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From: Bobbie Hall <>
Subject: [MABARNST] Cape Cod Pilot, Ch. 9, part 4
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 08:15:22 -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 IX - WELLFLEET [part 4]

Meanwhile, if you turn east from the highway at an intersection near
the South Wellfleet depot, a dirt road will lead you through Goody
HALLETT's nocturnal stamping ground, to the sea. Here it was, on the
shoals a few hundred yards offshore, that BELLAMY went aground in the
"Whidah." When she capsized, broke up, and left the bodies of 101
buccaneers alongshore for Captain Cyprian SOUTHACK to bury, she
carried in her strong-chests such cash on hand as Sam had come by in a
short but lively career. Captain SOUTHACK duly found the dead, but not
the money, which is said to have been in gold coins, filling a great
iron pot. It may still be in the neighborhood; it may be scattered to
brighten the abode of the groundfish just beyond the low tidemark; it
may have been taken off by the mooncussers, or it may have been
recovered by those two red-coated strangers who came in the night to
Gull Pond with pick and chart, and who then were seen no more.

A few paces beyond the road's end, on this beach, you will find the
concrete foundations of a wireless station, the first in America to
transmit across the Atlantic. Four high steel towers were erected in
1902, under the supervision of Guglielrno Marconi, and early in 1903
President Theodore Roosevelt led off with greetings to King Edward
VII: "Taking advantage of the wonderful triumph of scientific research
and ingenuity," etc., etc. The message actually got there. The station
was dismasted in 1920, after others had taken over its work.

The fire tower further along the highway in South Wellfleet is open to
such visitors as are willing to go aloft under their own steam. There
is a pair of good binoculars up there, and perhaps you can get the
towerman to tell you about the time they saw smoke, smelled smoke, but
had trouble finding the fire - until they discovered it right under
the tower! And if the crow's nest is not too crowded, he may even spin
you the yarn about the government fellers who tracked down two public
enemies through the names that were written in his registry.

It seems that when these two strangers came aloft, they seemed
uncommonly anxious to get a glimpse at the Atlantic ship lanes to the
eastward, and they had brought their own high-powered binoculars. When
the fire lookout asked them to sign the register, they balked at
first, but decided they had better put down something. The aliases
helped later in their capture.

On the way into Wellfleet's trading center the highway treats you to a
Joseph's garden, set in a triangle to your left. I have heard them
called Joseph's gardens, these retired dories which are filled with
earth and made to serve as flowerboxes, but the particular Joseph who
was in command of this craft of many colors remained unknown until
Elizabeth REYNARD's book, "The Narrow Land," tracked him down in
Falmouth. You will find Joseph's gardens up and down the Cape, and
that hapless shepherd of souls, the Reverend Joseph METCALFE, was
their originator, according to Miss REYNARD's legend.

The parson, a gentle soul whose little salary had to be stretched in
support of ten daughters, had carried in the warmth of his heart two
secret, earthly wishes, which an all-knowing Providence had seen fit
to withhold from him for many years. The one was for a wig to replace
the mouldy adornment he had already worn long beyond its time, so that
it was "gnawed by silver-boterflies;" and the other, "a boat in which
to take mine ease on the deep." At last the poor parson came into an
inheritance. The first thing he did was to cancel a debt of £6o
salary arrears owed him by his church. And the next was to buy a wig
and a boat. About the latter, he was as eager as a child with a new
pet. But, alas, his boyish enthusiasm was not shared by his flock!
When they heard that he had bought a boat, head-shaking elders told
him if it was fish he needed, they would see that he was given fish;
but it was unseemly that the parson should buy himself a boat. And so,
when the boat was delivered, it lay unlaunched in the parsonage yard.

That night a tempest blew up, and Joseph went out in the morning to
care for his stricken brethren. The wind had uprooted the rose trees
in his garden, but some were lying in the boat when he returned from
his work.

Joseph METCALFE knew his flock. He straightened the rose trees in the
boat, and covered the roots with soil. And there, after his death, the
roses were left to bloom where the parson's dream of finding his ease
had died aorning.

A tale with which Wellfleeters are more familiar begins with a
strawberry festival some years ago, at which Captain Simeon ATTWOOD's
little girl, Martha, was expected to sing. Little Martha had sung at
many a church sociable. Everybody knew the child "had talent;" many
thought she "showed promise;" and some even went to Cap'n Simeon to
tell him that "something ought to be done" with her.

"No harm in singing," the Cap'n agreed, "but I can't see as there's
anything to do about it but sing. She can sing all she wants - so long
as she gets a decent schooling and learns to keep house shipshape."

But at this strawberry festival, Martha suddenly decided she didn't
want to sing. That had never happened before. Martha's mother waved a
finger and used an expression thousands of other mothers resorted to
in that day. "We'll have no prima donnas in this family, young lady!"
And when Martha held out stubbornly for the right of free silence,
Mrs. ATTWOOD took her across her knee and rendered a staccato number
that left part of Martha matching the ripest strawberries of the
festival. "Now, then, Martha, get up. there and sing!"

Martha rose, caught her breath, gave her dress a smoothing down and
between sobs managed to blurt out the gay verses beginning:

"Who will buy my strawberries?"
Probably you have guessed the rest, possibly you've heard of her. Her
debut was in Siena, as Mimi in "La Boheme," and when Tullio Serafin
heard her, he engaged her for the Metropolitan.

Martha ATTWOOD's first husband was Reuben BAKER, son of Captain
Lorenzo Dow BAKER, of Wellfleet. Captain BAKER, bringing back his
trading schooner from a voyage to Jamaica in 1870, carried on board a
couple of stalks of green bananas. When he dropped anchor in Boston
they were ripe. The demand for the bananas was so clamorous that a
year later, instead of bringing home another cargo of bamboo, he came
loaded with bananas. These, too, were snapped up, and so were all the
later banana cargoes he could fetch up from the tropics. He formed L.
D. Baker & Company, which later became the Boston Fruit Company, and
eventually the vast United Fruit Company.

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







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