CHAPTER TWELVE
One of the last articles to come from the pen of the beloved Joe Lincoln before death beckoned him from the Cape Cod he loved so deeply, appeared in the Boston Herald on April 2, 1944. In his article, which was written during war time, Lincoln paid glowing tribute to the Chatham “Victory Market,” one of the Cape town’s patriotic war efforts. The article by Lincoln was as follows:
“A Cape Cod Woman Had An Idea.
“There is nothing extraordinary in this statement as it stands. Most Cape Cod women have ideas and as any Cape Codder, male or female native or adopted, will take pride in telling you, the majority of these ideas are good ones. So the fact that Mrs. Francis G. Shaw of Chatham, the town at the elbow of the Cape, had an idea, and a good idea, is only what might have been expected.
“But this particular idea, and its development during the past two years, has tucked a new feather in Chatham’s hatband and Chatham residents are strutting a bit in consequence.
“The feather is the Chatham ‘Victory Market’. Mrs. Shaw, like every patriotic American, was eager to do whatever she could to aid her country in its struggle to preserve the American way of thinking and living. She wanted to do her part. She wanted to help.
“There were various ways in which that help might be given. Many ways and all good ones. The purchase of war bonds, of course, and contributions to the Red Cross and to the various organizations formed to make easier the lot of our sons and daughters serving in or with the armed forces at home or overseas. (Lincoln’s only son himself a major in the Army was at this time serving overseas). All these were worthy of help and each needed help. Mrs. Shaw wanted to do her part to aid these and intended to do it.
“It did, however, occur to her that, aside from these demands of wartime, there were other causes, equally deserving, which, she felt, were in danger of being more or less neglected because of the strain put upon the average pocket-book by louder calls. For example: each year, since its establishment, there has been a ‘drive’ for the Cape Cod Hospital at Hyannis. The Hospital drives have met with encouraging response from the people of the Cape, who fully realize the fine work done by the institution. There are, also, drives for the Boy Scouts, and other philanthropic and public-spirited agencies.
“These appeals would continue to be made, they must be; but every such drive, no matter how deserving its intent, would be just another ‘drive’, and with the pressure of taxes and bond purchases and calls for wartime aid, it was certain to be more difficult to keep up public interest in them. Mrs. Shaw wondered if there was any way in which she could coax even a little extra money from the purses of her fellow townspeople and their visitors without those coaxed being aware of the coaxing. She wondered if she could devise some plan which was not a drive, nor a request for a contribution, but where the individual parting with his or her money got a return for the outlay. If she could do that the sum resulting might be distributed among the various philanthropic organizations, those active in times of peace as well as during the war. It might--probably would--be a small sum, but it would be something--and every something helped.
“From Mrs. Shaw’s thinking and wondering was born the VICTORY MARKET, located on Main Street in Chatham. She calls it a ‘Glorified Rummage Sale.’ Not by any means a brand-new idea, she says, but just an elaboration of an old one.
“Every well-regulated and thrifty New England home has an attic and practically every attic is a storage receptacle for articles discarded by the family as of no present use, but too good to be thrown away. The fact that these articles were discarded by the family owning them did not, of course, necessarily imply that some of them might not be found desirable by other families, if they--the articles--could be displayed for sale at low prices in some sort of central shop or market.
“‘Well,’ thought Mrs. Shaw, ‘why not?’
“The use of a vacant building was obtained without cost. A call for ‘discards’ was issued and the response was prompt and gratifying. In they came: clothing, kitchen utensils, andirons, vases, pictures, ‘genuine antiques,’ Currier and Ives prints for the walls, shoes and galoshes for the feet, caps for the head, umbrellas, music-boxes, eel spears, fishing tackle, plaster statuettes, rat traps.
“An assortment as varied as the list of gifts which the ‘Pale Pilgrims from across the sea’ brought to Pasha Bailey Ben in Gilbert’s ‘Bab Ballad’:”
‘They brought him onions strung on ropes, And cold boiled beef and telescopes, And balls of string and shrimps and guns, And chops and tacks and hats and buns.’
“Mrs. Shaw was on hand when the Victory Market opened and she has been on hand, with very few exceptions, at least part of each day since. One of the town ladies takes her place to sell when she is absent. Some generous soul donated a second-hand stove and someone else agreed to keep it supplied with fuel. As the market is open in the winter, as well as in the summer, these donations are highly appreciated. A sample of almost everything comes to the Victory Market to be sold and, as a matter of fact is sold, for some price, sooner or later.
“The Victory Market opened in Chatham on March 2, 1942. During these two years it has taken, in cash, about $5,842.10.
“A pretty fair sum. And this, remember, without asking for a single cent. The articles sold were contributed, of course; but, as has been said, they were, almost without exception, of no value to the person or persons contributing. ‘Discards,’ that is all.
“There may be other victory markets. Certainly there are other rummage sales and gift shops operated for charitable purposes. The cities have theirs, of course. Chatham, however, is not a city, but a town of approximately 2000 permanent residents and an indefinite number of summer visitors. And the Chatham experiment has proved that Mrs. Shaw’s idea was a good one and that she and her backers and helpers are doing their part as Americans.
“The Chatham Victory Market, we think, deserves appreciation, encouragement and applause. Also--and why not?--imitation in other communities.”
According to a newspaper report in the Boston Herald on February, 15 1948, a drive was being conducted by the Chatham Historical Society to raise funds to build a Joseph C. Lincoln Memorial wing on the society’s present home, the Atwood cottage on Sage Harbor Road. At this writing this memorial is expected to be completed during the early summer of 1949.
Initial plans for the memorial to this author who immortalized Cape Cod and its people in his works were for a general meeting room at the rear of the society’s building, the oldest home built in Chatham. Plans were for a room of twenty-four by eighteen feet with a one-story attic. The room will accommodate about seventy-two persons.
The plans provided wall space for many fine old paintings and prints that were here-to-fore unable to be displayed and also a portrait of Lincoln that was contributed by the noted artist, Harold Brett.
Mrs. Lincoln and her son, Freeman Lincoln, have contributed a number of complete hand written manuscripts of Lincoln’s books, including “Shavings.” A collection of all the author’s first editions, a total of 52, including all the novels, poems and plays, have also been donated. When completed this memorial should be one of the major points of attraction for visitors to Lincoln’s home town--Chatham.