Cape Cod History

1820: Moby Dick REALLY happened. 1994: 2 Planes Crash On Cape Cod, Killing Pilots

1820: Moby Dick and the White Whale REALLY happened
And it happened to a Nantucket ship

On this day in 1820, the whaling ship Essex on a two-and-a-half year voyage out of Nantucket was repeatedly rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the South Pacific.

Twenty crew members took to three small whaling boats and, after a brief stint on an island without enough food to sustain them,  spent more than three months adrift on the open ocean.  Hunger,  disease and the weather took a fearsome toll and only eight of the crew survived.

The grim episode seized the imagination of novelist Herman Melville, whose epic "Moby-Dick"  published three decades later recounted a similar fate for the fictional whaleship Pequot.

In 2000, Nantucket resident Nathaniel Philbrick's compelling best-seller, "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" was published, making the saga known to a much wider audience. 

The Ship and its Crew
Both the Captain and the First Mate of the Essex, George Pollard and Owen Chase, had served on the ship's previous voyage. Due to the success of that voyage, both had been promoted. Pollard was, at only 29, one of the youngest men ever to command a whaling ship. Owen Chase was a mere 23. The youngest member of the crew was the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, who was only 15.

The Essex itself was an elderly ship, but had recently been totally refitted. At 87 feet long and weighing 238 tons, unladen, the ship was small for a whaler. The Essex was fitted with four separate whaleboats, of around 20 to 30 feet in length, which were launched from the main ship. These boats were built for speed rather than durability, being 'Clinker built', with planks that overlap rather than lying flush with each other.

Ironically, the success of previous voyages had also left the Essex with a reputation as a 'lucky' ship... BBC.  Read Moby Dick here.

1994: Two planes crash on Cape Cod killing both pilots

On this day in 1994 an Island Air plane coming from Nantucket crashed about a mile from Barnstable Municipal Airport Friday night, killing the pilot and causing a blackout across Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, the authorities said.

The police also said a second, private plane crashed on Friday in Brewster, also killing the pilot. That plane, traveling from Morristown, N.J., disappeared from the radar screen as it approached the Chatham airport.

Officials said only the pilot was aboard the plane from Nantucket, a twin-engine Cessna in service as an air taxi.

The air taxi, which left Nantucket at 9 P.M., disappeared from radar screens about 10 minutes away from the airport in Hyannis, said Mary Culver, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane apparently struck power lines at 9:57 P.M., knocking out power to 160,000 customers, said Peter Diamond, a spokesman for the Commonwealth Electric Company. Power was restored to all customers by 2:45 this morning.

The second missing plane, a twin-engine Mooney, with three people, aborted its approach to the airport because of bad weather. The tower lost contact at 8:15 P.M., Ms. Culver said.

Earlier Friday, a small plane from Skaneateles, N.Y., crashed in Stow, about 25 miles northwest of Boston. One man climbed from the wreckage and found help at a nearby house. The other was freed by a rescue crew. Both were in stable condition today.

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2006: Martha's Vineyard tops Nantucket for Island Cup fourth year straight

2006: Martha's Vineyard tops Nantucket for Island Cup
2009 the game canceled for lack of funds

The Vineyard team returning with the "Super Bowl" trophy in 2003 at the start of the winning streak.

For the third year in a row, the Martha's Vineyard varsity high school football team beat their counterparts from Nantucket in the annual Thanksgiving week match-up, 27-12, on a chilly afternoon in Oak Bluffs.

In his last game as the team's defensive coordinator, Bill Belcher saw his players intercept two passes and recover three fumbles while whittling Nantucket's longtime advantage over Martha's Vineyard in the island's pigskin rivalry to 35-21-1.

The two Massachusetts islands have played each other in football at least once a season since 1960. Opposing fans traveled to the host island on a chartered ferry, disgorging passengers at the terminal like spirited invaders. Cheerleaders decorated the route from the ferry dock to the gridiron in either Vineyard purple or Nantucket Whalers navy and white. When the Vineyard won, firetrucks would loudly greet the ferry on its return, their lights swirling and horns blazing. The contest has been chronicled in the pages of the New Yorker and Sports Illustrated.

Series ends due to flu and finances

Earlier in 2009 the game between the two islands was cancelled due ti the number of Vineyard players who were out with the flu.

