Part 4

During its commercial career, the South Wellfleet station had a range of about 1600 miles. At night, under favorable conditions, it transmitted messages to a distance of 3500 miles. The government closed this and other wireless stations for the duration of the last war. When peace came the Chatham station of the Radio Corporation of America, a few towns up the Cape, took over the Marconi commercial business.

ADMIRAL NIMITZ----

_Cape Cod’s Most Famous Summer Resident_

Cape Cod’s most distinguished summer visitor--Admiral Chester W. Nimitz--plans to resume his summer vacationing in Wellfleet, Cape Cod, after the war.

The great Naval leader who is directing the defeat of Japan manages to keep up correspondence with his sister-in-law, Miss Elizabeth E. Freeman of Wellfleet. Miss Freeman, who is Mrs. Nimitz’s sister, says he has written her how he misses the Cape and that he looks forward to his return.

For many years the Admiral and his family have vacationed in Wellfleet. Their haven is deeply secluded in the woods on Gull Pond Road. The inaccessibility of the place is the reason why, perhaps, so few people are aware of the Cape Cod ties of one of the illustrious figures of modern world history.

The Admiral’s efficient and courageous son, Lieut. Commander Chester W. Nimitz, Jr., who has been twice decorated for heroism, calls Wellfleet his home. He has done so in making out his personal Naval records ever since his graduation from Annapolis, Miss Freeman informed me. As late as last summer Commander Nimitz managed to get in a Wellfleet visit, and his wife and child spent all the summer there.

FISHING HIS RECREATION

The last time Admiral Nimitz and Mrs. Nimitz vacationed at Wellfleet was in April, 1941. Members of his family, however, continue to visit there at least once or twice every year. The two older Nimitz daughters, Catherine, who is head of the music division in the Washington, D. C. Library, and Nancy, who is in the Information Division of the library, were at Wellfleet for a week last spring--they brought with them some Navy friends and people of the musical world. Catherine and Nancy plan to return next September and spend a month.

A Cape Cod story on Admiral Nimitz reflects the same quiet dignity and staunchness of character that folks at home vision when they read of him in the great war dispatches out of the Pacific. Fundamentally, he is a man of simple tastes. He has done nothing on the Cape to cause a personal headline in the newspapers and, from summer to summer, has moved among his less gifted Wellfleet neighbors practically unnoticed. Which is the way he seems to like it.

“Most of his time in Wellfleet is spent walking in the woods and fishing. These are his chief pleasures. He reads of course, but he doesn’t spend as much time at it as he does roaming in the outdoors. He is a good fisherman,” relates Miss Freeman.

The Admiral and Mrs. Nimitz, nee Catherine Vance Freeman, daughter of the late Richard R. Freeman, a Boston ship broker, were married in 1913. She was born in Wollaston, Mass. Since birth she and others of her family have summered at Wellfleet. After her marriage, however, she travelled far to be with her husband, living on the West Coast and in China, Germany and other foreign places.

At first the Nimitzes spent their summer visits at the old Freeman family house, outside Wellfleet, on Route 6. During the last war the family summer home was re-established in the remote Gull Pond section, one of the most primitive and lovely spots on Cape Cod. Here Mrs. Nimitz’s sister makes her year-round residence. The former residence is now owned by Edmund Wilson, literary critic of _The New Yorker_ magazine.

ADMIRAL KING’S JOB HERE

Some time ago a large picture was on the front page of the _New York Times_, showing Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief of the United States fleet, presenting the second Distinguished Service medal to Admiral Nimitz. Forming an admiring audience were Admiral William F. Halsey, Mrs. Nimitz and 13-year-old Mary Nimitz. It is an interesting coincidence to set down in a Cape Cod story that Admiral King also is no stranger to Cape Cod. He used to take many a long walk to stretch his sea legs on Provincetown’s Commercial Street when he was a Captain in the Navy and in charge of salvaging the tragic submarine S-4, sunken outside Provincetown harbor with a loss of 40 lives.

