Presidents who visited Cape Cod - it's more than you think!

No US President visited Cape Cod prior to the Civil War. Was it because of the terrible press that Cape Cod had endured? Before the war, the Cape was mocked both for its scenery and its people. Author Nathaniel Willis wrote that Cape Cod was “the earth’s most unattractive region.” Others said there were so few trees that Cape Codders used fog for shade. Herman Melville in Moby Dick, used chapter 14 to disparage Nantucket. He even went so far as to say that Nantucket had so few things that grew that they even had to import weeds. An 1863 children’s book said Cape Cod’s landscape was a symbol of emotional deprivation. 

Cape people also were attacked. John Werner said that Cape seamen as a class were more addicted to vice than many others. Nathaniel Willis bemoaned the fact that Cape women were not shapely, and even Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that Chatham opposed lighthouses as they hurt the salvage wrecking business (untrue!). Thoreau frequently disparaged the mid-Cape people.

In view of this, it’s easy to see why people wouldn’t visit. Of course, it also may have been that the railroad didn’t cover the entire Cape until after the Civil War and there was less available steamboat transportation until then.

In any case, the first President to visit us was Ulysses S. Grant. In August 1874, Grant and his entourage arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. The next day they steamed to Hyannis where they rode a train through Yarmouth to Provincetown. They later returned by train to Sandwich, then to Woods Hole and back to Martha’s Vineyard. Grant was the first to make the Cape a vacation destination. Grant’s wife Julia was treated kindly by the Cape press, never mentioning that she had strabismus, a condition that made her cross-eyed.

Grant visiting Martha’s Vineyard in 1874.

President Chester Arthur was on Nantucket in 1882 for a lunch, being the second to visit. President Grover Cleveland made Cape Cod his summer home. He purchased Gray Gables in Bourne in 1890 (it burned down in 1973). It was his summer white house during his second term in office. Cleveland loved to fish. Charles Cory had developed West Yarmouth’s Great Island both for game and for fishing, and he stocked the ponds with trout and other game fish. To ensure sufficient water flowing through them, he built an underground piping system with water pumped by windmills. President Cleveland visited Cory and for four days the two fished the ponds where Cleveland caught a three pound trout.

Cleveland’s Gray Gables.

Aside from President Kennedy, Cleveland is probably the best known president on Cape Cod and stayed more time in Yarmouth than any president. In between Cleveland’s two separated terms as president, President Benjamin Harrison paid a brief visit to Nantucket. 

It was Teddy Roosevelt who next came to Cape Cod. His first visit was only into the waters of Cape Cod Bay near Barnstable where he watched, from the deck of a battleship, the US Navy take part in target practice with big 12 inch guns, rattling windows all along the bay. Provincetown was a major naval base during this time.

Teddy didn’t come ashore during this review, but in 1907 he did attend the laying of the cornerstone of the Pilgrim Monument and gave the main address. He had sailed into Provincetown harbor that day on the presidential yacht Mayflower, accompanied by his wife, son, and daughter. The entourage took two carriages to the monument.  Three years later, President William Howard Taft came to Provincetown to celebrate the monument’s completion.

Theodore Roosevelt at the 1907 Pilgrim Monument cornerstone ceremony.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t become president until 1932, but he visited Cape Cod 18 years earlier. Roosevelt, as Undersecretary of the Navy, was aboard the destroyer McDougall during the parade of ships through the Cape Cod Canal when it opened in 1914. Later, in 1933 while president, he was supposed to visit Provincetown aboard his yacht Amberjack II, but poor weather made him by-pass Provincetown on his way to Gloucester.

FDR was on hand for the opening of the Cape Cod Canal in 1914.

The next visitor was President Woodrow Wilson, who in 1917 went to Nantucket on a private visit to see his daughter.

There is a question as to whether President Calvin Coolidge visited Cape Cod looking for perfect clams. However, it appears that two Cape Codders took those clams to Washington and he ate them there.

George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush first visited the Cape as a Navy pilot during World War II. He was stationed at the airport in Hyannis where he perfected his take-offs and landings on a simulated carrier strip at that airport. It was the only night lighted civilian airport on Cape Cod before World War II, and during the war was a very busy training facility. It operated three 4,000 foot paved runways, built by WPA workers. President Bush also visited Mashpee in 1990 and in 2005 visited Martha’s Vineyard.

Before being elected president, General Dwight Eisenhower, visited General Lucius Clay in Dennis on Wrinkle Point. The two swam across Bass River to the a dock belonging to Sally Parker. Not recognizing them, she told them to leave, they were on private property.  Word went around that Ike could cross the English Channel and invade Europe, but couldn’t secure a landing in South Yarmouth! In 1957, there were rumors that Ike was going to celebrate the 4th of July in Osterville. Did he? This writer never found out.

The next visited Cape Cod in 1950, more than 20 years before he became President. Jimmy Carter was stationed in the Navy in Provincetown for a year. Wife Rosalyn recalled their time there in her memoir – First Lady From Plains. “We rented an upstairs apartment in a big old house, and there the children and I could sit at the breakfast room table and watch the submarines operate and dive just off shore. ... And we bought the boys their first sleds even though they had to compete with us to use them.” Apparently the Carters didn’t know the Cape ditty – “Cape Cod boys they have no sleds; they slide down dunes on codfish heads.”

Jimmy Carter on board a submarine.