Then in November the games had to be cancelled due to a lack of finances, see USA Today here.

And

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2003: Favorable SJC ruling on gay marriage for Orleans couple. 1905: First Lepers arrive on Penikese Island. 1851: "Moby-Dick" published

1905: First Lepers arrive on Elizabeth Island

On this day in 1905, five lepers arrived on Penikese Island in Buzzard's Bay, the site of the first and only leprosarium in Massachusetts. Over the next 16 years, 36 victims of leprosy, or Hansen's disease, lived on the isolated island, along with a handful of caregivers.

Dr. Frank Parker and his wife, Marion, went to great lengths to make the patients comfortable, providing good food, fresh air, exercise, entertainment, and nursing, but it was nearly impossible to overcome the stigma and social ostracism associated with leprosy. Still, the island produced stories of great courage, kindess, and fortitude.

The colony closed when the federal government opened a leprosy hospital in Louisiana. Today, the island is home to a private school for troubled youth.

2003: Gloria Bailey and Linda Davies get married

On this day in 2003, in a landmark legal decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled by a 4-3 vote that same-sex couples had the right to marry under the state constitution. The ruling was initiated by a lawsuit filed in April 2001 by Gloria Bailey and Linda Davies of Orleans (shown in photo at right), one of seven gay couples who sued the state after legislative inaction on the matter.

The SJC decision took effect 180 days later, on May 17, 2004, after efforts in the Legislature to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage fell short.

In the United States, although same-sex marriages are not recognized federally, same-sex couples can currently marry in five states, and receive state level benefits. (photo credit, washingtonpost.com)

1851: Moby Dick, the White Whale, published
Novel was based on a true Nantucket whaleing ship rammed by a whale

Illustration credit, Rockwell Kent from the 1930 edition of "Moby-Dick"; Kent's artwork also graces the ceiling of the Cape Cinema in Dennis; hat tip to Monponsett for the suggestion.

On this day in 1851, the Great American Novel "Moby-Dick" is published. Herman Melville's classic tale of Ahab's obsession with the white whale of the novel's title is based on the sinking of the Essex, a Nantucket whaling ship rammed and sunk by a whale in the Pacific in 1820, and Melville's own experiences on the whaling vessel Acushnet out of New Bedford in 1841.

Much like his protagonist Ishmael, Melville arrived in New Bedford on a December evening, signed his seaman's papers the next day and attended a church service at the Seaman's Bethel given by the Rev. Enoch Mudge, the model for Father Mapple in "Moby-Dick."

Unlike Melville, Ishmael travels first to Nantucket before departing on his whaling journey aboard the  doomed whaling ship Pequod.

"Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it," Melville wrote. "See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it  - a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background."

The Great city of New Bedford

Unlike the tattered town of today, New Bedford was one of the richest cities in America in the mid 19th century:

"Still New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador... The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England... nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?"

The beginning: Call me Ismael

I have failed in my attempts to read "Moby Dick" three times, and today in my seventies I finally appreciate it's greatness. The first page resonates to millions;

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me."

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1948: Beach plum growers association created; 1996: A new home for Nauset Light; 2001: High-speed ferry service to Vineyard approved

1948: Cape Cod Beach Plum Growers' Association officially formed

On this day in 1948, the Cape Cod Beach Plum Growers' Association was officially formed when 50 beach plum fans gathered at Brewster Town Hall to draw up a constitution and elect officers. Members voted on a life membership fee of $1 and agreed on the topics of greatest interest to them - "pruning, spraying and otherwise caring for existing bushes; learning improved methods; studying modern methods of propagation and planting; and seeking the best methods of protections and planting; and seeking the best methods of protection from inferior and adulterated beach plum jellies and jams," according to "The Beach Plum: A History and Grower's Guide" published by Cape Cod Cooperative Extension.

1996: Nauset light gets a new home

Nauset Beach Light, was built in 1877 in Chatham and moved to Eastham in 1923.

On this day in 1996, workers completed an arduous, two-day move of Nauset Light 336 feet away from an eroding bluff at Nauset Beach. The 48-foot tall brick and cast iron structure, also known as Nauset Beach Light, was built in 1877 in Chatham and moved to Eastham in 1923 to replace a trio of wooden lighthouses known as the "Three Sisters of Nauset." By the early 1990s, Nauset Light stood less than 25 feet from the edge of its bluff due to coastal erosion. Local residents formed the Nauset Light Preservation Society to move the lighthouse inland.

