Cape Cod History

May 16 -1935: Fishing Schooner jams prop in nets, needs aid

1935: Marconi Station in Wellfleet and WCC in Chatham aid in schooner's rescue

Above is a typical Grand Banks fishing schooner of the era

Cutter Sent to Help Vessel With Fouled Propeller

On this day in 1935 a Grand Banks Fishing Schooner, the "Babe Sears", got its propeller snarled in a fishing net a 100 miles east of Cape Cod. She hailed a passing merchant ship to ask for help from the Coast Guard which subsequently towed her into Boston. Read the newspaper report from that day on the right. 

The Marconi Station in Wellfleet and WCC in Chatham Port were still relatively new aids to mariners back then, and the old schooners seldom had radios aboard, but the merchant ship did have one and radioed the Cape stations for help.

The Grand Banks Schooner

As the New England fishing industry grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, so did other related industries and technology. Once the US gained independence, New England soon became a commercial power. This affluence can be attributed to fishing and the ever-improving design of the schooner. The fishing schooner had been invented in 1713, and their design gradually improved, allowing for faster travel and larger catches. Support industries also prospered by making gear, boat parts, and tools for the fishermen. As fishing techniques evolved, so did society.  The graceful, elegant schooner shown above is among the ultimate in that class which was made obsolete by gas powered fishing boats.

May 15 - 1602: Cape Cod was named today. 2007: Cape woman to get degree posthumously

1602: Gosnold sailed the coast of Maine and arrived here on May 15

   Albert Beirstadt's 1858 Oil Painting entitled: "Gosnold at Cuttyhunk, 1602", where the adventurers set up a camp but gave it up when they were unable to find sufficient food for the winter, and sailed back to England. Note the bark Concord moored offshore on left.

He named Cape Cod and probably Martha's Vineyard too

On this day in 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold sailed into Provincetown Harbor and named the peninsula "Cape Cod" for the huge schools of fish sighted.  He didn't "discover" the Cape as many references cite. Champlain had a fight with our Nausets in Chatham in 1609, and others had visited our shores before him including the Portuguese who had set up fishing camps here for decades.  But Gosnold is the man who named us and the Pilgrims who stayed for a week in 1620. By 1638 "eight men from Saugus" took refuge from the crowded mainland, and Cape Cod had its first permanent settlement in what is today's Sandwich.

He pioneered a new route to the New World

Gosnold had sailed from Falmouth, England in a small Dartmouth bark, the Concord, with thirty-two crew on board, and like the Pilgrims fourteen years later in 1620, they had come to North America to establish a colony in New England, which was then known as Northern Virginia.

Bartholomew Gosnold pioneered a direct sailing route due west from the Azores to New England, arriving in early May 1602 at Cape Elizabeth in Maine near today's Portland (Lat 43 degrees). He skirted the Maine coastline for several days before anchoring in York Harbor, Maine, on May 14, 1602.

The next day, he sailed across Massachusetts Bay into Provincetown Harbor, where he is credited with naming Cape Cod. Following the Atlantic coastline south for several days, he discovered Martha's Vineyard, and named it perhaps after his daughter or wife. He established a small post on one of the Elizabeth Islands, which is now called Cuttyhunk Island and is part of the town of Gosnold. The post was abandoned when the settlers decided to return the ship to England because they had insufficient provisions to last over the winter.

2007: Cape woman to get degree posthumously
Shanna Litterst of Falmouth died with Jessica Hamlyn of Dennis

On this day in 2007 Westfield State College has reversed its decision and will award a posthumous diploma to a senior who was killed in an automobile accident on Cape Cod in March.

The decision came following what was described as considerable discussion among college administrators.  The college came under heavy public criticism after the parents of the accident victim, Shanna Litterst, could not persuade the college to issue the diploma.
 A senior biology major from Falmouth, Litterst, 21, was a star field hockey player at the college. She was rookie of the year in both the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference and the regional Little East Conference.

A senior biology major from Falmouth, Litterst, 21, was a star field hockey player at the college. She was rookie of the year in both the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference and the regional Little East Conference.

Litterst was with Jessica Hamlyn, 22, of South Dennis and a student at Plymouth State College, on March 4 in Centerville, when Hamlyn's vehicle slid off Route 28 and down an embankment, catching fire. Both women died at the scene... 