 We all know John Kennedy’s attachment to Cape Cod and his lifelong love of sailing the waters around the Cape. He also played a crucial role in creating the Cape Cod National Seashore. Plan a visit to the Kennedy Museum in Hyannis to get a full account of his life and times on the Cape. 

President Bill Clinton made four trips to Martha’s Vineyard during his presidency, landing at Otis Air Base and then transferring to the island.

The Obamas spent several vacations on Martha’s Vineyard while he was President, again landing first at Otis. Cape newspapers reported almost every sighting of him, every time he came.

Donald Trump visited the Cape as a candidate in August of 2016, stopping on Nantucket and then in Osterville. There is no record of any tweets that he might have made.

President Joe Biden has visited Nantucket every Thanksgiving since 1975.

Adding it up, nearly two-thirds of US Presidents have visited Cape Cod and/or the islands since 1870. Only two have missed us in the last 40 years. Their loss!

Researched and written by Duncan Oliver

Presidential yacht Mayflower at Marblehead, 1925.

The Adventures of Captain Cyrus Sears

Captain Cyrus Sears was born in 1831 in West Yarmouth, the son of Odlin and Thankful Sears. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed on the ship Leland commanded by his uncle, Christopher Lewis of West Yarmouth. He rose rapidly through the ranks and, at the age of twenty six, he was in command of the ship Orissa, so fast and with such a spread of canvas that she was known as “Legs and Arms.” She was one of the first ships to carry ice from Boston to Calcutta. After a number of voyages to China and India, she was lost in a terrible winter gale in January 1857, off Nauset. The weather was such that it took Captain Sears three days just to report the loss to the Boston owners.

Cyrus married Martha Russell Baker of Yarmouth in 1857. Apparently a romantic, on the vest he wore at his wedding, he enscribed his name with his wife’s in ink, over his heart.

Martha Russell Baker

Wedding vest of Cyrus Sears, now in the collection of the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth.

Captain Sears was known for his navigational expertise, charting and mapping the northwest coast of North America, where some areas still bear the names he gave them. He was also an expert on the soundings and currents of the Atlantic ocean and was consulted by Lieutenant Matthew Maury at the time of the laying of the first transatlantic cable in the 1850s.

His various adventures included being entertained by the Czar of Russia and escaping Malayan and Chinese pirates. In his younger days, while acting as first officer of the ship Sheffield, under the command of Captain Joshua Sears of East Dennis, he was left in command while, in the port of Kronstadt, Captain Joshua Sears journeyed to St. Petersburg. When it was learned that the Czar (likely Nicholas I) was going to visit the port, all the ships put out flags, all except for the Sheffield, which had its flags placed in “stops”, something new at the time. When the Czar approached the ship, Cyrus Sears pulled the cord opening the stops and the ship was suddenly ablaze with flags. This greatly pleased the Czar, who came on board and marveled at other new things which were shown to him. The next day Cyrus Sears was invited to come to Peterhof as a guest of the Czar, where a fine lunch was served, and wonderful fountains played to entertain them. 

What the Sheffield may have looked like in Kronstadt.

He made numerous voyages in command of such ships as Augustus, Magenta, Visurgis and Pocahontas to places such as Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Shanghai, Fuzhou and Hong Kong. On one such voyage, around Cape Horn to Vancouver and Puget Sound, he brought back to the Crystal Palace Exposition in London, England, a complete collection of furs and minerals, along with a spar of Douglas fir, 175 feet long and perfect in shape. Being too late to serve as a flagstaff for the Exposition building, it was put up at Frogmore and was later transferred to Kew Gardens. 

The Sears home in Ashby, where they lived from 1860-1874.

Captain Sears joined the Navy at the beginning of the Civil War and was assigned to the East Coast Blockading Squadron, under Rear Admiral Bailey, where he was in command of the gunboats Clyde and Honeysuckle and the man-of-war Dale.

After his Naval service, Captain Sears went back to merchant ships and assumed command of the clipper Herald of the Morning, completing several record passages around Cape Horn.

Cyrus Sears, left, with members of the Naval Veterans Association.

Eventually, after thirty two years at sea, he retired and moved from his home in Ashby, Massachusetts, to Baltimore, where he became Port Captain and for a time Consul for Cuba. He died in Baltimore in 1914 at the age of 82, leaving his wife Martha, and two daughters, M. Isabel, wife of George H. Hunneman of Boston, and Annie Russell Sears.

At his death, the following poem by Lizzie Clark Hardy was found in his pocket and was read at his funeral:  

         The Unknown Shore
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away,
With no response to the friendly hail
Of kindred craft in the busy bay.
In the silent hush of the twilight pale,
When the night stoops down to embrace the day,
And the voices call in the water’s flow-
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away.

Through purple shadows that darkly trail
O’er the ebbing tide of the Unknown Sea,
I shall fare me away with a dip of sail
And a ripple of waters to tell the tale
Of a lonely voyager sailing away
To Mystic Isles, where at anchor lay
The craft of those who have sailed before
O’er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.

A few who have watched me sail away
Will miss my craft from the busy bay;
Some friendly barks that were anchored near
Some loving souls that my heart felt dear
In silent sorrow will drop a tear.
But I shall have peacefully furled my sail
In moorings sheltered from storm and gale,
And greeted the friends who have sailed before
O’er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.  

Researched and written by William Painter.

