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From: Bobbie Hall <>
Subject: [MABARNST] Cape Cod Pilot, Ch. 8, part 2
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 12:23:07 -0600
References: <200112191104.fBJB48Q10270@lists2.rootsweb.com>


======================================================================
Cape Cod Pilot, by Jeremiah Diggs, American Guide Series, published by
Modern Pilgrim Press, Provincetown, MA, 1937. This was a work
underwritten by the Federal Writers Project, Works Project
Administration (WPA) for the State of Massachusetts.
======================================================================

Chapter VIII - EASTHAM [part 2]

On the hill hard by the site of the Governor's house once lived the
Reverend Samuel TREAT - he of the frightening religious doctrines and
the still more frightening vocal chords. When, upon a calm summer day,
the ridgepole of the PRENCE home began to creak and quake in sudden
strain of a thousand vibrations through the rafters, as if struck by a
"hauricane" sweeping over the hill, little PRENCEs would stare in awe
and gravely tell each other, "Mister TREAT is laughing again!"

In the pulpit Sam TREAT was as completely devastating as he was at
home, though the nervous systems of the "praying Indians" were less
subject to breakdown than those of the white neighbors. His voice,
which "could be heard at a great distance from the meeting house, even
amidst the shrieks of hysterical women and the winds that howled over
the plains of Nauset" pleased his dark-skinned congregation, and they
seemed to take philosophically the dread world which he said awaited
most of them.

"Impenitent sinners will writhe in hell," he boomed in brave
crescendo, "with a thousand devils rending and tearing and mascerating
them throughout all Eternity!" Then, sliding into diminuendo, "Some
think that sinning ends with this life; but it is a mistake. The
creature is held under an everlasting law; the damned increase in sin
in hell. Possibly," -to the Indians- "the mention of this may please
thee. But remember, there shall be no pleasant sins there; no eating,
drinking, singing, dancing, wanton dalliance, and drinking stolen
waters;" and crescendo again, "but damned sins, bitter, hellish sins;
sins exasperated by torments, cursing God, spite, rage and blasphemy!"

Yes, the Indians liked the "little father," and shrewdly they divined
a warm heart under the breast that heaved with warnings of hills of
brimstone and the clouds of sulphur. And when Sam TREAT died in 1717,
a thousand red men gathered around the little house on the hill. It
was the winter of the "Great Snow," which heaped the drifts to
impassable heights about the knoll - until the praying braves had
tunneled through so that Sam TREAT might be borne to the burying acre.

So says the historian. If you come to Cape Cod in the winter and stand
on this spot after a February northeaster has left all Nauset Sea a
vast "kittle-boil;" if you hear the booming of the breakers as they
carry over the Nauset Plain and echo with a terrifying nearness from
every sandpocket; or if you are walking through the winter-quiet
streets of Provincetown and hear the roaring surf two miles across the
dunes, and if you mistake the sound for the down-Cape train pulling up
to Bradford Street - then you will have some appreciation of the
sermons that could make an undertone of the Atlantic; and you will not
dismiss lightly the words on a headstone that stands in the country of
the Nausets:

"Here lies the Body of the Late Learned and Reverend Samuel TREAT, the
Pious and Faithful Minister of this Church, who, after a very Zealous
Discharge of his Ministry for a Space of 45 Years and Laborious
Travail for the Soules of the Indians, fell Asleep in Christ, March
1717, in the 69th yr. of his Age."

The red-skinned Americans were not long in vanishing, after their
champion's death, and the church also began to lose its white
following. One of his successors, the Reverend Mr. SHAW, found it hard
sailing indeed, and Peter WALKER, the "rhyming blacksmith of Eastham,"
sang his own version over the anvil:

A learned Treat, a pious Webb,
And Cheever - all no more,
Mister Shaw then took the helm,
And run the ship ashore.

A quarter-mile from the highway, on a hill near the Prence homestead,
a tall square mansard-roofed house looks across the slope and
jealously guards its store of treasures - relics of the sort usually
described as "priceless." These particular treasures are priceless
principally because there is no active market; but they are treasures
nevertheless. For the house is that of the PENNIMANs, and the strange
collection that crowds its gloomy wallspace goes back to whaling days.

Seafaring Cape Codders were one and all afflicted with a mighty itch
for souvenirs. In voyages to strange parts of the world, it was
natural that they should come down with this infirmity, and the
symptoms remain scattered throughout the Cape to this day. They
brought home little souvenirs and big ones, huge ones, impossible
ones. They brought some that would keep and they tried to bring some
that wouldn't. And the oddities that the Cap'n fetched home to Marthy
were stood along the mantel, hidden in the corners, stowed in trunks
in the attic, and in the sheds out back. But they were saved somehow,
no matter how many. They were "kept in the family," and
keeping-in-the-family was an inescapable duty on the Cape.

"These are the very try-pots your grandfather ATKINS had on the 'Tilly
H'," was the explanation many a Cape Cod child heard as he gazed at
huge iron vessels that took up nearly all the play-space in the front
yard. The most remarkable such keepsake I have run across was the
collection of "blowed eggs and things" a Harwich woman showed me,
which filled two rooms of her home. Her brother was a naturalist, and
the "blowed eggs and things" consisted of more than a thousand stuffed
birds, all the way from hummingbirds to condors; several alligator and
snake skins; and an enormous assortment of blown birds' eggs,
catalogued and kept in great chests. The whole was encased in glass,
and I believe it deserved to be in some museum, but the lady on Gorham
Road was "keeping it in the family," and probably her children will do
the same.

In the PENNIMAN collection are huge whale's teeth, the "baleen" of the
right whale, ten feet long, and brought home somehow by Captain Edward
PENNIMAN from his voyages in the "Europa" and other barks. They are in
the parlor. There, too, are scrimshawed whalebone and carved ivory,
scores of little knicknacks that were laboriously cut and polished
while the lookout searched in vain for spouts.

Pie was a great breakfast item in those days, and the "pie-rimer" with
a little jag-wheel to make the 'marks was a favorite manufacture of
the "scrimshanderer," though I don't see how the poor ladies could
have made enough pies to wear out the rimers that were provided them.
There are pie-rimers in the Penniman collection that only a fierce
love for the pastry could have inspired.

On one of Captain Penniman's voyages his first mate was drowned, and
at the next call of "Blo-o-ow!" he went in one of the boats himself.
He had his wife and small son with him on that voyage, and they were
left alone to keep ship. Watching the skipper make away on a doubtful
chase, Mrs. Penniman suddenly saw a huge whale pop up in the lee of
the vessel. She rushed to hoist the flag as a signal to the captain,
and in her haste, hoisted it Union down. The skipper, seeing it,
cried, "My God, the boy is dead!" and raced back. The whale waited to
see the fun, was killed, and made $10,000 for the ship. Mrs. Penniman
was forgiven.


[more to come]
transcribed by and all errors attributed to
Bobbie Hall








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