Part 5

There is a long history of friendly rivalry between Cape fishermen and the Coast Guard. Capers, who are often as at home on the water as ashore are apt to be critical of the spit and polish and new-fangled methods of the government service. But there was no criticism on that February night. The hats of the fishermen were off, in tribute to the brave seamanship they had witnessed. In many a weather-beaten face of Chatham the eyes were moist when it was known at last that “the boys have made it in”.

There were medals later, presented at a Washington ceremony. But none would shine as brightly as the new place the Coast Guardsmen had found in the hearts of their Cape countrymen.

THE CAPTAINS

When the Cape Captains came home from the sea it was their realization of a dream of security and of normal family life for which they had fought the elements and endured countless hardships. Behind them stretched limitless miles of open ocean, the sea which had claimed so many friends and relatives. In the great days of the Clippers, between 1840 and 1870, the white stones in the cemeteries with the notation “Lost at Sea”, had multiplied so greatly that to a stranger today it would seem that Cape Codders hardly ever lived long enough to die of natural causes. In the year 1840 it was estimated that there were over one thousand “sea-widows” residing in the County. Those who had come home to stay ashore at last did so with humility and thanksgiving in their hearts.

It is sometimes difficult to remember that the life of a deep-water Captain was a business, and a grim and lonesome business at that, in which the Captains were engaged in order to make a living for their families. They chose such a way because the sea was at their doorstep, and in their blood, and in the direction in which their talents lay. Of course there was something in it of the strong call of adventure, and they were equal to it, for they were intelligent and brave, and true pioneers. No port in the world was beyond their reach and in the clipper ships with the wonderful names (Red Jacket, Flying Cloud, Wild Hunter and the rest) they reached them and returned, not once, but a score of times, girdling the globe and reducing its size to the glory of their country. But for most it was the vision of a final haven in some Cape village, with wife and family, and enough money for security, that kept the Captains going through all the lonely years at sea.

It is in the ship’s papers and correspondence of the Captains that the inherent homesickness shines through and in ways that, in their subtlety, make it all the more poignant. Thus a river across the world “looks a little like our own Bass River”, and a distant shoreline “makes me think of the highlands at home”. Perhaps the Captain practices penmanship on a spare page of his log. Then you will see that the names he has written over and over again are those of wife and children, or of his home village on the Cape. Many would use their spare time to dream of the home they would one day build ashore and in the notebooks are frequent drawings of dream mansions, many of which became reality in a Cape village.

Sometimes the controls are off and in some moment of nostalgia he writes from the heart, baldly. One Dennis Captain writes to his owners, “Please to send someone to take over the ship when we reach San Francisco as I have been over three years without seeing home or family and cannot be away from them longer.” Sometimes when things were going especially badly the Captain’s remarks even broke into the “Remarks” column of the ship’s Log as in this entry by a famous Cape Captain on his fortieth day at sea in the Pacific: “Oh, for a cot in some vast wilderness where I shall never see a ship again. If ever one poor fellow has tired of anything it is I that is sick and tired of going to sea.”

As you look over the yellowed pages that the Captains have left behind, you feel that they only were able to shake their haunting vision of home and family when they had the greatest reason to have overwhelming pride in their craft and the challenges they offered. Let them break a standing record for crossing a sea, or triumphantly outsail a superior vessel, or accurately guess a position in mid-ocean just “from the look of things”, or sail through tortuous straits where more timid men had said “can’t be done”, and the pride of honest achievement brought compensation for tiresome, lonesome hours away from home.

Many of the Captains never realized their dream of retirement ashore, but many did, and with the money from their voyages they built their lovely homes along Main Street. Into them went some of the most exotic woods of the tropics, molded into fine panelling by ship’s carpenters who loved the feel of fine wood, and played their own kind of music upon it. And into the panelled rooms went the relics of their hundreds of thousands of miles at sea--teakwood stands and rosewood chairs, tables inlaid with mosaic and ivory, the finest of china and crystal, wallpapers from France and carpets from Belgium, and all the countless odds and ends of curiosities that have appealed to souvenir collectors of all times and generations. Often there were so many things that they spilled out of the house and into the attic where they reposed in the Captain’s sea chests that were kept standing “at the ready” just in case. Every house had such a surfeit of Oriental silks and embroidery that many a young girl, who wanted something really different to wear to a dance, preferred to buy a bolt of calico from the village dry goods store. But when all the curios and souvenirs had been distributed about the Captain’s home, the place of honor would still be saved upon the parlor wall for the oil painting of the Captain’s vessel as it was depicted by some far away artist as it entered the Port of Naples, or Calcutta, or Singapore. For the Captains could never divorce themselves entirely from the beautiful winged ships that had brought them safely home.

