
The black fish, Globiceph alus melas so common on our shores, strictly are not fish at all ; but belong to the mammal- ian family, as the whale, porpoise, or sea hog, and all hot- blooded sea animals, that suckle their young. Sometimes schools of several hundred are driven ashore.
In another place I shall give an account of the Sunday school of 1834. The largest school ever known was driven ashore at Truro, in 1874, numbering 1405, making 27000 gallons of oil. They lay along the shore from Great Hollow to the Pond Landing, the distance of a mile. The cut below shows only the first part of the land- ing. The occupants of the dory are Boston girls.
Many years ago an English tourist walking along the shore under the high bank in Truro, found a very small boy cutting the blubber from THE 1405 SCHOOL OF BLACKFISH. a very large black-fish that he had discovered ashore in the morning, when he drove his cow to pasture. He went a mile to his home for a hatchet and knife, killed the big fish, and saved all the blub- ber, making a good day's work.
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One pleasant summer morning perhaps thirty years ago, Captain Daniel Rich who lived on Bound Brook Island, after driving his cow to pasture, looked over the bank, as was his habit. It was lowwater, but some distance along the shore, high and dry, he saw some objects which he thought unusual, and that he would walk towards them. Before going to breakfast that morning, he had marked seventy-five monstrous blackfish, that he sold before night for nineteen hundred dol- lars.
CAPTAIN HENRY ATKINS.
I have found among the papers of Sir Francis Barnard, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1764, an account made up from observations of Captain Henry Atkins, one of the enterprising navigators that distinguished Truro, referred to by Dr. Freeman. The accounts consist of perhaps twenty-five pages, from which I have make a few extracts :
Captain Henry Atkins sailed from Boston in a ship called the Whale, on a voyage to Davis's Straits in 1758. He went ashore on several places southward of Davis's Inlet in latitude fifty-six degrees, but could not discover anywhere the least sign of any persons but the natives having been there before him. * * * * * * * *
The captain then went ashore and carried with him some trifles he thought most agreeable to the Indians, who returned to the same place and brought a quantity of whalebone, at least fourteen feet long, and gave him in exchange for about to s. sterling value, as much bone as produced him {120 sterling in Bos- ton. The Indians were chiefly dressed in beaver clothing of the finest fur, and some in seal skins. He could not distinguish their sex by their dress, but one of his seamen approached one of them, who, opening her beaver, discovered her sex, which pleased the Indians greatly. *
I shall once for all take notice that the several harbors and rivers named by him were from something remarkable he found in them ; as Gull Sound from the prodigious number of gulls, also after the names of his particular friends. On · Cape Cod' (one of his friends) he discovered pines sufficient to make masts for ships of six or seven hundred tons. September 29th, 1758, he left this de- lightful Inlet in fine weather, bound to Boston. Searching the coast and trading, put in to Fortune Bay, and left October 16th. Had a five days' passage to St. Peter's Bay in Newfoundland, where the weather had been so cold and tempestu. ous for fourteen days, could not fish, which Captain Atkins might have done at Fortune Bay the whole time.
Boston, Feby. 16, 1761.
CHAPTER VII.
TRURO OLD AND NEW.
angerfield and Poole. Act of Incorporation. Dudley and Mather. Who named Truro? Roger Conant. Etymology of the Name. Truro in Cornwall. History and Asso- ciations. Queen Victoria's Description. Granger Hill. St. Mary's Cathedral. Bishop and Archbishop Benson. How a Cathedral is finished. Viscount Vivian. Owen Fitzpen. Truro Market Tablet. Tragothian. Falmouth and Provincetown. Pendennis Castle. Cornish Language. Barbarisms. Cornish Travellers. Hand- some Women. Cornish Race. Mild Superstition. Personalities. King Arthur Land's End. Prominthian Fountain. Cornish Politics. Election of a Member. Lib- erals and Conservatives. Cornish Curiosities. John Wesley's first and last Sermon Holy Wells. Cornish Tourists. Dean of Canterbury. English Inn. Sam Gilbert Cornish Fare. Cornish Toast. Penzance Pilchards and Pirates. Truro Parist .. Old Polick Church. General Washington's Pew and Coach. Truro Station.
O N the records of the General Court of 1709, is found the following order : "The part of the Cape lying between Eastham, and known as the Indian Pamet, shall be a separate town by the name of Dangerfield. "
It is quite remarkable that the above record of the General Court is all the known evidence of the town of Dangerfield. It is certain that the name was never recognized by the town, and I have not been able to find in the town, or church, or any other records, any intimations of this order, nor any traditions from any source to this effect. It is a coincidence that a corresponding record exists touching Wellfleet.
Nov. I, a hearing was had on the petition of Peter, Thomas and Josiah Oakes, agents for that part of Eastham called Billinsgate. The Court ordered, that it be a town called " Poole," the bounds from the bound line of Truro across the neck from sea to sea ; extending south to a valley called Bridge (Brush) valley.
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and so running as the valley and brook runs across the neck from the Back Side, to the mouth of said Brook, to the Point of Billinsgate Beach : also that the whaling and oyster fishing be in common as formerly.
This is even more reliable than the order for Dangerfield, as the petition is made by well-known and responsible names as agents, but like Truro, was never recognized. There seems a mystery about these two names which awaits expla- nation.
"Poole " is a town of some note in the south of England. It was here that a mob, with the church warden at their head, assailed Charles Wesley and drove him out of the parish. "The devil reigns terribly here," said the great hymnnolo- gist, as the infuriated pack hooted and belabored him beyond their limits.
The General Court record referring to the new name, is as follows : " An act making Pamet a district of Eastham, a township to be called Truroe." The "District" that was some three or four years ago erected by the name of Danger- field, was, July 16, 1709, in the petition of Captain Thomas Paine of Pamet, incorporated by the name of Truroe, making the seventh township on the Cape, and August I, pursuant to provision made, the town was organized on express condition "That they procure and settle a learned godly minister. " If ever known as Dangerfield, the act surely would not have said " Pamet, a district of Eastham. "
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