Cape Cod History

1831: Construction begins on new courthouse

Building Barnstable's new Courthouse

On this day in 1831, construction begins on a new courthouse in Barnstable village to replace one destroyed by fire four years earlier. 

The structure, the columned facade of which can be seen in the photo, eventually becomes the county's superior court, situated close to the county jail and a district court built in the early 1970s.

The statue of Colonial Patriot Mercy Otis Warren was added a few yars ago as a counter balance to her brother's statue which the only one there for decades.

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1894: How the Kennedy dynasty began in Congress

1894: JFK's grand father "Honey Fitz" elected to Congress

John F. Kennedy with father Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and grandfather John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald

On this day in 1894, a colorful Irishman from Boston's North End, nicknamed "Honey Fitz" for his charming and loquacious ways, was elected to the U.S. Congress. Ten years later, John Francis Fitzgerald returned to Boston and ran for mayor. His victory rattled the Yankee establishment. He worked on behalf of the poor, immigrants, and workers, but his administration was rife with graft, cronyism, and corruption. After withdrawing from the 1914 mayoral campaign, Fitzgerald turned his attention to business and family. His daughter Rose had married Joseph Kennedy, and "Honey Fitz" devoted himself to grooming their sons for political careers. Three of them would serve in the U.S. Senate. His namesake, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, would be the35th President of the United States. Source.

"Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Irish immigrants, Thomas Fitzgerald of County Limerick and Rosanna Cox of County Cavan. He was the fourth of twelve children; of his siblings, both sisters died in infancy, as did his eldest brother. Joseph, the ninth brother, had severe brain damage from malaria and barely functioned. Only three survived in good health and after John's mother died when he was sixteen, his father wished for him to become a doctor to help prevent future tragedies of the sort that had marred the Fitzgerald family.

Accordingly, after being educated at Boston Latin School, he enrolled at Harvard Medical School for one year, but withdrew following the death of his father in 1885. Fitzgerald later became a clerk at the Customs House in Boston and was active in the local Democratic Party.

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1778: British man-of-war shipwrecked. 2006: Police failed to test all Worthington case DNA

2006: Police failed to test DNA of all evidence at Worthington murder scene

In the Worthington murder trial which was about to end on this day in 2006, the jury will not visit crime scene McCowen's girlfriend takes stand, but doesn't testify, and another witness testifies some DNA was not tested. cc2day. Read the trial reports here.

1778 B ritish warship runs aground. 1973: Somerset wreakage return

On this day in 1778, residents of Provincetown and Wellfleet awoke to learn that the Royal Navy man-of-war Somerset had run aground at Peaked Hill Bars in a fierce two-day gale. Twenty of her crew and two officers were killed while survivors were taken prisoner.

The frigate had played a notable role in the American Revolution. In April 1775, Paul Revere rowed past the Somerset at anchor in the Back Bay en route to his midnight ride to warn of a British attack. Longfellow later immortalized Revere's close brush with the warship in his poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."  

The Bunker Hill Monument you see as to drive north out of Boston on I-195 or 93 was built by mistake on nearby on Breed's Hill.

Two months later, the Somerset served as British flagship during the Battle of Bunker Hill, which the British won but at a fearful toll in lives.

The wreakage returns

At least twice in the centuries to follow, the wreckage of the Somerset near Dead Man's Hollow was uncovered by storms, in the late 19th century and again in 1973, as shown in the photo.

(photo credit, http://www.royal-nay.mod.uk/)

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1991; 2001: The Perfect Storm. 2001: The Way We Live Now. 2006: Kitten's death case prompts reaction

2006: Kitten's death case prompts reaction from PETA

Oon this day in 2006 the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demanded jail time and psychiatric evaluation if the West Yarmouth man recently accused of killing a kitten is convicted. Peter J. Hession, 47, of 18 Egg Harbor Road, West Yarmouth, allegedly stomped a kitten to death Oct. 19. He faces cruelty-to-animals charges as well as assault charges stemming from an alleged attack on his roommate that day.

1991: Harbors checked from Woods Hole to Cape Breton
The brunt of the storm was off Cape Cod

On this day in 1991 the Gloucester Times first reported the Andrea Gail, the ship featured in the book and movie "The Perfect Storm", was missing.  The article reported:  The Coast Guard continued searching today for a fishing boat due back in Gloucester last Friday from a trip to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, Canada.