Once owned by the Coast Guard, Nauset Light passed into private hands in 1955. Author Mary Daubenspeck donated the tower and grounds to the National Park Service in the late 1990s. The park service leases the tower and grounds to the Nauset Light Preservation Society, whose members maintain them.

The Coast Guard had no plans for saving the lighthouse. Modern instruments have ended the traditional need for lighthouses, however, they are still used by the fishing fleets and small recreational boaters who navigate close to the shore. Nauset Light is an important part of Eastham's cultural and maritime history, and is the most well known and photographed lighthouse on Cape Cod.

A group of citizens in Eastham formed the Nauset Light Preservation Society, a non-profit volunteer organization whose original mission was to rescue the lighthouse. This was accomplished in November 1996. The mission now is the preservation and restoration of the lighthouse and oil house.

2001: High speed ferry approved  for Vineyard to New Bedford run

This week in 2001, the Steamship Authority board unanimously approves high-speed ferry service between New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard in an effort to reduce traffic and parking congestion in Woods Hole. A similar proposal was rejected a month earlier when Falmouth's representative to the board voted against a three-year pilot plan.

The proposal approved on Nov. 15, 2001 was for a two-year pilot plan to start the following June.

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1620: The Mayflower arrives at Provincetown; 2006: Christopher McCowen found guilty

1620: The Mayflower arrives
in Provincetown Harbor

After a difficult two-month voyage from England, the Mayflower arrives in Provincetown Harbor on this week in 1620 with 102 passengers and a crew of two dozen sailors.
   Autumn storms in the North Atlantic had blown the vessel off-course from its original destination of the Hudson River. 
   After encountering dangerous shoals off Monomoy, Captain Christopher Jones turned and sailed north to anchor in Provincetown Harbor.
   Before the Mayflower departs for Plymouth a month later, 41 adult male passengers sign the Mayflower Compact, a pact binding the signers to majority rule in Plimoth Colony and a pivotal step  in the continuing evolution of democracy in America.      (illustration credit, seahistory.org; painting by Paul Garnett)

2006: Trash Collector Guilty in Cape Cod Slaying.

On this day in 2006 Christopher McCowen was found guilty of murdering Christa Worthington.

A trash collector was convicted on Thursday in the 2002 rape and murder of Christa Worthington, a fashion writer who was stabbed to death and was found in her bungalow on Cape Cod with her 2-year-old daughter clutching her body.

The trash collector, Christopher McCowen, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder with extreme atrocity, aggravated rape and aggravated armed burglary.  Judge Gary A. Nickerson of Barnstable Superior Court sentenced Mr. McCowen to three concurrent terms of life in prison without parole.

The killing of Ms. Worthington, 46, who had lived in New York and Paris before moving to the quiet beach town of Truro, attracted international news coverage, in part because of the grisly and poignant elements of the crime. The police said Ms. Worthington's daughter, Ava, may have spent up to 36 hours at the bloody scene before she was found trying to breastfeed from her mother. It took the police more than three years to make an arrest. They initially focused on several of Ms. Worthington's former boyfriends, including Ava's father, a married man.  

Then they took the controversial step of setting up DNA screenings in Truro, and on the first day of the dragnet collected swabs of saliva from about 75 men stopped at the post office, a doughnut shop, even the town dump.

Mr. McCowen, who picked up the garbage at Ms. Worthington's house each week and who had spent time in prison in Florida from 1993 to 1998 for auto theft and burglary, was an early suspect. He agreed to submit a DNA sample, but did not do so for two years. A year later, the crime lab analyzed the sample and linked it to DNA found on Ms. Worthington's body. Mr. McCowen was arrested in April 2005 at a rooming house in Hyannis.

Under Massachusetts law, first-degree murder convictions are automatically appealed. Robert George, Mr. McCowen's lawyer, said that process might take up to 18 months.

"Do you expect me to say the jury's right?" Mr. George asked in a news conference after the sentencing. "Anyone who heard what happened in this trial," he said, "should have reasonable doubt."