Read the rest of this Springfield Republican story here.  
See original CWN story here.
Read Marot Russell's eulogy "Our Lost Youth" here.

May 14 - 1978: Entire Provincetown postal staff arrested; 1990: Cape Cod was an auction-lovers cornucopia

1990: Cape Cod is a Shopper's World

A Guide to Cape Cod's Auctions & $5 lunches of two decades ago

Bob Eldred is a congenial auctioneer who moves fast, matter-of-factly announces good buys and lets the audience know when a feigned lack of interest is misplaced, saying, ''You're sleeping out there!''This week in 1990 the New York Times was extolling our auctions saying "Auctions on Cape Cod, a year-round phenomenon, are a cross between shopping, work and dinner theater. In fact, they combine the best of all three: you can shop sitting down, play the commodities market with real commodities that you carry home in the trunk of your car, catch a comedy act without paying a cover charge and eat for under $5."

The writer went on to say that if you bid, a host of treasures can be yours. If you don't, there's vicarious fun in watching desire and thrift square off in other bidders' hearts. All auctions offer these pleasures, but how they unfold - in a crowded barn thick with the smell of fried Portuguese sausage or in an elegant, 19th-century sea captain's house - varies from auction to auction.

The Sandwich Auction is also known for its auctioneer, Russell Johnson, who effortlessly mixes stand-up comedy with the biddinHere's a little more of the text with a link below to the rest: "On the advice of antique dealer friends, I sampled five auctions that cover the scale of most traveler's budgets and interests and don't intimidate people like me who know a little about antiques but aren't experts. There were bargains for every price range: a red armchair that sold for $5 at the Merlyn Auction in North Harwich and Oriental rugs that went for an average of $5,000 at the Eldred Auction in East Dennis. I also sat in on the Sandwich and Hyannis auctions and the Sullivan Auction in Acushnet"...  New York Times.

1978: Entire Provincetown Postal Staff Arrested
Postmaster Jasper Stoddard, five clerks charged with embezzlement & fraud

On this day in 1978,  newspapers all over America reported that the postmaster of the Cape Cod resort town of Provincetown and his entire clerical staff had been arrested and charged in connection with embezzlement of post office funds.

The culprits faced ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted.

It was thought to be the only time in US history when an entire US Post Office staff was arrested.

May 13 - 1948: Kathleen Kennedy, 28, Marchioness of Hartington, dies in plane crash

1948: Kathleen Kennedy dies on way to seek father's blessings on her wedding
"Most exciting debutante of 1938" she was dead ten years later

On this day in 1948, Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, the second daughter of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and widow of the heir to the Devonshire dukedom, died in a plane crash en route to secure her father's blessings on her second marriage. She was born on February 20, 1920, and was only 28 at the time of her death.

Background

Kathleen, Marchioness of HartingtonWhen President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed JFK's father Joseph Kennedy ambassador to the Court of St. James, his daughter Kathleen spent a year and a half living in London. She was educated in London at Queen's College.

Beautiful and spirited, she was named the "most exciting debutante of 1938." In 1943 she returned to England to work in a center for servicemen set up by the Red Cross.

Despite the opposition of her intensely Catholic mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy, known to friends as "Kick", married William John Robert Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, a Protestant and the eldest son and heir of the 10th Duke of Devonshire on May 6, 1944.

1944 was a year of deaths

Other than her eldest brother Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. who died in a plane crash three months after the wedding, no one from the Kennedy family attended the marriage ceremony. Her husband was killed in action only four months later in World War II, and his younger brother Andrew Cavendish, married to Deborah Mitford, became the heir to the dukedom.  See the newspaper report of her death on right.

Popular on the London social circuit and admired by many for her high spirits - though more traditional members of British society found fault with her boisterousness - the dashing young widow eventually became the mistress of Peter Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 8th Earl FitzWilliam. The couple planned to wed after Fitzwilliam's planned divorce. Instead, while on a trip to visit Joseph Kennedy Sr. and gain his blessing for their relationship, Lord Fitzwilliam and Lady Hartington died in an airplane crash in Saint-Bauzile, Ardèche, France.