The crew of the fishing vessel Andrea Gail was lost in the North Atlantic during one of the strongest storms in recorded history. Above is a scene from the movie showing the boat vertical as it  climbs a wave.The 70-foot Andrea Gail was supposed to have returned to port by Saturday with its crew of six fishermen, according to Chief Petty Officer Alan Burd.

Several Gloucester fishermen were said to be aboard the vessel, but Coast Guard officials were withholding crew members' names this morning pending notification of their families.

The vessel has not been heard from since Thursday when it was reported to be 180 miles east-northeast of Canada's Sable Island...

The missing vessel was reported to be encountering 30-foot seas and 50- to 80-knot winds kicked up by the northeaster that devastated coastal New England last week.

"The brunt of the storm was off Cape Cod," Brannan said. "But it did affect that area. Not as badly as it was here."

Robert Brown, owner of the Andrea Gail and a resident of Bray Street, said last night, "We have hope the boat is OK and that it's just lost its communication."

The Coast Guard has been searching for the Andrea Gail for three days. Today a Coast Guard cutter and long-range airplane were assisting four U.S. Coast Guard an one Navy aircraft.

Authorities were searching an approximately 18,000-square-mile area between Gloucester and the Grand Banks... (from the Gloucester Times, Nov. 4, 1991)

2001: The Way We Live Now: 11-4-01; United Nations

"What Orwell and Churchill foresaw, and the 1990's deepened, bin Laden catalyzed still further. And it's appropriate, perhaps, that this came about not because of some political effort from the top but simply because of an emotional groundswell from below." - Andrew S ullivan.

In crises, some things clarify. I grew up for 20 years in Britain, and I'm now closing in on 20 years of adulthood in the United States. It's funny how feelings of identity arc in such a life. I remember the first time I got a lump in my throat singing ''The Star-Spangled Banner,'' on July 4 about 10 years ago. It took me completely by surprise. My attachment to my new country had taken shape and form without my even knowing it, until I found myself tearing up in a routine ritual of patriotism. It wasn't that I had left my love of homeland behind. But it was now refracted through the prism of my new love -- a love that is foolish to inspect because it belongs somewhere in the heart where reason doesn't follow.

And then, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, another surprise... My own first moment of silence blurred nationalisms as well. It was at a memorial service for an acquaintance of mine from Provincetown, where I spend my summers. Graham Berkeley was a Brit, a violinist, a business professional, a big, tattooed bodybuilder, who'd been on the flight from Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center's south tower. Like me, he was a transplant for many years in America and loved the place with a passion. A bunch of us gathered around some candles and memorabilia on the farthest part of Herring Cove beach, the sun setting over Cape Cod Bay, told stories and wiped away tears. And by the side of us were two large flags impaled in the sand, Old Glory and the Union Jack. In the dusk, they intertwined until the reds, whites and blues seemed almost indistinguishable... NY Times.

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1929: Curley goes too far; 1979: Major reconstruction of Bourne Bridge begins; 1930: Blogfather hatched

1929: Irish pol finally goes too far
"My opponent is a known thesbian and practices nepotism with a maiden aunt."

     "Every time you do a favor for a constituent, you make nine enemies and one ingrate."
         - James Michael Curley

On this day in 1929 James Michael Curley, heavily favored to win his third term as mayor of Boston, used a radio appearance to defame a school committee member who had spoken out against him. The savage, and ungrounded, attack was unprecedented: his adversary was a woman, a wife, a mother, and popular civic volunteer. The remake was "My opponent is a known thesbian and practices nepotism with a maiden aunt. "Curley's tactic of "do unto others before they do you" backfired, and he barely squeaked out a victory in the election two days later. One local newspaper would call it "one of the most dramatic incidents in the whole history of Boston politics." Between 1914 and 1950, the charismatic and resilient Irishman served four terms as Boston's mayor, one term as Massachusetts governor, and two terms in jail.

1979: Rebuilding the Bourne Bridge

   The Bourne Bridge is in the foreground with the Railroad Bridge beneath and behind it in a setting sun. It's difficult to remember that the canal runs more north and south than east and west which allows for this photograph.

On this day in 1979 the first complete overhaul of the Bourne Bridge in its 45-year history ends its second week.  The $11 million, two-year project will include replacing the 2,384-foot long bridge's entire concrete span, shoring up of structural components, new paint and placement of suicide deterrent barriers.

1930: Blogfather born - the Republicans lose control for decades.

November 3, 1930 was the first national election after the start of the Great Depression which had begun a year before.