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1620: A bygone culinary classic revisited.2000: Wellfleet church closes its doors. 1966: Edward Brooke elected to the Senate. 1960: President-elect Kennedy appears in Hyannis

2000: Our Lady of Lourdes church closes in Wellfleet

This Sunday in 2000, the last Mass was held at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic church on Main Street in Wellfleet by the Rev. John Andrews.

The church, built in 1912, had become too small for the congregation and in need of repair.

Parishioners began attending services at the Church of the Visitation in North Eastham and plans were unveiled in Febuary 2007 to build a new church on 10 acres of church-owned property off Route 6.

1960: Kennedy appear in Hyannis after being elected president

This weekend in 1960, President-elect John F. Kennedy and his family appear in public for the first time, at the National Guard armory on South Street in Hyannis across the street from present-day Barnstable Town Hall, on the morning after Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard M. Nixon by only 118,000 votes.

Future first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, eight months pregnant, gave birth to the couple's son, John F. Kennedy Jr., two weeks later in Washington, D.C.     (photo credit, Life magazine)

1966: America elects first Black U.S. Senator since reconstruction

In November of 1966, Vineyard summer resident Edward W. Brooke becomes the first African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the US Senate.  Brooke, a Republican, serves two terms until he is defeated by Democrat Paul Tsongas (whose widow, Nikki Tsongas, was elected to the US House of Representatives last month).

In the photo at right, Brooke can be seen with attorney Tanya Green last summer at his former house on the Vineyard, which is now a site on the African American Heritage Trail of Martha's Vineyard.

 (A tip of the hat to Monponsett;  photo credit, www.mvheritagetrail.org)

1620: It's time to bake up a mess of Indian Pudding

There is a classic old favorite that's not as popular today as in years past: Indian pudding. But why was it popular then, and what happened to it's fame?

Agriculture provided the First Nation Peoples with foods that hunting or fishing did not supply. The Three Sisters were Maize, Beans, Squash.

When the Pilgrims arrived on Cape Cod and then Plymouth in November of 1620, all the happy memories they had of their former life in England revolved around some festive occasion, one that was often celebrated with rich pudding.

During their early years in the New World, the colonists could only dream of the plum puddings of Old England. Even a simple milk pudding or bread pudding seemed out of the question because of they had no wheat flour, but there was, of course, Indian cornmeal.

With the gradual increase in the number of dairy cattle brought to Plymouth Colony from England during the late 1620s, milk and milk products became more plentiful, and the Pilgrims began to experiment with the idea of an English-style milk pudding made with New World products.

Wheat flour was still scarce, of course, so they used cornmeal instead, and they called the new creamy, baked dessert "Indian" pudding, even though it contained such non-Indian ingredients as milk, eggs, butter, molasses for sweetening, and pinches of such exotic spices as cinnamon and ginger.

Thick cream, when available, was poured over the pudding - another non-Native American and distinctly English touch.

The molasses that went into those early New England Indian puddings were a special case:  it was neither British nor American Indian in origin. It was the product of Yankee business enterprise as the British colonies in the Caribbean began trading with North America.

Indian Pudding rediscovered in time for Thanksgiving 2008

See Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, From Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie, by Kathleen Curtin on Amazon.

This colonial classic's current unpopularity is something of an American tragedy. Just ask Kathleen Curtin, food historian at Plimoth Plantation, and coauthor of "Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, From Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie" (Clarkson Potter, 2005). To Ms. Curtin, the subject of Indian pudding is like talking popcorn with Orville Redenbacher.

"Indian pudding is one of my favorite subjects in the whole world," exclaims Curtin at an interview here at the plantation. She's been making it for years for her family and makes it every Thanksgiving for the staff at Plimoth Plantation.

Indian pudding was more popular in years past, says Curtin. "It's become known as a regional New England recipe, even though it originally wasn't. Before 1900, it was in most American cookbooks."

Although thought of as a Thanksgiving dessert, it wasn't on the menu "until the mid-1700s, during the molasses trade," Curtin says. "And it is a strictly American dessert.... Very little in it is European."

Puddings were very different in the days of the first settlers here. The Pilgrims of Plymouth made puddings the old- fashioned way: They boiled them. And they're still doing it that way at Plimoth Plantation.