See Capt. Sears’s wedding vest during She Said Yes, an exhibit of vintage wedding gowns, through June 30, 2024

The grave of Cyrus and Martha Sears, Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore.

The Boys of Yarmouth in World War I

In June, 1917, Albert Chase of West Yarmouth left home for the bloody battlefields of France. Chase was one of 35 young men from Old Mattacheese who volunteered in World War One, and miraculously, all but one of the 35 native sons of Yarmouth came home alive.

Albert T. Chase and Arthur Graham in France.

How did our hometown boys fare on the front? How did they adjust from playing alongside the icy shores of Dennis Pond, and sand lot baseball, to a foreign battleground?

“My dear Mildred,” wrote Private Alfred C. Baker to his cousin on Christmas Day, 1917, “we all had a very nice dinner of turkey, pies, pudding, nuts, and potatoes, all we could eat.” Private Baker wrote he was lonesome, but “a good many boys are here…”

Young Baker asked cousin Mildred to “tell anyone to write to me” and “remember to all the Yarmouth people.” Baker served with the 103rd Machine Gun Battalion, Company C.

Henry Eldridge wrote home and said he sees Alfred Baker frequently, and looks ”eagerly for Yarmouth boys.” [Can you imagine being in France amidst fighting a war, and turning around to see someone you hung out with at Hallet’s store?]

Merrill Baker reported that he was in good health, and Russell Dodge claimed to have “motored 75 miles to play baseball for the amusement of the wounded in the American hospital.” The countryside of France, reported John Matthews, was very beautiful, and also of the promotion to Captain of Lieutenant Nathaniel Simpkins of Sandyside (on Summer Street in Yarmouth Port). During the war only one serious injury was reported. “Somewhere in France,” wrote Arthur Ryder, he was gassed, but eventually recovered.

Yarmouthites eagerly followed the global conflict from the trusty pages of the Register newspaper. In an editorial on April 21, 1917, the Register wrote “only a fool can imagine that this will be the last of all wars. There can be no permanent peace while the world is divided into different nationalities, each swayed by its on traditions of language and race.”

World War I political cartoon.

One by one letters trickled home. “I am somewhere near where most of the boys are stationed and expect every day to run into them,” wrote Earl Davidson in August 1918. “I can’t begin to describe the feeling one has during his first shell fire. However, I stuck to my post as a good American should.” Davidson wrote that friends and family back home have no idea what real warfare is, “but if you could pass through some of the little French villages that have been shot to pieces you would surely say Sherman was right when he said ‘War is hell.’”

Historians are revisiting World War One, and with good reason. That conflict left us with new technologies of death: tanks, planes, and submarines; reliable rapid-fire machine guns and artillery, and motorized cavalry. It also ushered in new tactics of warfare: shipping convoys and U-boat packs, dogfights and reconnaissance air support. And it left us terrors we still cannot control: poison gas and chemical warfare, strategic bombing of civilian targets, massacres and atrocities against entire population groups.

But most of all, it changed our world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole political systems were realigned. Revolution swept into power ideologies of the left and right. And, the social order shifted dramatically. Manners, mores, and codes of behavior, literature and the arts, education and class distinctions: all underwent a vast sea of change.

Nathaniel Simpkins, who died shortly after the end of the war.

Yarmouth proudly participated in the war effort, adhering to the Department of Agriculture’s request that housewives across the nation “join in the food production movement,” and cultivate potatoes, field beans, and root crops in case they were needed overseas or at home. In August 1917, the Friday Club donated toothbrushes, toothpaste, small mirrors and face cloths to the war effort, along with needles, writing papers and envelopes, pencils, and bandanas. The Bass River branch of the Italian War Relief Fund of America held a meeting in September 1918 and made infants’ outfits including 12 children’s aprons.

When the war ended in 1918, more than nine million soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed. Another five million civilians were estimated to have perished under occupation, bombardment, hunger and disease. Over four million Americans, including female Army nurses – served overseas. In October 1919, after the war ended, Captain Nathaniel Simpkins – a staff office in the 26th Yankee Division – died of a sudden illness (pneumonia – presumed to be Spanish Flu); he was 32. [The metal arch at the corner of Summer Street and Route 6A was erected in his memory. It is currently being refurbished and will be reinstalled in the fall of 2024.]

In 1926, a memorial on the town common listing the names of Yarmouth’s war heroes was dedicated. One of the speakers at the ceremony was General Clarence Edwards, Captain Simpkins’ boss, and commander of the Yankee Division, for whom Camp Edwards is named. Pulling the cord to unveil the marker were Oliver and Nathaniel Simpkins, sons of the dead captain.

by Theresa Barbo, originally published in 2002 in HSOY’s Beechcomber

Bass Hole and the Clam Factory

When you stand on the boardwalk at Bass Hole, and look toward Dennis, a strange looking group of buildings, known by locals as “the clam factory,” sits prominently on the edge of Chase Garden Creek, on the inside of Chapin Beach. At night, a green glow seems to emanate from it, further adding to its mystery. 

The area where this “factory” is located has a rich and storied history. The indigenous peoples were the first to see the benefits of this area. They probably practiced the first aquaculture in America, when they went shellfishing. Many times, they must have gathered more than they needed, and they kept the ones not used in known locations to make them easier to find the next time. Evidence of their having been in the area are common, and shell middens (piles of shells) can still be seen on Sandy Neck. Sandy Neck was likely a nicer place for them than Bass Hole, for the summer winds there kept off the dreaded gnats, mosquitoes, and greenheads. 