From their homes the Captains took their thankfulness and humility to the white churches of the Cape, many of which they had helped to build, and to which they gave their active support. All of the Captains had held regular Sunday services aboard ship, fair weather or foul, and many had held daily readings from the Bible which they kept in their cabin and from which they found frequent solace. Hardly anyone has been so thoroughly committed to the care of the Almighty as the Cape Captain putting out to sea. Church-going brought the same kind of inspirational orderliness to their life ashore as they had taken to the helm of their winged vessels. At every Cape Meeting House one would see faces that had been long gone, but dearly remembered, as the Captains came home. These marine aristocrats were a subject of awe to the young, and their return was an occasion for joy to the adults, for there was hardly a family which did not have some connection of its own with the blue waters that stretched away from the Cape. So to the churches they came, imposing figures in Sunday black, often with magnificent beards and mustaches, always with a kind of slightly rolling gait that set them aside from their land-bound neighbors.

The Captains took their pleasure too. Fraternal orders were established in every village and they took an active part in them. There were trotting races over established courses such as the track which once ran around Wychmere Harbor, or the Trotting Park at West Dennis. And there were wild races over the snow with sleighs, such as took place over South Main Street in South Yarmouth down to the river, with horse manes flying and the beards of distinguished gentlemen thrust into the wind, while sleigh bells tinkled and the unblemished snows of yesteryear crunched beneath the racing hooves of the Captains best horse flesh. Having a fast horse was almost as important to them as a fast ship. And in every village there was a favorite gathering place where, in winter, they would sit about a sizzling stove and have a pipe, and rattle off tales of faraway places which were then so familiar that no Cape boy could have been troubled with geography. In summer there were other things to do for recreation. Then it was time to paint up, caulk, and launch the small boats that they always kept handy. From them they could fish in the bounteous home waters, and feel the old, familiar swells of the sea, and dream a little.

But the Captains had not come ashore to live in idleness. Almost at once they threw themselves into hard work ashore, putting the hard-earned money from the sea to good use. The biographies of the Cape Captains show them to have been as much masters of trade as they had been of their vessels. The list is imposing--bank presidents, and founders of banks, railroad presidents (for they sensed the wisdom of joining forces with the puny ribbons of steel that were already luring freight away from the sea), founders of manufacturies such as the mammoth salt works of the Cape and the 100 worker shoe factory at West Dennis, cranberry-growers and exporters, shipbuilders and ship owners--they were active in everything, and often they were as successful ashore as they had been at sea.

When the Captains came home from the sea they had a busy life and a good life, and it was good to be at home. And for the communities whose life they had so greatly enriched it was good that the Captains had come.

_There was the narrow land and there was the sea that washed against it and there were people that developed many of the characteristics of the homeland. They turned to building with ingenuity and with loving care, and in the clean lines of their fences, their houses, and their places of worship there was something of the land and the sea, and of the kind of people they were._

THE CAPTAINS’ HOUSES

There is often more to a Cape Cod house than meets the eye. First, there is an atmosphere, which even the most insensitive person can notice if he is left alone with the house. Once I found myself in the hands of a most unusual real estate broker who volunteered to show me a house which she insisted she would not, under any circumstances, sell to me. It was technically “For Sale”, but it was, she said, “not a happy house”, and she did not want me to have it. She could not really tell why she felt as she did, but, standing in its front parlor, in the midst of parlor organ, wax flowers, and Victorian confusion, I suddenly sensed what she had felt. It had nothing to do with a creaking door to the upstairs, which alternately opened and closed, although there seemed to be no wind outside the house. No, it was just that all the bright sunlight streaming in from the windows could simply not dispel the sensation of trouble and sadness in the poor, little house. Each heavy drapery seemed to retain the sighs and each distorted mirror to reflect the tears of an unhappy time. It had been a Captain’s house because the familiar symbol of symmetrical spruce stood in the dooryard, but something was wrong about that house and even now it seems destined never to have a permanent tenant. Fortunately, I soon found my own piece of Cape Cod with an old Half House upon it in which at least two fine Dennis Captains had found comfort with their families. I knew at once that it had been a happy house where the sun shone in through crude, old glass as if it meant it, and where there had been laughter of the young, and enough love and affection to go around and fill its little rooms. Call it atmosphere, or spirits, or what you will, there is something about the feeling of an old house.