Religious prejudice to
the grave and beyond

Only her father represented the Kennedy family at her funeral. Her mother, Rose, declined to attend supposedly because of Kathleen's intention to marry outside the Catholic Church a second time. It is also said that Rose Kennedy also discouraged Kathleen's siblings from attending for the same reason. Rose apparently forgave Kathleen not long thereafter, and in 1951, she was reportedly delighted that her first grandchild, Robert F. Kennedy's daughter, Kathleen Hartington Kennedy, was named after her late daughter. However, the family requested that the child not be nicknamed Kick.

The Marchioness of Hartington is buried in the Cavendish family plot at Saint Peter's Church, Edensor, near Chatsworth in Derbyshire, England. Among the wreaths that covered her coffin was one with a handwritten note from Sir Winston Churchill. The gymnasium at Manhattanville College is named in her honor.

May 12 - 1997 : Divorce, Kennedy-style; 2007: Boston Pops brawl

2007: Police decide to investigate Boston Pops brawl
Boston man claims he was attacked by Bourne resident

On this day in 2007 Boston police said they have assigned a detective to investigate a brawl that erupted at Symphony Hall Wednesday night, a reversal of the department's earlier decision not to pursue charges. 

The spectacle of two men brawling in the refined environs of Symphony Hall, on opening night of the Boston Pops, has catapulted Boston and the Pops onto the international stage, garnering jokes in headlines around the world.

According to a police report obtained by the Globe, one of the men involved in the fight, Matthew Ellinger, 27  a Brighton man, told police that the incident started when he told another concert goer, Bourne resident Michael Hallam (on left), to be quiet during the performance. (In scene above right Hallan in blue shirt is being dragged off Ellinger who appears to be still seated.) 

Ellinger (below on right) told police that he repeatedly asked Hallam, 44 on left, to stop talking and tapped him with his program in the minutes before Hallam punched him, according to the police report obtained by the Globe.  WHDH reports here that Ellinger is suing the Cape man, "I just got cold cocked, completely sucker punched at the Pops for telling a guy to stop talking" Matt Ellinger is quoted saying.

Hallam, who owns a boat construction business and convenience store in Bourne, could not be located for comment yesterday...

A neighbor at his home on the Cape Cod Canal in the affluent Gray Gables section of Bourne, said Hallam told him Ellinger cuffed him on the back of the head before announcing he had reported Hallam to an usher. The neighbor declined to be identified...  Read the rest of this Globe story here.  

WHDH reported Ellinger's comment after the concert this way ... Ellinger, who was attending his first Pops performance with his girlfriend, says this man who was in front of him would not stop talking.  "So after the first piece they keep talking through the second piece, so I tap him with my program to give him the shush.  He turns around and tells me 'if you hit me again I'm going to throw you over the balcony.' "

1997: Joseph Kennedy has five-year affair with a girl who baby-sat his three children

A new book and another scandal may finally hit the Kennedys where it would hurt - in the ballot box

On this day in 1997 another Kennedy divorce rocked the Cape.  As Time Magazine wrote it;
"What remains of a once powerful dynasty is good teeth, good hair and the best public relations a trust fund can buy""When you look at the third generation of Kennedy men, much of what remains of a once powerful dynasty is good teeth, good hair and the best public relations a trust fund can buy. Some of the boys grew from being spoiled and bratty--belittling the help, once chasing the cook up a tree at Hickory Hill--into full-blown debauchery, driving fast, drinking hard, club hopping like wild men. Most of this got spun by family retainers into the playful high jinks of a raucous clan.

But the escapades got seamier over time and the spinning harder: a joyride with Joe Kennedy II left a young woman paralyzed after an accident on Nantucket. Bobby Jr. was arrested for possession of heroin. David died in a Florida hotel of a cocaine, Demerol and Mellaril overdose. William Kennedy Smith was accused and acquitted of rape, after a night out with Uncle Ted, who can never erase Chappaquiddick.

Now Joseph Kennedy, the sixth child of Robert Kennedy, who once seemed to have his father's quiet passion without the Kennedy sense of entitlement, finds himself at the center of a new scandal--that he allegedly had a five-year affair with a girl who baby-sat his three children at the family home in Cohasset, Mass., beginning when she was 14. At the same time, Joe II, a six-term Congressman planning to run for Governor, is trying to weather a just published book, "Shattered Faith, A woman's struggle to stop the Catholic Church from annulling her marriage", by ex-wife Sheila Rauch Kennedy that depicts him as a narcissistic bully and protests his efforts to have their 12-year marriage annulled.