Photo by Christopher Seufert

The early colonials called this large area Bass Hole, evidence of nature’s bounty. 

To the west of the creek, a sandy beach stretched from Bass Hole all the way around to Mill Creek on the Barnstable town line. Yarmouth people were calling this beach “Gray’s Beach” before 1700. The beach lasted until after World War II, when a series of hurricanes in the 1950s washed away the sand. The town of Yarmouth had to dig out the present small crescent of beach to recreate a bathing section for townspeople on the north side. One of the evidences that Gray’s Beach used to extend much further than it does today is the remains of pilings in Clay’s Creek. Where the boardwalk now ends, you can see cut off pilings below the water in the creek in mute testimony to a longer boardwalk and extensive beaches which used to exist on the other side of that creek. 

A family group enjoying Gray’s beach in the 1940s.

Ship building thrived on the island in the middle of Chase Garden Creek (then called a river). The island, very near the present clam factory, was known as the “Horseshoe shipyards”, and vessels were built there after the American Revolution until the 1820s weighing up to 100 tons burthen. Further up stream, other shipbuilding enterprises thrived as well, at Bray’s shipyard, and at Hull’s and Homer’s docks.

Yarmouth had its first Town Dock right here at Bass Hole, and during the American Revolution, the British recognized this area as one of the two major ports on Cape Cod. One British map, printed in 1776, identifies only two harbors on Cape Cod: what is now Provincetown and Bass Hole. The silting in of the area in the 1820s led to moving the town wharf further west over to the Mill Creek area. 

Until the hurricanes hit in the 1950s, George Chapin had a large duck hunting camp on the Dennis side of Chase Garden Creek. It was from him that Chapin Beach was acquired by the town of Dennis and the Aquacultural Research Corporation was able to purchase its property in 1960 to begin growing clams. Founded by two men who served on a US Navy submarine together, W. Van Alan Clark, Jr and Dick Loring talked about what to do when they left the service. According to ARC’s website, “they decided to try developing a system of growing shellfish from the hatchery stage through growout to market size. They chose to start with steamers, or soft-shelled clams – and Aquacultural Research Corporation was born in 1960.”

Aquacultural Research Corporation has tried growing both soft shelled clams as well as hard shelled clams, but has found more success with hard shelled clams. Cape Codders would call them quahogs, but that name isn’t known across the country.

A 1990s aerial image of ARC.

At the clam factory (even the people who work there called it that - or the clam farm), they developed aquacultural processes to grow hard shelled clams. Their research is privately funded and is aimed toward their own products. A broad based staff of marine biologists, engineers, and technicians culture the clams and monitor quality from the hatchery right up to shipping. Control of the growth processes provides a reliable, consistent supply of clams throughout the year.

In 1993, the corporation reorganized, and at that time gave 220 acres of marshland to the Dennis Conservation Trust. Much of the marsh visible from the road when driving to Chapin Beach is part of these 220 acres. The remaining land and buildings continue to grow clams for the clam factory’s national market.

The process of growing clams starts in the winter. From December to spring, the hatchery portion of the clam factory is in full operation. Select parent stock of shellfish are carefully bred in the facility’s hatchery and are reared in specially designed tanks and systems. The “seed” produced is, in fact, juvenile shellfish, and must be fed. The large aquatic greenhouses on the property exist so that Aquacultural Research Corporation can grow microscopic algae to feed these new clams. Algae only grow when there is light, and winter light is at best marginal, so lights are installed in these greenhouses. The light shines through the plastic green roofs, giving off the strange glow that can be seen there at night.

Following the larval stages, young clams are moved to an indoor nursery system where heated seawater and the cultured food produce accelerated growth before their transfer to protected field cages. Final “grow out” occurs in a natural bottom in certified tidal areas to ensure pure natural flavor and highest quality. That Aquacultural Research Corporation can use the waters around Bass Hole speaks highly for the quality of water there.

The clams, after harvesting, are bagged and sent in refrigerator trucks, or in insulated boxes if being shipped by air. In less than 48 hours, the clams go from the waters at Cape Cod to the customers’ plates.

The clam factory also grows surf clams, scallops, and oysters to sell to other growers.  The town of Yarmouth buys some of its quahogs to stock its beds from Aquacultural Research Corporation. If you’ve purchased a shellfish license in Yarmouth and gone “clamming”, you probably have eaten some of the mollusks raised right on Chase Garden Creek. Other towns also make purchases from the company.

Click the image to visit their website.

Unfortunately for those who would like to visit, there is no insurance to cover the liability of having visitors, nor are there workers who can give tours to those who show up. This is a private corporation and for that reason there is a privacy sign posted as you enter from Chapin Beach road.

For Cape Codders, it’s reassuring to know that efforts are being made by Aquacultural Research Corporation to insure the future quality of  hard shelled clams on Cape Cod. About the only thing that might make one shudder in fright, would be at the thought that these Cape Cod clams could be sent to New York and be ruined by the addition of tomatoes to the clam chowder!

Researched and written by Duncan Oliver.