And structurally any old house can yield a story of its past. On the Cape this especially means when additions were made to accommodate an expanding family, or when a move or two was made across a field, or across a whole town, in order to enjoy the house in a better location. For the Cape Codder regarded his home as moveable as his vessel and they were built from the beginning so that you could up anchor and move her off with the greatest of ease. Even to this day the Town Report of Dennis lists among its Police Duties from 15 to 20 buildings “escorted through town” each year. My own house was no exception. Three ells have been appended through its long years of service and it has been moved to a new location at least once. Now it defies Cape tradition by facing north instead of south, but as the family room is now exposed to the sun, and the refreshing southwest breezes of summer, the break with tradition seems practical. It is easy to trace the structural changes that have taken place within the house to satisfy the taste of succeeding generations. There is the elimination of the partition of the “borning room” to make a larger living room, the installation of larger windows by a generation that couldn’t be bothered washing the old, small panes, the relocation of the stairs for convenience and safety, and many other changes that a little house-detective work reveals. Recently, in the course of some reconstruction, I revealed some timbers, in one of the newer walls, that were heavily encrusted with salt. Clearly they had come from the old salt works on the River. When the salt works were abandoned Cape thrift put their timber to work in many a home, sometimes to the despair of carpenters who find that a nail soon rusts out of such wood. But the wood places definitely the period of the reconstruction of the wall.

Wood with a more interesting story was found not long ago in a Captain’s house on Bass River, the large “Red House”. Mr. John Sears had been doing some carpentry work on an ell of the “Red House” when he was puzzled to come across some charred beams in the attic. He at first tried to think of some ancient fire at “Red House”, until he remembered a story he had heard when a boy. It seems that a Cape schooner, laden with southern lumber, was beating its way up the coast in 1812 when it was suddenly attacked by a British vessel. Being near the land, the unarmed Yankee crew beached the vessel and took to the woods. The British sent a party ashore to set fire to the stranded vessel and then sailed away. The American crew watched them go, and then ran from the woods to extinguish the fire. They floated the vessel on the high tide and proceeded up the coast to Bass River. Part of the cargo had been scorched and charred, but it was strong and sturdy timber, not to be wasted on Cape Cod, and plenty good enough for an attic beam where it would never be seen. So here in the “Red House” on Bass River a carpenter found sturdy beams that had been through an action in the War of 1812, and another old house had revealed some of the secrets of its romantic past.

_Two Captains, Two Sisters_

Just beyond Cove Road in South Dennis, where Nickerson’s Cove thrusts out from the River toward the white church on the hill, stand two large, white houses. They face different directions but their back doors are convenient to one another and these are connected by a footpath through a field. Both houses were built in the year 1849, the one to the north for Captain Obed Baxter Whelden, the one to the south for Captain Ellis Norris. The Captains had married sisters and it was they who had first worn the neighborly path between the two houses, a tradition that has never changed. The Captain Whelden house is now owned by his granddaughter, Miss Anna Nickerson, while Captain Norris’ house is owned by Mrs. E. S. LaRiviere who has named her home “The Skipper’s Stairway”.

Captain Norris’ stairway is unusual not alone for its beauty and craftsmanship, but because it may be the only stairway on the Cape that was entirely built at sea. Captain Norris was skipper of the “Maggie Belle”, and soon after his home was built he began planning his unusual staircase which was actually built at sea aboard his vessel. It was an almost incredible feat to accomplish away from home. Measurements must be precise so that the staircase would fit against the wall of the front hall of his South Dennis home. The unprotected side of the staircase (it was built in a graceful spiralling curve) was finished off with a single board which was subjected to steam for long hours and then, with infinite patience and care, molded into the intricate, twisting design of the stair. At last the staircase was finished and the ship was able to conveniently unload it at the foot of Cove Road where a wagon conveyed it in style to the house. There it was promptly installed, and there it remains today for all to see, a perfect fit, a thing of perfect beauty, a stairway to elicit admiration, indeed.