It was also the day our Blogfather was born. That's him on the right holding a photo of his wife Pat and sitting on his evil twin Vlad. Paul Rifkin recently shot a short film about all this which you can see here or by clicking on the video below.

Walter "Blogfather" Brooks' own father was the political columnist for the Waterbury, CT daily newspaper, The Republican-American. 

So on this day 78 years ago, Walter Sr.  received a telegram from the Democratic candidate for Governor that year, Wilbur Cross ( for whom the Wilbur Cross Parkway is named) saying,

"Congratulations on the birth of your son. This must bode well for the party in today's elections."  - Wilbur Cross.

It was. It would be four more elections for Governor before a Republican regained the State House.

When asked his reaction at attaining his 79th birthday, Brooks aped W.C. Fields and said, "If I'd known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself."

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1915: Bay State women lose the vote; 1962: JFK votes, watches the election on Cape Cod. 2006: Dennisport deaths were murder-suicide

2006: Deaths of mother and child in motel were murder-suicide

"It was a murder-suicide.
That's it.
We don't say anything more in these cases nor do we identify the people."
                                 - DA O'Keefe.

The investigation into the deaths of a Rhode Island mother and her 4-year-old daughter was closed today.  Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said Wednesday morning, "It was a murder-suicide. That's it. We don't say anything more in these cases nor do we identify the people."

The woman and her daughter checked into Glendon Beach Cottage 97 in Dennisport on Saturday. At 1:30 Monday afternoon, Dennis Police Officer Dave Tinelli responded to a call from the cottage's owner, Richard Cravenho, who requested a well-being check on the renter, who had not been seen, and whose car had not been moved, since check-in.

"The owner told Officer Tinelli he was concerned about the occupants of the cottage," Dennis Police Capt. Bill Monahan said Tuesday. "He led Officer Tinelli into the cottage, and they made the discovery [of two bodies]." Tinelli then called for assistance and checked the sign-in log to verify information about the dead woman and child."

1915: Female "Anti's" block a women's right to vote in Massachusetts

On this day in 1915, a referendum to give Massachusetts women the vote failed at the polls. In spite of its leading role in the nineteenth-century woman's rights movement, Massachusetts was the first state to organize an association of women opposed to suffrage.

Known as the "Anti's," these women believed that they could be better, more effective citizens without the ballot. Many of the "Anti's" were active in Progressive era causes; they feared that involvement in electoral politics would erode their influence. For over 30 years, they and their male allies succeeded in keeping Massachusetts women out of the voting booth. But ultimately they lost the fight. On this same day in 1920, Massachusetts women cast their votes in a federal election for the first time. Source.

1962:The last vote John F. Kennedy lived to cast

In the midterm election in November of 1962, President Kennedy was to cast his final vote because nine moths later he was dead from an assassin's bullets in Dallas.

As was the President's custom, he voted in Boston and then came to the Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport with his family to watch the results... for the last time. Read the newspaper reports of that day below.

Kennedy Casts Ballot in Boston
And Passes the Day on Cape Cod; President Gets Returns

President Kennedy followed today his own exhortation to the nation's voters. He voted in the midterm elections. Moreover, he accomplished it quickly.... read the rest below.
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1960: A look at Cape Cod history. 1991: Storm waves worse than a hurricane

If this were 1960

Nov. 1, 1960 the headlines in America's newspapers read:

Country to 'Start Moving Again' Kennedy Says, Defense Advances Supersonic Bomber, Nixon Optimism

The story began; "Senator John F. Kennedy called on Americans [yesterday] to tell the world in the election on Nov. 8 that 'this country is going to start moving again,'" The New York Times reported today.  (at right,  Jack, Bobby and Ted in Hyannisport.)

"'I do not downgrade America,' Senator Kennedy said, 'but I do downgrade the kind of leadership America's been getting. I run for the presidency,' he continued, 'not to downgrade America -- but to achieve the kind of America for which every American family fought and in which every American family believes.'"

"The Defense Department, in a reversal of administration policy, ordered today a major expansion in developmental work on the B-70 supersonic bomber," The Times reported.

1991: Storm's Huge Waves Make Hurricane Seem Tame on Massachusetts Coast

Waves breaking over the top of Minot's Light, a 100-foot-tall stone lighthouse off Scituate.

Peter Montgomery knew the storm was bad when he looked out his window Wednesday and saw waves breaking over the top of Minot's Light, a 100-foot-tall stone lighthouse that is a landmark of the Massachusetts coast.