TRURO----

_The “Blond Norseman”--Cape Cod’s Most Ancient Ghost Visitor_

Ten years ago, approximately, the Blond Norseman came out of his spirit world to re-visit Cape Cod. That is the latest report on this most ancient member of Cape Cod’s gallery of wraiths.

The setting is the wild, beach-grass country of Corn Hill, Truro. Here, close by the far-flung shore of Cape Cod Bay, where only the seagull’s lonely cry breaks the silence and sand peeps skitter to and fro on their ceaseless foraging, stands a weather-battered, sprawling frame structure known as “The Fish House.” For a long time the sea harvesters used it for a headquarters; later it became the loved dwelling of a large family who would remain there as long as the winds and the rains of late fall would permit.

On one of these late fall nights, the lady of the household was awakened abruptly from a sound sleep. Sitting up, her gaze was drawn to the door that faced the noisy surf of the bay shore. The door was flung wide. A “startling blue light” illumined the figure of a tall, distinctly blond man, so powerful of stature and awesomely erect, that he filled the door frame. The apparition did not move, its presence was only momentary, for, in the next instant, the lady was staring at the gaping door. She got up, closed the door and spent the rest of the night in wakeful wonderment. But, to this day, the vivid impression of the brief visit of the Blond Norseman remains with her.

The following day she mentioned it to a friend. He was not greatly surprised, for he recalled a nighttime stroll along the beach some weeks previous and related how he had discovered a bright light that loomed up not many yards ahead of him. Thinking it was a man with a lantern, the stroller called out. He got no answer, and the light disappeared instantly. He was sure, that night, he had witnessed something supernatural.

ANCIENT GRAVE MAY BE CLUE

Then the lady mentioned the incident to the owner of a large fish business, whose plant is two or three miles up the beach. He, too, was sympathetic. “Oh, yes,” he responded, “that’s the Blond Norseman. My men have talked about him often. It’s an old story to them.”

Commander Donald B. MacMillan, the Arctic explorer, of Provincetown, likewise gave a respectful ear and even suggested that the grave of the Norse warrior who had returned to this hurly-burly world might be located near the Fish House. Norsemen colonized along the North Atlantic coast. Historians say that Leif Ericson and his men were the earliest settlers on the Cape and that Thorwald died from an Indian’s arrow in Yarmouth on the Bay side. It is said that as he lay mortally wounded, Thorwald told his men, “Bury me here; place a cross at my head, another at my feet, call it ‘Crossness’ forever more.”

DIGGING PARTY UNCOVERS SKELETONS

The grave that might be that of the Blond Norseman was found by a Mayflower party of explorers, according to Mourt’s Relation. The discovery was made after the Pilgrims found the Indians’ cache of corn on the lofty eminence now called Corn Hill. Two skeletons were turned up by the second digging party, one a man’s and the other, possibly that of an Indian child. The man’s skull “had fine yellow hair still on it.” Norse scholars have shown much interest in this grave and there has been considerable conjecture concerning it. But, little of real factual value on the Blond Norseman has turned up thus far.

It might be assumed that this daddy of all Cape Cod ghosts merely returned to this earthly world to go over scenes dear to his heart. For it is generally established that spirits that have stalked the Cape are not the vengeful kind, but rather companionable and of a comradely mood for returning to places fragrant in their memories.

A FRONT-PAGE GHOST

This reporter once covered a dramatic spook-story in the early part of his Cape Cod newspaper career. The incident was unusual because it involved a trouble-brewing spook and made unhappiness all around.

A lady from New York had rented an old house facing the highway in North Truro and had paid $200 down, intending to operate a summer tea room. But her uneasiness grew following each night she spent alone in the old house. There would be the slamming of a door at an eerie hour after midnight, or the frequent tread of creaking footsteps up and down the narrow little front staircase. Finally there came the morning when a blanket-fog came down into the valley and enveloped the quaint old house.