In Kennedyland, where everyone is his brother's keeper, the blowback from Michael's scandal and publicity surrounding Shattered Faith have sent Joe's popularity sinking. In Boston Herald polls, 17% of voters said they are less likely to vote for Joe based on Michael's problems alone, and 1 in 4 has a less favorable view of Joe as a result of the book. Suddenly, worthy but dull attorney general Scott Harshbarger looks like a strong Democratic candidate for Governor in 1998. And the heretofore impossible in Massachusetts seems plausible: an office a Kennedy wants could be kept from him...  TIME. See another TIME story "The most controversial marriage that never was in recent U.S. political history" here.

May 11 - 1908: Marconi sends messages 1,700 miles to sea from Cape Cod; 2002: Aerosmith arson

1908: Wireless wave to Great Britain from Cape Cod
Marconi Secretary Says Signals Have Frequently Crossed Atlantic

On this day in 1908 the Marconi station in Wellfleet was sending wireless messages to vessels at sea as far offshore as 1,700 miles.  In 1900, Marconi set up a high-powered transmitting station at Poldhu, on the English Coast at Cornwall. In 1901, Marconi built a wireless station at Signal Hill, Newfoundland and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. On the right is a photograph taken that year of his station in South Wellfleet.

Marconi selected Cape Cod since it had been described by Henry David Thoreau as a place "where a man may stand and put all of America behind him." After passing up a location in Barnstable and being denied permission to build his wireless station near the Highland Light, Marconi settled for an eight-acre site on a high bluff in South Wellfleet. Marconi set up headquarters at the Holbrook House in Wellfleet.

2002: Aerosmith arson

On this day in 2002, the Cape Cod home of Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton was destroyed by a fire, authorities said. No one was in the house when the fire started just before 7 p.m. 

The South Wellfleet station was similar to the Poldhu one with a circular series of twenty 200-foot ship's masts set back 165 feet from the edge of the bluff.

Storms blew down the aerials at Poldhu on September 17, 1901 and a Nor'easter toppled the aerials on Cape Cod on November 25th. Nevertheless, Marconi received the first transatlantic signal - the three-dot Morse code letter "S" tapped out from Poldhu on December 12th at the Newfoundland station. The aerial at Poldhu was held aloft by a canvas kite. (Read More)

May 10 - 2004: Provincetown defies Mitt Romney on gay marriage; 2012: President Barack Obama says he supports same-sex marriage

2004: Town set to defy governor on same-sex marriage issue

Ironic coincidence as President Obama supports it on this anniversary

UPDATE: The New York Times reported on this day in 2012 that President Barack Obama sat down in the White House with ABC’s Robin Roberts and made news, after nearly two years of saying that his views on same-sex marriage were “evolving.” The President of the United States said, 

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

On this day in 2004, one week before same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, Provincetown voted to issue marriage licenses to out-of-state same-sex couples even if they have no intention of moving to Massachusetts. The move contradicts a directive by Gov. Mitt Romney, who has said that no same-sex couples residing out of state would be allowed to marry here.

Romney invokes 1913 law to stop out of staters from marrying here

Mr. Romney, who opposes same-sex marriage, has invoked a 1913 law that says that the state will not marry couples if their marriage would be "void" in their home state. The governor has interpreted that to mean that since no other state performs same-sex marriages, only Massachusetts same-sex couples are eligible to marry here.

Couples applying for marriage licenses in Massachusetts are required to fill out a form asking where they reside and where they intend to reside, and to sign it under penalty of perjury. Town and city clerks have been instructed by the governor's office to issue licenses to out-of-state same-sex couples if they intend to move to the state, but not those who plan to return to their home states.

But the board of selectmen in Provincetown, a town with a large gay population, voted unanimously to issue the licenses even if the applicants declare on the form that they do not intend to live in Massachusetts. The new policy reads: "The town clerk may issue marriage licenses to any persons - whether residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, non-commonwealth residents that intend to reside in Massachusetts, or non-commonwealth residents that do not intend to reside in Massachusetts." The couples must sign the form, attesting that they have been truthful on their application and that they know of no "legal impediment" to their marriage.