The old gray shingled house where Mr. Montgomery lives, a mile from the lighthouse on a spit of land that juts out into Massachusetts Bay, was also being pounded by the raging northeaster. "Every time a wave hit the building, you could feel it -- va boom! -- the whole house shook," said Mr. Montgomery, a caretaker for a group of summer residents.

Mr. Montgomery and his wife wanted to evacuate, but when he stepped out the back door, a wave came crashing over the top of the three-story building, sending him scurrying back inside. By his calculation, the wave must have been at least 50 feet above the normalhigh-tide mark...

Cape among hardest hit

Parts of Cape Cod were among the hardest-hit areas, especially those facing east and north along the outer Cape from Chatham at the elbow to Provincetown at the tip. "There are some places on the outer Cape where the beach is completely gone," said Tony Bonanno, the chief ranger at the Cape Cod National Seashore. Surprise Lobster Dinner

On Nantucket Island, just south of the Cape, a number of residential areas remained under three to four feet of water today, and several stores were flattened by the pounding waves... NY Times.

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1938: Mary McCarthy and Edmund Wilson at Gull Pond. 1991: Stranded Whales Freed. 1997: Spec Houses Back in Season

1991: Stranded Whales Freed

Rescuers working to free 18 stranded pilot whales that ran aground yesterday on Fisher Beach in Truro. All 18 were successfully herded into deep water at high ide and all apparently survived.

1997: Spec Houses Back in Season

In 1989, Carol Konner was burned -- and burned badly. ''I lost $8 million and went broke,'' said Ms. Konner, a tough-talking 60-year-old developer who was a major player in the Hamptons building boom of the late 80's -- and who finally has started to build again.
   Last year at this time, Ms. Konner was either planning or building four houses. This year, she is actively working on 26...
   But with all kinds of residential construction booming in hot spots like Long Island's East End, speculative building of vacation homes has returned to the Hamptons and to a lesser extent in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod... NY Times.

1938: McCartthy & Wilson in Wellfleet

Two of America's most famous literary figures of the 20th century made Wellfleet and Gull Pond fairly famous. Here's an excerpt from the current edition of the New York Review of Books on the couple and their life at Gull Pond.

At Gull Pond

When Mary McCarthy and Edmund Wilson, who married in 1938, were getting on well, they found each other mutually stimulating and, in the company of friends, they excelled at repartee, not argument. Although McCarthy had little good to say, either in interviews or in her own memoirs, about Wilson as a husband, she clearly benefited as a writer of fiction from his sustained encouragement and support. It seems that the couple agreed for the most part on political and literary matters, but were often at odds over things mundane. Wilson, by his own admission, tended to misbehave at precisely those times when they were getting along well.

Considering their marital difficulties, it is not surprising that Wilson made fewer entries in his journal during the years the marriage lasted. The passages dealing with Cape Cod nature are, however, of great interest to us...

Gull Pond May 21, 1942- The ladyslippers were out, sprinkled so sparsely around the brink of their solitary flowers-deepening in a couple of days from flimsy stooping ghosts as pale as Indian-pipe to a fleshy veined purplish pink swollen between pigtails and curling top-knot that also suggested Indians; and along the white sand of one side, where the bowl of the pond shelved so gradually, the little white violets with their lower lips finely lined as if with beards in purplish indelible ink, their long slim rhubarb-purplish stalks and their faint slightly acrid pansy smell, grew with thready roots in the damp sand; they were yellowish like ivory here, but on the opposite more marshy bank (with its round stones, its patches of red irony water, its shooting-box with a flock of square black and white decoys, its steeper banks, its dead gulls and fishes) their effect was not quite so dry and they showed a vivid white like trillium where they bloomed against the deeper and the more luxuriant green.

As one walked in the water one encountered pines putting out their soft straw-colored bunches of cones and smelling with a special almost sweet-fern fragrance. The baby cones seemed almost embarrassingly soft, almost like a woman's nipples.-When we got to the shallow channel between Gull Pond and the next one, I found a mother herring trying to get through from the latter by gliding and flapping on her side. She was silvery with purple-silver along the upper part of her length. At the mouth of the channel there were several of them splashing and when I came close I saw that the water was all dark with a whole crowd of them-from above they are just roundish muddy streaks under water. The sand here, flat and more marshy and grown with gre en rushes, was all tracked with the trefoil (?) of gulls' feet, where they had come to get the fish... NY Review of Books.