The New York lady sat chatting in the kitchen with a Portuguese neighbor and as they talked the weird thing happened. A big, sturdy rocker that stood in a corner of the room began to rock. Back and forth, with an even motion, just as though someone was in the seat, the rocking continued.

Spellbound, the two women watched the strange business for at least two or three minutes. It was the last straw for the lady from New York. She made the door in two bounds and didn’t even bother to grasp up a handbag on the table that contained a sizeable sum. She forfeited the $200 rental payment and returned to Manhattan the next day after a more courageous neighbor had ventured into the haunted house to retrieve the abandoned handbag.

A CAPE CODDER----

_Pioneered Our Trans-Atlantic Steamship Service_

Truro, Cape Cod, looks out over the heaving Atlantic to the horizon, and beyond lies Spain. Great romance colors the adventures of Truro’s seafaring men of long, long ago. There is also, in consistent fashion, the darkest tragedy.

Truro is the birthplace of Edward K. Collins, who established the first trans-Atlantic steamship service from the American shore. His elegantly equipped paddle-wheel steamer, “Atlantic”, embarked on the first crossing on April 27, 1850 and completed the voyage within 11 days.

The story of Edward Collins’ career has all the elements to make an exciting novel or a Hollywood movie--for the lad of 15 who went to New York to become the nation’s mightiest ship operator--launching “the most ambitious and spectacular attempt of the American merchant marine to challenge British supremacy”--finally ended up as a hum-drum land-bound provision dealer, yet “rosy, hearty and not careworn as when he had those mighty American steamships resting on his shoulders.”

Seafaring was deep-rooted as the trade of the Collins family. Edward began with his father in the shipping and commission business; they operated a service to Vera Cruz and New Orleans. The father died, then the E. K. Collins & Co. firm was founded and its sign was prominent on the New York waterfront for almost a half century. Associated with Collins was a Count Foster of New Orleans.

CALLED “THEATRICAL LINE”

The spectacular Cape Codder and his partner established the Dramatic Line, to run packets between New York and England. Capt. Lorenzo D. Baker of Wellfleet, Cape Cod, was scoffed at when he announced he was going to popularize the banana in the United States and so was Collins when shipping men heard he was building ships of 1000 tons. His critics argued there would not be cargoes large enough to fill them, nor would merchants trust their goods in them. So, in their hoots, they coined a name for the Dramatic Line. They called it the “Theatrical Line” because Collins named his vessels for famous authors and actors: Shakespeare, Siddons, Garrick, Sheridan and Roscius, to mention a few.

Collins had become one of New York’s richest men when the curtain raised on the era of steam. He visioned the possibilities and watched closely after England gave Samuel Cunard a subsidy mail contract in 1838. The Cunard Line berthed its first ship at this shore on July 18, 1840. Collins, according to the record at this point, saw a challenge in the British enterprise. He barged into a financing spree, determined “to drive the Cunarders out of business.”

Collins went to the nation’s capital for the money he needed. There he began on a grandiose scale and gradually descended with a series of headaches to ultimate ruin. His first triumph was the granting of a government subsidy of $385,000 a year for a period of ten years. He and his associates were pledged to build five steamers in the Collins-style, which would make twenty round trips annually, carrying the mails. In 1852 fortnightly service was established and the subsidy was increased to $858,000 annually.

The Collins Line prospered for two years. Then the clouds began to gather.

THE TRAGIC DECLINE

On Sept. 27, 1854, off Cape Race, New York, a Collins steamer, the Artic, collided with a small French steamer, the Vesta. The Arctic went down with a loss of 233 passengers and 135 members of the crew. Among the victims was Edward Collins’ wife, the former Mary Ann Woodruff, and his son and his daughter. The master of the Arctic, Capt. James C. Luce, of Martha’s Vineyard ancestry, held his own child in his arms through the awful scenes of panic. As he was about to launch a raft, some debris from the paddlebox struck and killed the child.

Then came the second blow. The steamer Pacific of the Collins Line put out from Liverpool on January 25, 1856, with 45 passengers and a crew of 141. She was never heard from again. No clue to her fate was ever turned up.