Two interpreters playing the roles of Candice Wainwright and Patience Prence are making puddings in the reconstructed 1627 home of Isaac Allerton, ruling elder of the church. Here, they demonstrate to a crowd of wide-eyed school children standing cheek by jowl on the dirt floor the making of "puddings" as they stuff animal casings with bits of pork, fat, spices, and cream. The stuffed casings will be boiled and then served to the men after they come in from repairing fences and hunting deer and turkey.

Indian pudding - The old recipe;

Despite the title, early New England settlers did not adapt this recipe from Native Americans: 'Indian' refers to the 'Indian meal' used - cornmeal, as wheat flour wasn't available.

Before you start this recipe, plan ahead. This dessert has a long baking time: three hours altogether, plus another 30 minutes to cool.

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup water
4 cups milk
1 large egg
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins or other dried fruits like cranberries or blueberries (optional)
Vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Heavily grease a 1-1/2 quart ovenproof baking dish with butter or lard.

Place 3/4 cup water in a small bowl and gradually whisk in the cornmeal until it is completely mixed and smooth.

Scald 3 cups of the milk in a heavy saucepan (heat until tiny bubbles appear around the edge - don't bring to a full boil) and stir the cornmeal mixture into the hot milk. Reduce heat to low and stir frequently, for 15 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened.

Remove from heat. Beat the egg in a small bowl. Stir some of the hot cornmeal mixture into the beaten egg, a spoonful at a time, until you have added about 1/2 cup. (This is to warm up the egg mixture gradually, so the hot cornmeal mixture doesn't cook it too quickly.) Return egg mixture to the saucepan and stir in the sugar, molasses, butter, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and optional raisins or dried fruit. Pour the mixture into the prepared greased dish. Bake for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and gently pour the remaining 1 cup of milk over the top of the pudding. Do not stir in. Bake 2-1/2 to 3 hours longer, or until pudding begins to set. Remove from oven and set aside for 30 minutes to one hour. Pudding will thicken further as it cools. Serve warm, topped with vanilla ice cream. Serves 6.

Note: Leftover pudding may be served cold, topped with heavy cream, for the next morning's breakfast.

This originally ran in the Christian Science Monitor on this date in 2006.

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1754: Mercy Otis gets married; 1933: The Free State of Cape Cod described

1933: The Free State of Cape Cod

In the November American Mercury Jonathan Norton Leonard describes a curious and charming anachronism. On Cape Cod people mind their own business. Descended from children of the sea, the natives all possess a "peculiar combination of fractiousness " and toleration which makes them "very hard to influence and little inclined "to influence others." Here's the original article;

1754: Mercy Otis of Barnstable marries James Warren of Plymouth

On this day in 1754, Mercy Otis of Barnstable and James Warren of Plymouth began their remarkable 54-year partnership. When she married into a family active in public affairs, Mercy embraced the chance to be involved in the events of the Revolutionary era.

She was a keen and intelligent observer and an accomplished writer. In the 1770s, she had several satirical plays published anonymously before embarking on a history of the Revolution. Her History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution appeared in 1805.

The fact that the book discounted the diplomatic achievements of her old friend John Adams caused a bitter rift. "History is not the Province of the Ladies," Adams angrily declared.

Background

"History is not the Province of the Ladies," - John Adams

Born in 1728, Mercy was the eldest daughter in James and Mary Otis's family of 13 children. The Otises were among the leading families of Cape Cod. A prosperous farmer, merchant, and lawyer, James Otis served as a judge of the Barnstable County Court of common pleas. While he saw that his sons were all prepared for college, he gave his daughters no formal schooling. Mercy did, however, sit in on some of her brothers' private lessons.

At 26, she married James Warren and moved to Plymouth. In more than 50 years of marriage, the couple would raise five sons. The Warren and Otis families' increasing involvement in the conflict between the American colonies and the British parliament began with the Stamp Act Crisis in 1765. That same year, James Warren was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and served there until 1777.

Mercy's brother James Otis, Jr. also played an active part in resistance to British rule. The Warrens frequently hosted protest meetings, attended by men such as John Adams and his cousin Samuel Adams.

Although as a woman, Mercy Warren could play only a very limited public role, she was an active participant in and observer at these strategy sessions. She had been writing poetry since 1759, and now she began creating satirical plays written in verse. In 1772 The Adulateur appeared anonymously (as much of her work did) in the Massachusetts Spy, a Boston newspaper. It was written to be read, not performed, since plays were banned in Massachusetts. The play portrayed Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson (as the character Rapatio) bent on destroying liberty in a fictional country of "free-born sons." The Defeat was published in 1773, starring Rapatio once again, and two years later, The Group featured the colony's evil Tories.