Salty Women: Savvy Owners of South Yarmouth’s Saltworks

The saltworks industry in Yarmouth, which prevailed for one hundred years, began at Bass River in 1809. Its roots, cultivated by Capt. John Sears and Hattil Killey, were in the East Precinct of Yarmouth, which became Dennis in 1793. The first surviving salt manufacturing deed, dated 1811, references Seth and Zeno Killey, Abiel Akin, and Isaiah Crowell’s existing saltworks along Bass River. Seth Killey’s business journal records salt stocks in 1810.

Saltworks (denoted by the checkerboard pattern) along Bass River.

In Friends Village, saltworks were built continuously from Wing Street to 175 Old Main Street and along Bass River. Significant saltworks were built west of Old Main Street, some nearly three quarters of the way to Long Pond. Almost all of the salt manufacturing in this area was owned by members of the Society of Friends.

The Yarmouth Friends (Quakers), who were a self-contained community, took care of their sick, their poor, and their legal issues. Believing in equal opportunities for all, the women conducted their own business meetings as early as 1681. 

Under normal conditions at this time, when a man died, his estate was distributed according to his will. Usually, the wife would receive one third of his estate; however, there were six women living in Friends Village, all members of the Society of Friends, who became owners of salt manufacturing businesses after their husbands or fathers died. These women were: Rebecca Frye, Tamsen Gifford, Tamsen Freeman (Gifford) Baker, Rebecca (Wing) Steere, Rhoda (Gifford) Wing, and Eliza Wood. The following is a testament to their business acumen.

Rebecca Frye was the daughter of Thomas Akin who owned saltworks in Friends Village until his sudden death in 1841. In the distribution of his estate in 1844, David Kelley was entrusted to manage fourteen hundred feet of saltworks for Akin’s two minor children, Rebecca and Abiel. Rebecca managed her portion of the works for six years and in 1853, at twenty-seven years old, Rebecca sold her share of the works to her uncle David K. Akin.

Tamsen Freeman (Gifford) Baker was the daughter of Prince Gifford who was a large salt manufacturer in Friends Village. The family lived on Union Street where the parking lot of the Cultural Center is today. Gifford owned multiple strings of saltworks that ran behind the row of residences along Old Main Street from Mill Lane to Saltworks Lane. One mill and a salt house was built at Bass River. Prince Gifford died in 1844, leaving his saltworks to his daughter Tamsen Freeman (Gifford) Baker. Under his daughter Tamsen’s ownership, the valuation of these works listed on the 1850 and 1860 census was two thousand dollars. She ran these works for seventeen years and in 1861 sold all the works to her mother Tamsen Gifford. Under Tamsen Gifford’s ownership, the 1870 census listed the valuation of her estate at twenty-five hundred dollars. In 1883, Tamsen deeded back to her daughter Tamsen F. Baker half the works. In 1885, she deeded the other half to her son Prince. 

Robert Wing was an extensive salt manufacturer whose business, Robert Wing & Company, was mainly in Bass River Village. In 1807, he married Elizabeth Killey, and lived on the corner of Union and Old Main Streets. They had one surviving  child named Rebecca. Wing later married Abigail Smith. His daughter, Rebecca married Thomas Ellwood Steere of Providence, RI. Wing’s saltworks were valued on the 1850 census at seven thousand dollars. He died in 1856, leaving all of his saltworks to his wife Abigail and daughter Rebecca Steere.

In 1860, Abigail Wing and Rebecca Steere sold over seven thousand feet of saltworks in Bass River Village to David Smith, Barnabas Sears Jr., Isaiah Crocker, and her first cousin David Kelley. Abigail left South Yarmouth to live the rest of her life in New Bedford among family. Rebecca Steere managed these saltworks at Bass River Village between the County Road and Bass River for thirty years. In 1885, she sold the remaining five thousand feet of works to David Kelley. These works were active until 1889 and were the last saltworks remaining in Bass River Village.

Rhoda (Gifford) Wing was the daughter of Prince Gifford and wife of Daniel Wing Sr. They lived at 6 Akin Street right behind the Gifford homestead. In 1841 Daniel Wing Sr. bought the works from Abraham Shearman Jr. and Isaiah Crowell northwest of the County Road. Wing died suddenly in 1842 and the works then were managed by his wife Rhoda. The value of these works listed on the 1850 and 1860 census was two thousand dollars. Rhoda is identified as a Merchant on the 1860 census. After managing the works for twenty-eight years, the heirs sold the works northwest of the County Road to Daniel Wing Jr. In 1872, the heirs sold the works adjoining Crosby Street to Capt. George Crocker. These were some of the last saltworks to be operable in Friends Village.

Eliza (Baker) Wood was the wife of Saltmaker Francis Wood. Their works were bought from Zeno Killey in 1849 and 1850. The land acquired in 1850, contained two and one quarter acres of saltworks, located on the south side of Homer Avenue between the County Road and Bass River. Francis died in 1853 leaving the works to his wife Eliza. She managed these works, referred to as “Aunt Eliza’s Saltworks”, for eighteen years until 1871 when she and her daughter deeded all this property to Isaiah Crocker.

These six remarkable women, with their savvy business-sense and steadfast determination, secured a lasting legacy in Yarmouth’s historic saltworks industry.

Researched and written by Robert Kelley.

To learn more about South Yarmouth’s saltworks, be sure to visit the Cultural Center of Cape Cod during March 2024 for the exhibit Lost History reDiscovered.

Noah W. Morgan : from southern slave to Yarmouth sea captain

When Noah Webster Morgan was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1845, he likely never dreamed he would someday be master of his own ship, plying the coasts of New England. Yet that is exactly what happened.