Meanwhile Collins had been having his troubles in Washington, and now they were piling up. A public clamor was on; the general theme was that the Cunard Line competition was too keen. Congress withdrew the second subsidy. A contract was made with the rival line of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Gradually the Collins Line sank to failure and the panic of 1857 put a period to its glorious adventuring. Fortunes were lost by investors in the line.

PROVINCETOWN----

_Its Town Seal Reads, “Birthplace of American Liberty”_

Millions of Americans do not know the complete story of the founding of our nation. Many history books and most orators fail to begin at the beginning when the pioneering of the Pilgrim Fathers is related. Plymouth Rock is the accepted symbol and the starting point. The important, earlier events on Cape Cod are passed up, particularly the contribution the Pilgrim Fathers made to our form of free government during their Cape Cod stay, before sailing across the bay to establish their settlement at Plymouth.

If you began at the beginning of the Pilgrims’ story on this continent, you would find that the Mayflower did not sail direct to Plymouth, as is the common impression. She first put in at the outer end of Cape Cod on Nov. 11, 1620, (O. S.), after a violent, 63-day voyage from Holland, and it was on the sands of what is now Provincetown that her weary passengers first set foot on American soil. Here they found haven for a full month, here they signed the historic Mayflower Compact, establishing their system of self-government. They began their reconnoitering, found their first drinking water, their first corn and had their first encounter with the Indians on Cape Cod.

HOW OUR FREEDOM BEGAN

But, all this is not to deny Plymouth her fame, even though the town seal of Provincetown does bear the words, “Birthplace of American Liberty.” That claim has been a bone of contention for a long time. And, when a Massachusetts State official was asked some years ago why the Provincetown phase in the story of the founding of the nation had received so little attention, he could only suggest, “Perhaps it happened that way because Plymouth was 300 years ahead of Provincetown in her advertising.”

Actually, however, the signing of the Mayflower Compact was not the first step taken to establish free Government in the New World. Our democratic government was first introduced at Jamestown Colony the year previous to the Pilgrims’ arrival on Cape Cod. There, on June 30, 1619, America’s first legislative body convened.

John Quincy Adams said of the Mayflower Compact: “This is perhaps the only instance in human history, of that positive, original social concept, which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government.”

In Mourt’s Relation there is Governor Bradford’s simple, though picturesque description of Provincetown Harbor and ancient Cape Cod as the Pilgrims discovered the scene:

WHAT THE PILGRIMS FOUND

“It is a good harbor and pleasant bay, circled round, except in the entrance, which is about four miles from land to land, compassed to the very sea, with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood. It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ship may safely ride. There we relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people while our shallop was fitted to coast the bay, to search for an habitation; there was the greatest store of fowl that we ever saw. And every day we saw whales playing hard by us, of which, in that place, if we had instruments, and means to take them we might have made a very rich return, which to our great grief, we wanted. Our master and his mate, and others experienced in fishing, professed that we might have made three or four thousand pounds worth of oil; they preferred it before Greenland whale fishing and purposed the next Winter to fish for whale here.”

The first of the exploring Pilgrims “were forced to wade a bow-shoot or two in going aland, which caused many to get colds and coughs, for it was many times freezing cold weather.” Much sickness developed in the first harsh Winter and some deaths occurred later in Plymouth.

WILL ROGERS ON THE PILGRIMS

Some years ago Plymouth and Provincetown engaged in a harmless tiff over the rightful ownership of the title, “Birthplace of American Liberty.” The late Will Rogers, cowboy humorist, who was of Indian descent, was drawn into the controversy via the radio. Said Will:

“What makes my Cherokee blood boil is that the Pilgrims were allowed to land anywhere. As a race the Pilgrims could never be compared with the Indians. I’m sure that it was only through the extreme generosity of my ancestors that the Pilgrims were allowed to land at all.

“Anyhow, Provincetown says the Pilgrims found some corn buried there, and that this saved them from starving to death. Then they shot the Indians. That was because they had not stored any more corn.