Towards the end of the Revolution and in the years that followed, James Warren's political career suffered. He turned down a number of positions, including an appointment to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Biographers suggest that Mercy may have encouraged her husband to stay close to home. The Warrens also parted company with the pro-Federalist majority that dominated the new state's politics. They worried about the ability of the Republic to survive and opposed adoption of the federal Constitution, fearing it would lead to "uncontrolled despotism."

In the late 1770s, Mercy Warren had begun working on a history of the Revolution, a Herculean effort supported by her husband, sons, and their long-time friends Abigail and John Adams. "I hope you will continue, for there are few Persons possessed of more Facts, or who can record them in a more agreeable manner," John Adams wrote her from London in 1787. He would come to regret his encouragement.

In 1805 Mercy Warren's three-volume History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution was published. Source.

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1988: A Cape Cod commission planned. 1999: Drawing up plans for the National Marine Life Center

1988: Panel on Cape's Development Gains Backing

On this day in 1988, the New York Times reported on the progress made towards what is today's Cape Cod Commission. The story on this day read:

Cape Cod may soon get what environmentalists have been working for all year: a commission to control all development that would affect the cape's environment or endanger its water supplies and coastline. The prospects for quick action on a commission brightened Wednesday as Gov. Michael S. Dukakis said his administration would push for introduction of legislation next month, before the 1988 Legislative session ends.

"If we do not get a Cape Cod commission through the Legislature this winter, we will demand a moratorium."
      - Susan Nickerson, APCC.

Susan Nickerson, executive director of the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod, the environmental coalition that led the fight to control development, said today that the group's first priority was creation of a commission. Stated Goal Is to Direct Growth ''Our effort is not to stop growth,'' Ms. Nickerson said. ''We want to direct it in a way that maintains the quality of life on the cape.'' ''But if we do not get a Cape Cod commission through the Legislature this winter,'' she added, ''we will demand a moratorium.''

To do so, the environmentalists are prepared to use the political muscle the cape's voters gave them Tuesday. Cape voters approved by a 3 to 1 margin a nonbinding resolution asking the Legislature to create a cape-wide commission with full power to regulate development.

Voters also approved, by a margin of more than 2 to 1 a second nonbinding resolution calling for a moratorium on new construction until development was controlled. A parallel measure establishing a new form of county government was endorsed by 2 to 1..

That measure included the election of a 15-member Assembly of Delegates, one from each of the towns on the cape, and a three-member board of county commissioners. It gave that body, whose members are to take office early in January, the authority to regulate traffic and waste disposal and control water quality throughout Cape Cod.

Previously the individual towns had separate authority over these matters, with no single agency empowered to coordinate them.

Ms. Nickerson said a second priority for the coalition was to try again to get the state legislature to approve a ''land bank'' for Cape Cod similar to those on the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. That would enable the new county government to impose a special surtax on real estate sales. The money would be earmarked to buy land on which development would be prohibited. A commission would also have the power to overrule a town planning board's approval of large-scale developments if the developments would affect an adjoining town. If a moratorium was approved, it would not apply to the building of owner-occupied single-family dwellings. Legislators Look for Quick Action

The cape's state legislator, some of whom oppose a moratorium, have promised to begin working immediately for a commission bill in the hope of starting action on it in December.

The environmentalists say they know that getting the commission and land bank bills through the Legislature will be difficult and it will be even more difficult to win approval of a moratorium. The Home Builders Association of Massachusetts, as well as most of the cape's real estate industry, oppose both proposals, and both groups have well-financed lobbies in the state capital.

"It's quite clear that this is what the people of Cape Cod want,'' Ms. Nickerson said. ''If we go on plundering the Cape's environment, there won't be any reason to invest here or live here or come here to vacation. Our pleasant life will go on eroding away."

1999: Plans fomulatd to build an National Marine Center here.

On this day in 1999, the long-planned National Marine Life Center at the old Grossman's Lumber Complex on Main Street in Buzzards Bay took a step closer to reality with the announcement that center trustees and directors will begin working on a design and construction plans with a Boston architectural firm. The $5 million project will serve as a rehabilitation hospital for stranded whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles.