South Yarmouth Quaker David K. Akin and his wife Betsey were traveling through the south and visited a Friends meeting in Back Creek, North Carolina in the late 1850s. There they met a doctor who knew two bright half-black teenage boys and a black cousin he wanted to take north to freedom. Noah and Eli were brothers whose white Scottish father had died, and two of their sisters had been sold into slavery to settle large estate debts. It was feared the boys would soon be sold also. Dr. Nathan B. Hill, a Quaker, had agreed to accompany them if someone at the end of their journey would take them in. Dr. Hill was in the process of moving to Minnesota.

David K. Akin

Dr. Nathan B. Hill

Akin and his wife agreed to accept responsibility for Noah Morgan, his brother Eli, and cousin Dempsey Ragsdale, once they arrived in Yarmouth. A plan was discussed and put in motion.

Dr. Hill soon set out with the three young men. They were stopped in Richmond, Virginia where someone offered Dr. Hill cash for the boys, but after refusing the offer, they were able to continue north. According to Hannah Sears, granddaughter of the Akins, “the doctor had a hard time getting them to New York and, after he had gotten them on a steamer for Fall River, locked them in a stateroom and went to eat his first meal. Still fearful, he went back and found a man trying to pick the lock!”

The group arrived safely in Bass River. The Akins provided a home for Noah and Eli, and David Kelley took in cousin Dempsey. They had received little if any education so the boys were tutored in their letters and taught to read, then later entered the South Yarmouth Grammar School, where Noah and Eli were noted in the Yarmouth Register as having perfect attendance in Spring 1859. Noah, in particular, was a “very good scholar.”

David K. Akin’s home in Bass River.

After the Civil War broke out Noah enlisted in 1863, first joining the army in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment under Col. Robert Shaw, one of the first African American regiments. He joined the Navy in 1864 out of New Bedford, and served on the steamer Nyanza which patrolled the Mississippi, and then supply ship USS Pampero. It is likely he learned his seamanship skills during this time. He survived the war, returned to Yarmouth in 1866 and later received a pension for his service.

The Navy was far more integrated during the Civil War.

By 1870 Noah was engaged in the salt making trade and that year married Mattie Knox of New Bedford. They settled into a house near the river on Pleasant Street and started a family. Their first child, a son, was named David Akin Morgan after their mentor. A daughter named Emily Mae followed a few years later. Hannah Sears fondly remembered her friend “Emmie” who she saw nearly every day as they whiled away the hours doing what kids do along the shore of Bass River.

The Morgans had a large garden and were known throughout the village for their sweet potatoes and delicious melons.

One of the houses Noah and his family lived in was this little white Cape at 50 Pleasant Street.

In early 1881 Noah was named master of the William H. Rowe and in 1883 the family moved to New Bedford; a larger port with more opportunities. By 1889 he was part owner of the schooner F. H. Odiorne and in 1895 he purchased a quarter interest in the schooner Oliver Ames, becoming her managing owner. The Oliver Ames was the largest two-masted schooner on the coast at 124’ long, with a 33’ beam. The vessel delivered coal to Maine and stone to Philadelphia along with other cargo. In 1909 Noah became half owner of the schooner and sailed her with his son David and other crew. Financial difficulties, in part due to the ship striking rocks near Bath and being stuck in port for the summer of 1910 on a broken marine railway after being hauled out for repairs, forced him to sell his share. David worked at ropemaking in New Bedford.

Schooner Oliver Ames under sail and inbound to Bay View Granite Works

Hannah Sears described her last visit with Noah Morgan in a letter later quoted in Florence Baker’s Yesterday’s Tide : “About ten years ago, in that city for a few hours, I decided to look him up. I knew that his wife, Mattie, had died and that my early playmate had become Mrs. Emily Morgan Tabb of Jersey City. As I went up the street toward his home, a tall stiffly-moving figure was sweeping off the pavement. The back, which for years had carried the scars from a boyhood lashing, was now bent and a shock of white hair made striking contrast to his face….as I introduced myself he gave his old familiar smile … and was again, “Emmie’s father,” as when he lived with his family in the little house near Bass River. We talked long of the changes that had taken place and he asked many questions about those he had known in South Yarmouth. As he bade me good-by, his face shining with friendliness, he patted me on the shoulder with a gentle, ‘Thank you so much, Missy, for coming to see me!’”

168 North Street, New Bedford, where Noah lived in the 1900s with his family.

Mattie died in 1921, Noah in 1924, and son David in 1928. They are all buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in New Bedford. Daughter Emily married Augustus Tabb, moved to New Jersey and had a son who later became an Episcopal priest. Eli, the older of the two brothers and found in later records as “Elias T. Morgan”, was in New Bedford by 1867, married there and had several children. There is no indication he became a sailor. Dempsey was rumored to have gone to sea and this author was not able to find any further trace of him.

Researched and written by Nancy Mumford

*note - unfortunately no images of Noah and his family were found.

Schooner Oliver Ames.

Bass River Lighthouse and the cousin who saved it

Today the Bass River Lighthouse is part of the The Lighthouse Inn located in West Dennis. But there was a time when its beacon was vital to the safety of mariners sailing the southern coast of Cape Cod. When government officials underestimated its importance and extinguished the light in 1880, a local sea captain took it upon himself to use a distant family connection to try and change their decision.