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1961: New Breed Senior Citizens who stay year-round; 1985: Whydah wreck found off Wellfleet

1985: Wreak of Pirate Ship Whydah discovered

On this day in 1985, treasure hunter Barry Clifford finally had proof that the wreck he was salvaging off Cape Cod was indeed the pirate ship Whydah. Lost in a violent storm off Wellfleet in 1716, the Whydah had gone to the bottom within sight of shore. Tales of the treasure that sank with the ship filled Clifford's childhood. His dream of finding the wreck became an obsession. When divers began to bring up pieces of eight and gold from the right time period, he was convinced they came from the legendary ship. But only when the words "The Whydah Gally 1716" appeared beneath the encrusted surface of a bell did Barry Clifford know for sure that he had indeed found the Whydah.

1961: The new face of postwar Cape Cod emerges
Fifteen years after WW2, a new breed of settlers start arriving on these shores

It took the completion of major sections of the new interstate highway system built during the Eisenhower administration i n the 1950s to turn our peninsula into a modern resort area where summer vacationers became summer residents and as they retired, year-round citizens here. Cape Cod before these years really was "olde Cape Cod", a conservative, Republican bastion which was about to fall to the hordes of Boston area washashores who brought their liberal ways and Democrat politics with them. Read this article from today's date in 1961 below.

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1911: Hyannis folk hang accused murderer in effigy. 1997: Indian Advocate John Peters dies at 67

1997: John Peters, Indian Advocate In Massachusetts, Dies at 67
Cjegktoonuppa, or Slow Turtle was selectman and medicine man

John Peters, who gained an international reputation for spiritual leadership as the supreme medicine man of the Wampanoag nation while making secular waves across the nation as the executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs, died on Monday at a hospital near his home in Boston. He was 67 and known also as Cjegktoonuppa, or Slow Turtle.

A descendant of the Indians who greeted the Pilgrims upon their arrival in 1620, Mr. Peters was born in a hospital in Hyannis but grew up in the nearby Cape Cod town of Mashpee, where his branch of the Wampanoag Indians, now numbering about 1,200, have clung tenaciously to their native customs and religious practices.

His family had long been prominent in tribal affairs and until recently in Cape Cod politics. Mr. Peters's father, for example, served for 25 years as a selectman in Mashpee, a town dominated by the Wampanoags until about 25 years ago, when an influx of newcomers broke their power base.

As a child, Mr. Peters became an apprentice to Billy James, the Mashpee medicine man, succeeding him by the time he was 20 years old received the title of supreme medicine man of the half-dozen branches of the Wampanoag 10 years ago... NY Times.

1911: When Cape Codders where a rough and ready lot

On this day 97 years ago, the citizens of Hyannis acted more like a vigilante mob in the old west than church-goers on old Cape Cod.

Evan Albright writes in Cape Cod Confidential about the murder, "Richeson, a native Virginian, had come north to Massachusetts in 1906 to preach the gospel. While a student at the Newton Theological Seminary, he was called to minister the congregation at the Hyannis Baptist Church. There he met the Linnell family of Hyannisport, a mother, father and four beautiful daughters. The soon-to-be Reverend Richeson fell for one of the young girls, 17-year-old Avis, a student at the new state teachers college in Hyannis.

Richeson was soon preaching in both Hyannis and Yarmouth, duties he happily carried out for four years. He employed a Southern style of preaching, filled with energy and exuberance. It proved too much for his conservative Cape Cod congregation and in April 1910 he resigned.

By that time he had given Avis a ring and the two spoke of being wed in October. The Rev. Richeson had found new employment at Immanuel Baptist Church in Cambridge. He convinced Avis, who possessed an angelic soprano voice, to apply for admission at the New England Conservatory of Music. In the early fall of 1910, she moved into the Y.W.C.A. in Boston to continue her education and to be near her true love"...

The story below appeared on this day in 1911:

HANG RICHESON IN EFFIGY.;
Hyannis Townspeople Express Their Anger -- Richeson a Hypnotist?

HYANNIS, Mass., Oct. 29. -- Feeling in Hyannis, where lived nineteen-year-old Avis Linnell, who died of poison in the Boston Young Women's Christian Association rooms last Saturday night, runs high against the Rev. C.V.T. Richeson, who is in jail charged with having murdered her...  An effigy of Richardson hung today from the limb of a tall elm tree in the yard of the Baptist church of which the clergyman was formerly pastor... read the rest of this grizzly tale below, then read a complete account of this 100-year-old murder in Cape Cod Confidential here...
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