The NMLC was invited by Bourne selectmen and the town's Economic Development Task Force to use the four-acre site, with land donated by Mobil Oil Corporation, at a lease payment of $1 annually for 50 years.

The Army Corps of Engineers agreed for the center to use two adjacent acres bordering the Cape Cod Canal to provide a dependable source of sea water for the facility's animal life support systems.

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1916: 70,000 hear to Billy Sunday; 1937: Cape Cod daily newspaper closes: 2008 Two Conn. dailies to close

1937: Cape Cod Colonial daily newspaper ends its one year run

This week in 1937 the Cape's daily newspaper ceased publication.

The small Associated Press item on right ran in newspapers across an America which was still struggling through the depths of the Great Depression.

The Colonial had been published since October of 1936.

Let's hope that history doesn't repeat itself.

Our present daily, The Cape Cod Times, was first published by businessman J.P. Dunn and Basil Brewer on October 19, 1936 as the Cape Cod Standard-Times, and was distributed jointly on the Cape with The New Bedford Standard-Times until the end of 1970.

The first issues were printed in a converted automobile dealer's garage on Elm Street in Hyannis, now a bus garage. Less than a year after the paper made its debut, plans were announced for the construction of the present building at 319 Main Street, which opened in early 1938.

1916: 70,000 drawn to Billy Sunday religeous rally

On this day in 1916 55,000 people came to hear Billy Sunday preach in Boston. An overflow crowd of 15,000 had to be turned away from the temporary tabernacle that had been erected on Huntington Avenue. During the next ten weeks, the baseball star-turned evangelist drew an estimated 1,500,000 to his Boston meetings. His acrobatic antics, colorful language, frank discussion of sexual mores, and retinue of performers smacked of a vaudeville show. But his masterful preaching moved many to commit their lives to Jesus. Billy Sunday led countless crusades across the nation. The sermons against the evils of alcohol that he delivered in Boston, long remembered as among his most powerful, helped win passage of the constitutional amendment that made prohibition the law of the land.

2008: Bristol CT Press and New Britain CT Herald will close January 1, 2009
11 newspapers in Connecticut will end their runs

On this day in 2008 The Hartford Courant reported today that the Journal Register Co., owner of five daily newspapers in Connecticut, plans to close The Bristol Press and The Herald of New Britain by January unless buyers emerge. Employees at the two newspapers learned of the company's plans Monday.

The Journal Register Co. has told employees at 11 weekly newspapers in Connecticut that those operations would be closed if a buyer isn't found by Jan. 12.

Journal Register's other three daily newspapers in the state — The New Haven Register, The Middletown Press and The Register Citizen of Torrington — are profitable and will continue to publish, said an employee familiar with the company's operations.

Some of Journal Register's 17 weekly newspapers in Connecticut will also be closed, employees said. Journal Register also publishes Connecticut Magazine and the Litchfield County Times, both of which will continue to publish.  Officials at Journal Register's headquarters in Yardley, Pa., and in New Haven, could not be reached for comment.

JRC shares were delisted from regular stock exchanges earlier this year, and were trading for 1 cent on Monday.

In a bluntly worded memo to the staff, Edward Gunderson, publisher of both newspapers, did not indicate that the company is in talks with any potential buyer. "In the event that there is no buyer, then we anticipate that the facility will be shut down," he said. "... You will not have the right to displace other employees"...  Read the rest of the Courant's report here.

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Today in Cape history: Mayflower Compact signed in P'town Harbor

Some call it America's first Constitution

On this day in 1620, aboard the Mayflower at anchor in waters later to be known as Provincetown harbor, the males on board the vessel signed the Mayflower Compact.

The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was drafted by the Pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower seeking religious freedom in what what then the "New World".

It was signed on November 11, 1620 by 41 of the ship's more than one hundred passengers, in what is now Provincetown Harbor at the tip of Cape Cod.

A month later the Mayflower's Pilgrims, having failed to find sufficient fresh water on this sandy peninsula, sailed across Cape Cod Bay and settled in what is now Plymouth Massachusetts.

The painting on the right is called "Signing of the Mayflower Compact" by Edward Percy Moran, and hangs today at the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth.

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