During the nineteenth century Bass River was one of the more important shipping centers on the southern coast of Cape Cod. South Yarmouth and West Dennis sea captains, who were essential to the local economy, anchored their vessels in an area of deeper water, known as Deep Hole, just outside the mouth of the river. Coasters heading to and from Boston or other Cape ports often anchored there as well awaiting favorable winds and tides.

Prior to 1855, ships sailing thru the region were aided by a dedicated West Dennis resident named Warren Crowell. Every night without fail Mr. Crowell lit a kerosene lantern and hung it in the attic window of his home on Wrinkle Point so mariners would have a landmark to help with navigation. Sea captains living in the vicinity were so appreciative to have this light, that many contributed 25 cents a piece annually to purchase kerosene for Mr. Crowell's lantern.

Wrinkle Point.

Bass River maritime activities flourished during the 1850s to the point that a shipyard was even established for the construction of new vessels. Officials soon acknowledged the increase in shipping traffic in the area and decided a lighthouse was needed. On September 28, 1850 Congress appropriated $4,000 to build Bass River Light. 

A strip of land, then called Follins Island, located east of the mouth of the river was selected and the land was purchased from shoemaker George Richardson. Several teams of oxen were used to haul materials over the salt marshes and thru the dunes. In early 1855 construction was completed on the two story wood framed building with a lantern mounted on the roof. On April 30, 1855 the lighthouse, complete with a fifth-order Fresnel lens that could be seen up to eleven miles out to sea, was officially lit.

For the next twenty-five years the bright white light emitting from the lighthouse helped mariners navigate through the local waters. Appropriately, the fore-mentioned Warren Crowell was selected as the first light keeper. Crowell, along with his wife and children (which eventually numbered nine) moved into the dwelling and he served his post diligently for the next eight years. In 1863 he took a leave of absence to enlist in the Union Army where he was wounded and taken prisoner in Virginia. He eventually returned to Dennis after the war and was able to resume his position. Two other men, Captain James Chase and Zelotes Wixon also helped watch over the lighthouse during the next seventeen years.

In 1880, when Stage Harbor Light was built about ten miles down the coast in Chatham, the U.S. Government felt, incorrectly, that Bass River Light was no longer needed. Funding for operation of the light was not renewed and on August 1st of that year, despite public protest, the light was turned off. On September 1st it was ordered to be sold at auction, where a Captain William White of South Yarmouth purchased the structure for $400.

The decision to extinguish the light did not sit well with the local sea faring community who decided that actions needed to be taken. Captain William Garfield of West Dennis felt a distant family member could be of some assistance in the matter. It seems Garfield was not originally from Cape Cod. He had been born in Ohio and a member of his extended family was none other than James A Garfield, the newly elected President of the United States.

In one of his letters to the new President, written in early 1881, Captain Garfield explained the local feeling on the importance of the light. "I drop you a line or two again on account of a Light House we have here that has been standing for twenty-five years and last October was put out by the Lighthouse Board. We have sent in a large partition for them to relight it again. Our Harbor is one of the best that there is in Vineyard Sound. All vessels come in here in bad weather and no light makes it bad for large vessels. When you git to Washington and git everything working, well then, we shall write you and see if you can do anything for this Lighthouse."

The Captain's letters apparently struck a chord with President Garfield as upon arriving in Washington D.C. he personally looked into the matter. In June 1881 the President sent a letter to the Captain inviting him to come to the White House for dinner. The little village of West Dennis must have been a-buzz with excitement to have one of their residents dining with the President of the United States. 

Captain Garfield left for Washington via train with two of his teenage daughters, Esmilda age 15, and Addie age 13, by his side. On the evening of July 1st they arrived at the White House for their dinner with the President. When the meal was over the young ladies were given a tour of the executive mansion while the men relaxed with an after dinner cigar. The President proudly explained that Bass River Light was being relit by his executive order. It seems after receiving the captain's letters earlier that year, the President had convinced members of Congress to appropriate funds to purchase back and re-establish the light.

President James Garfield

Following its re-lighting, Bass River Light continued to assist mariners for another three decades. But starting in early 1914 there was a noticeable decrease in local ship traffic in the area and with the newly constructed Cape Cod Canal set to be opening soon, the closing of the lighthouse was being openly discussed. When an automatic light was established on the west side jetty at the entrance to Bass River later that year, its fate was sealed. On June 14th, 1914, after nearly sixty years of valuable service, Bass River Light was officially closed.

The automated light on Bass River.

Over a hundred years have passed since Bass River Light was last used as a year round light station. Thru the years it was bought and sold, left unoccupied for a short period of time, and even moved from its original location. When the Stone family purchased the building in 1938 they saw its potential as a destination for weary tourist in need of a good meal and some seaside relaxation. Members of the family have continued to own and manage it. Today as an inn and restaurant it has become a Cape Cod landmark to tourists and locals alike. 

In 1989, in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Lighthouse Service, the light was relit. Officially designated “West Dennis Light” it continues to run as a seasonal navigational aid during the summer months and is the only privately owned and maintained working lighthouse in the country. But history will remind us that its major contribution was to the thousands of mariners who used its light to guide them safely during the golden age of sail. Because of the actions of the cousins Garfield and others in 1881 the light was allowed to remain active for an additional thirty-three years. This undoubtedly saved the lives of many men and women who may have otherwise been lost to the sea. Captain William Garfield and Warren Crowell both rest in a sleepy West Dennis Cemetery less than a mile from The Lighthouse Inn. 