There are many beautiful staircases on the Cape and they somehow became synonymous with the prosperity of the owner of the house. None have the same appeal for me, though, as the simple beauty of the Skipper’s staircase. Aside from the stairs, themselves, it may have something to do with that little footpath which, despite changing occupants, has wound its way through the century from house to house and never once has been allowed to grow over. That is the way of it with neighbors on the Cape.

The little footpath ends at the homestead of Captain Whelden. This fine old house is picturesquely set on a knoll with a view of the winding Main Street of the village, of the Cove of Bass River, and the Captain’s Church on the hill. It is perfect example of the influence of classical Greek architecture on Cape construction of the last century, and so artfully is it placed among its plantings that it appears as if it must always have been there. If you should pass through the swinging front gate you would walk past beautiful English box trees that are over a century old and among the largest on the Cape. These and other beautiful trees, the handsome panelling within the house, and the original gold-leaf wallpaper that came by clipper from France to South Dennis, are only a few of the attractions of this lovely, white house. And--as with all Cape houses--it has a story of its own.

Captain Whelden was master of the coastwise schooner “Robert Graham Dunn”. He was another of the gallant men of South Dennis who chose a career at sea that gained success for himself and glory for his village. Unfortunately that career was cut off when, at the age of sixty-four, he contracted yellow fever in Florida and died aboard his vessel at Pensacola. With the same longing all Cape Cod men felt abroad, the Captain died with the single word, “home”, on his lips--and the First Mate of the “Dunn” was determined that the good Captain’s body should be taken to his beloved village for burial. But this was the eighteen eighties and the same superstitions that led Cape Codders to bury smallpox victims in an isolated spot (in the belief that this would stop the spread of the disease) held the crew in awesome fear of contracting the dreaded fever. They mutinied at the prospect of carrying the Captain’s body home.

The First Mate of the “Dunn” must have been a courageous, loyal, and determined man, for, at length, the ship’s mutiny was put down, and, in a metallic casket weighing well over a ton, the Captain’s remains began the sad journey back to the Cape. Captain Whelden succumbed to the fever on Memorial Day, 1888, and on July 4 he was laid to rest at South Dennis, just down the road from the home he loved so well. Twelve Captains carried the heavy casket. It was a fine tribute to the memory of the man whose big white house by the side of the road still graces the little village at the heart of the Cape.

_East Is West_

Not far from the houses of the two sisters the charming old Cape Cod homestead of Captain Alpheus Baker, Jr., sits beside the Upper County Road. It is a white Cape Codder, trim and snug and gracious, and it must look very much the same now as it did a century ago. Old trees throw a graceful pattern of shadows against it in the summer sunlight and there is a perpetual air of friendliness and serenity about it. The house would hardly be noticed by the stream of traffic that rushes by its dooryard in the summer months, but the house is complacent too, and wears the air of there being “nothing new under the sun”. One would not have to see the treasures within it to realize that it is a cosmopolitan house, content now to dream its dreams of a colorful past.

A “Short Trip Guide to America”, published as late as 1875, dismisses the Cape as a “wild and desolate”, but interesting, section of the Atlantic Coast,--this while devoting considerable pages to the description of the “wonders” of Lawrence and Lowell. It is curious that when a guide book was describing the peninsula as “wild and desolate”, perhaps because it did, indeed, lead a life quite apart from the Mainland, Cape Codders, themselves, were among the most cosmopolitan people on earth. For them, distances were measured in terms of days at sea, and days meant nothing while in pursuit of their fortunes. Through the medium of the wonderful clipper ship, and the blue seas that were always near enough to be seen from the rooftop of any house, the world was at their doorstep. The best illustration of this, which also throws light on Cape character, is the well-worn anecdote of the central Cape Captain who had travelled many times around the world but had never negotiated the twelve mile buggy ride to Chatham. When asked, “How come?”, by someone who must have been a Mainlander, he would reply, “I just never had any business there”. But the Captains _did_ have business in Singapore and Hong Kong, in Java and the Indies, and in every important port throughout the world, and there they sailed often. At the time the “Short Trip Guide” was being written Captain Baker of South Dennis, still in his thirties, had already made several voyages to the Orient.