"To start to say yes to certain couples but not others doesn't make sense," said the Provincetown town clerk, Douglas Johnstone...  New York Times.

Read the last Sunday NY Times Magazine article about "Gay Marriage in Massachusetts" four years later here.

May 9 - 1957: Huge fire threatens Cape Cod homes; 2007: Stories of lost bodies start to emerge

1957: Arson suspected in huge Cape Cod forest fire

On this day in 1957 Massachusetts Governor Foster Furculo issued a state of emergency because of a giant forest fire advancing towards Cape Cod.  The front page of the New York Times screamed this headline:

FOREST FIRES RAGE IN DRY NORTHEAST
State of Emergency Ordered in Massachusetts--Cape Cod Fire Uncontrolled

ARSON IS INVESTIGATED

Woods in Seven States and Ontario Afire--Dry Spell Is Near a Drought

Forest fires raged in seven Northeastern States and a province of Canada last night.  At least 30,000 acres of tinder-dry woodland was blackened.  Massachusetts declared a state of emergency and Maine imposed restrictions.

Then Massachusetts Governor Foster Furculo ordered 200 National Guardsmen, 200 state employees and convicts from state prison out to fight the fire.

The fire which started in the Miles Standish State Forest and quickly raced towards the canal and Cape Cod, was called "definitely arson" by the Plymouth Fire Chief.

2007: Officials ID second body in mixup of remains

Remains misidentified at examiner's office

On this day in 2007 it was reported that although Joseph Sullivan had died on April 1, 2005, he still hasn't been buried.  When the state medical examiner's office misplaced a man's body and State Police went looking, they found it Friday in the grave where Sullivan was supposed to have been interred on April 26.

The man laid to rest that day was Thomas E. Brissette, a 49-year-old Cape Cod man whose disappearance led to the suspension of the state's chief medical examiner.  Sullivan's body , it turned out, was still at the medical examiner 's office , and the funeral director handling his arrangements said yesterday he wants to complete the task.

"I have a valid burial permit at the cemetery that says he's been buried," said the funeral director, Floyd A. Williams. "I want this issue to be closed. I want Mr. Sullivan buried and put to rest. . . . This has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous."

State Police also obtained a permit to dig up a second grave on Friday at St. Joseph's Cemetery in West Roxbury, but didn't do so because they found Brissette in Sullivan's grave, according to Williams and records released yesterday by the Boston Public Health Commission, which must approve such exhumations.

May 8 - 1911: Militia called out to fight forest fires. 2007: After 4 OUIs man finally kills a Sandwich woman

2007: Cape Cod man faces vehicular homicide charges

Driving record had four OUIs

On this day in 2007 a Cape Cod man who has been convicted of impaired driving four times pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide on Wednesday. Christopher Parker, 50, faces the charge in connection with a three-vehicle crash in March that resulted in the death of a Sandwich woman. Parker was taken into custody on the homicide charge after a Falmouth District Court judge revoked his bail in an unrelated case in which he is charged with driving under the influence of drugs.

1911: CALL MILITIA TO FIGHT FOREST FIRES IN EAST

Biddeford, Me., Saved After Three Square Miles of Land Had Been Burned Over.
Fires Spread Near Chatham, Massachusetts

A fire fighting apparatus of the era.On this day in 1911 fires in timber districts where the undergrowth had become unusually dry from lack of rain caused damage at many points in New England, sweeping over thousands of acres of valuable woodland and burning thousands of feet of prepared lumber. 

In several instances the flames spread to dwelling houses and other buildings.

There were fires here on the Cape near Chatham... The Cape fire burning over two square miles of forest and farm.  See the complete story below.

May 7 - 1921: Canada throws 330 bottles into the sea - they wash up here two years later

On this day in 1921, the Canadian Government tossed 330 bottles into the Bay of Fundy to test the ocean current. Two years later seven of the bottles washed up on our beaches.

The distance between Cape Cod and the Bay of Fundy is 300 miles indicating the bottles which reached here traveled at about 4 miles a day.

The Biological Survey of Canada began their research in the Summer of 1919. Sixteen of these were picked up on the shores of the Gulf of Maine.

Each contained a postcard on which was printed, besides the address of the biological station, an offer of a reward for those who would write down the time and date the bottles were found.  Read the complete story below.