Researched and written by William Painter

Barnstable's Forgotten Dude Ranch

Barnstable citizens at the station that day in July 1945 must have watched popeyed as newly arrived passengers from the New York train mounted a western stage coach in time for the grinning driver to rouse his four horses with a crack of the whip.

Even more surprised, if not amused a few days earlier, were motorists on the Old Kings Highway to find their progress slowed by cowboys driving a herd of horses as far as Bonehill Road in Cummaquid.

And why did that gentleman in five gallon hat and western boots strolling along Barnstable Village Main Street remind us of  Roy Rogers? Because … he was Roy Rogers.

Roy Rogers.

Before our astonished witness could swear “never to touch another drop” he would discover that these western anomalies were all associated with Cape Cod’s recently opened “dude ranch.”

Their destination was a rustic imposing building sprawling along the heights overlooking Barnstable Harbor and Sandy Neck.  Today the rambling structure that later housed the Harbor Point Restaurant stands empty, with an ancient millstone for its doorstep. Also near the front door was a large grindstone which once belonged to the Swift family who ran the local abattoir for butchering livestock. Bonehill was then known as “Slaughterhouse Road” before members of the family moved to Chicago to create one of the country’s leading meat packing companies.

Noted for its fine dining, elegant wedding receptions and sweeping views of Barnstable Harbor and Sandy Neck, the Harbor Point restaurant had many other names and colorful diversions in its 100 year history.

The property was originally developed in 1902 as a summer home for the Johnson family of New York.  Mr. Johnson was a silk merchant of considerable influence, as evidenced by the fact that railroad officials would hold the train when Mr. Johnson was delayed on Friday nights leaving his office for the weekend on Cape Cod.

During Prohibition in the 1920s, the gracious family home under new ownership had metamorphosed into a favorite joint of local sports and flappers because of its secluded location convenient to the quiet delivery of “supplies” via Barnstable Harbor.

Bob Borino, the former restaurant manager, would show interested visitors a secret closet in one of the bedrooms with its trap door, where rum runners brought up the liquor.

By the 1930s, the establishment had become notorious as a house of ill fame, although the archives are lacking in details on this phase.

In the early 1940s, Floyd van Duzer was ready to retire from his machine shop in Quincy, and pursue his yen to raise livestock on Cape Cod. According to Caleb Warren, writing in the Cape Cod Business Journal (June 1982), Van Duzer was shown  “a hundred acres with a mile of beach and a well built house” in Cummaquid for $60,000. He offered $15,000 and the spread was his, with even more buildings than he had known about. Being a real adventurous type, and encouraged by his wife, who had western connections, and stalwart sons, he conceived the idea of a dude ranch. 

After the town of Barnstable issued a permit in 1944, van Duzer began searching the rodeo circuit out west to find a suitable manager. He came up with Blackie Karman from Encampment, Wyoming, “once voted the best all round cowboy after a rodeo in Madison Square Garden.” He turned out to be a creative, if unpredictable, foreman. He convinced Van to buy some 30 horses “never ridden before,” which created a problem when cowboys and horses came off the train at Barnstable station. The horses made straight for the green grass of the court house lawn, and during the drive down Old Kings Highway to Bonehill Road they created confusion at the Sunday services of  St. Mary’s Church.

But, by the summer of 1945, Blackie had the ranch rolling with weekend rodeos, “featuring champion cowboys, bull riding, calf roping, bronc riding and trick roping etc.” In the first rodeo, June 23, 1945, the Barnstable Patriot reported that Cummaquid farmer Frank Taylor, “stole the show” from Blackie Karman and his cowhands from Texas and California. He won the “pipe race” and “and rode with the best of them when he handled the brake on the stage coach as the four horses whirled the top heavy vehicle in figure eights.” 

As publicity spread and brochures were distributed, guests came from all over New England, and especially New York. The stage coach would  “roll ‘em in and out” on weekends at Barnstable station.  

In addition to the amenities of beach and surf, the Ranch offered some real western delights. The ranch cowboys led horseback excursions at low tide across the flats of Yarmouth to East Dennis, and “overnighters” to Provincetown.  They even found a way to ride galloping horses towing water skiers.  There were parades down Main Street in Hyannis to arouse interest in the weekend rodeos (admission $1 for adults, 50 cents for children.) Roy Rogers and other cowboy film stars occasionally visited.

The ranch produced its own vegetables, milk, butter and cream, and served up seafood from the local fishermen. According to Van Duzer, a goodly portion of the clientele came from New York, including many young women from advertising agencies.

The price seemed to be reasonable at $60 per week in a bunkroom, and $85 for a private room.

Blackie perhaps got carried away with offering the guests western style entertainment when on Labor Day he pulled his six gun and shot out all the windows in the Ranch House. He was fired thereafter.

The Dude Ranch kept on ridin’ and ropin’ until 1948, when Van Duzer sold out.  The new owners continued the food service as the Cape Cod Ranch Smorgasbord  -- “all you could eat for $3.25” -- until 1979.  In the 1980s, new owners renovated the establishment to create the Harbor Point Restaurant for “casual fine dining.”

Presumably the cowboys long ago had ridden off with their horses into the sunset.

by Haynes Mahoney