“Next they prayed. You know one thing the Pilgrims always did was to pray, but you never saw a picture of a Pilgrim who didn’t have a gun beside him. That was to see that he got what he was praying for!”

CAPE COD FISHING----

_Excitement of Catching Tuna In The Traps_

A hefty axe is the main implement of a trap-fishing crew when the tuna run is on in Cape Cod waters. A tuna may weigh 50 to 1,000 pounds and often a net is crowded with them. A crew of five men, operating a 50-foot boat, have their hands full when they move into the confines of a big pole-net to take the clumsy and frantic fish. So, the stout-handled axe is brought into play before the tuna are brought aboard.

The killing technique is a thoroughly gory business. The axe-swinger, a seasoned hand, rarely misses when he aims a lusty blow at the lump that is atop the tuna’s head. One expert blow on this vital spot usually kills the fish instantly, but, the process of maneuvering the tuna for the kill is highly active, calling for a nimble foot and split-second judgment. Thereon the blood flies freely and profusely.

Sometimes, in these wild jousts, a man goes overboard. Occasionally an arm or a leg is broken during the topside excitement. But the tuna, for all its size, does not attack. The fisherman has only to keep a weather eye peeled to keep clear of its mighty tail.

A trapper relates an experience he had when he tried “a new way” of dispatching a tuna. “I shoved the gaff down his mouth with everything I had. A few minutes later I woke up in the bottom of the boat with a big goose-egg on my head.” Another trapper was dragged overboard, gaff and all, and the tuna towed him clear out of the trap. He let go as the tuna dived under and escaped, gaff and all.

FIND WHALES, TOO

Once in a while old leviathan himself stumbles into one of Cape Cod’s fish traps. He’s usually a finback whale, valueless to present-day fishermen, and just a nuisance. His great, threshing flukes threaten death. The trap has to be partially dismantled so that the crew, working at a safe distance, can shoo him out. Then follows a whole day’s work of repairing the damage.

In Cape Cod waters there are more pole-traps, or weirs, than in any other section of the Atlantic coast. Most of them are off Provincetown, and part of the large profits they yield help enrich the town government coffers. Long poles of tough hickory are shipped in from Connecticut. Seventy of these are needed to drape the nets of a single trap. First in the structure of a trap is the “leader”, a 900-foot subterranean fence. This fence begins in shoal water and extends offshore to the main body of the trap. When fish swim into it, they do not turn inshore. As a rule they follow along the fence and swim offshore.

Thus, the schools obligingly move into the mouth of the trap. From there they go into the trap “heart”, which is the first stage of their captivity, and thence into the “bowl”. Once inside the bowl the baffled finny tribes are completely hoodwinked and rarely escape into open water. Here they swim around and around until the trapping crew pays the morning visit and the net is hauled up and pursed for the bailers to go into action.

Commercial fishing in Cape Cod Bay provided the means for establishing Massachusetts’ public school system. The Pilgrims appropriated the profits to public uses. Portions of the fishery fund were allocated to various towns. Barnstable, Cape Cod, being one of the beneficiaries in 1683.

When the Pilgrims went to King James to get his consent for the Mayflower voyage to America, the King, according to Edward Winslow’s narrative, inquired, “What profit might arise?” A single word was the Pilgrims’ response: “Fishing.” James was satisfied: “So God have my soul, ’tis an honest trade, ’twas the Apostle’s own calling.”

ROMANTIC EARLY DAYS

Subsequently, Captain John Smith, after he had pocketed a profit of $7500 on a shipment of dried Cape Cod fish to Spain, is credited with the statement that the richest mine in Spain was not as valuable as the Cape Cod fisheries.

Whales first were caught in these waters. When they became scarce vessels were fitted to go out in search of them. On one voyage, Capt. Jesse Holbrook of Wellfleet, active in the Revolutionary War period, killed 52 sperm whales. His skill was so good a London company employed him for 12 years to give instruction to their employees.