U.S. Coast Guard Heritage Museum at the Trayser

There is life for for the old Trayser

Think Coast Guard Maritime Heritage

Exclusive to Cape Cod Today by Francis I. Broadhurst 

It was a combination of my decades long friendship with Lou Cataldo and my love of history I suppose. But somehow I was roped into becoming a director, recording secretary and member of the executive board for Lou’s newest venture to “save the Trayser” and keep history alive.

The Trayser Museum on Route 6-A just east of Barnstable Village was once our county's customs house

Not only am I part of the organization, I even volunteered to become one of the guides for the public when they come to visit the U.S. Coast Guard Heritage Museum at the Trayser. 

Lou and others familiar with operating museums were throwing around the term “docent”.  I had no idea what they were talking about. Rather than embarrass myself for being an ignoramus, I went home and looked it up.

The word wasn’t even in my ancient Pocket Oxford but it was in my 1973 edition of Webster. It turns out that the nice people who conduct groups through a museum or art gallery are docents.  Now I’m one of them.

It is tribute to Lou Cataldo and his perseverance that the old U.S. Custom House and Post Office he saved in 1960, has been saved by him again.

Lou learned in 1958 that the former customhouse and post office was being declared surplus by the Federal government. He was determined not to let it fall into private, commercial use or worse, be demolished. He wanted to turn it into a museum to display local history. He and the late Dorothy Worrell, a vice president of Tales of Cape Cod and editor of the Barnstable Patriot published in the building during the 19th Century, began a campaign to save it. They contacted U.S. Senator Leverett Saltonstall who put the wheels in motion to have the property sold to the Town of Barnstable for the sum of $1-dollar. It came to pass in 1960.

Cataldo to the rescue

Under his management, working cooperatively with all of the historical societies of the community and Tales of Cape Cod, the Trayser Museum prospered for many years. Lou was instrumental in saving the Old Gaol which had been used as part of Marganella Holway’s barn. It is one of the oldest wood jails in New England. It was moved to the site but was torched by teenage vandals and never properly restored. 

Lou Catalto

That is something to be done in the future, says Lou and Joe Dugas is fully behind that idea. But first things first. We have to walk before we can run and until the middle of June we were barely crawling! Many of directors were disheartened by the slow pace of the project. There were many delays created by regulatory processes that had to be followed.

The antique landmark that dominated Cobbs Hill since the 1850s had been deteriorating for years from lack of proper maintenance. It was finally vacated in 2004 by the Barnstable Historical Society which had been operating the Trayser Museum. 

The interior was a shambles-- peeling paint, crumbling plaster, cracked tiles, worn flooring and falling ceilings. The exterior of the 1856 edifice was also in need of repair.

Lou Cataldo and Joe Dugas, both of Barnstable Village, had worked together raising funds to erect life sized bronze statues of West Barnstable natives James Otis Jr. “The Patriot” and his famous sister, Mercy Otis Warren. Both these early patriots were among the forgotten heroes of the American Revolution.

Raised the funds for the Courst House statues

 Lou formed a committee, raised funds and commissioned noted Osterville artist David Lewis to sculpt the statues. These beautiful statues resting on granite pedestals stand today in front of the Barnstable Superior Courthouse in Barnstable Village. The Otis’s won’t be forgotten. 

The Cataldo-Dugas combination came together again to preserve and promote history by raising funds to erect David Lewis’ sculpture of the late President John F. Kennedy who called Hyannisport “home”. The life size bronze of JFK is to be placed in front of the JFK Museum on Main Street in downtown Hyannis.

With all this on his plate, Cataldo and Dugas responded to an RFP by town manager John Klimm to take over operation of the Trayser Museum.

The town agreed to repair the leaking roof and take care of some maintenance costs but the all volunteer Trayser Museum Group would have to pay for the costly interior restoration during the first phase of reconstruction, re-open the museum in conjunction with the U.S. Life-Saving-Service Association from Nantucket and prove they were capable of operating the historic old structure to benefit the public.

Well, after months of delay, the lease between the Town of Barnstable and the Trayser Museum Group, dba the U.S. Coast Guard Heritage Museum at the Trayser, was signed.

The delays cost us the pro bono services of contractor Sturgis St. Peter who was going to do the restoration work. It almost cost us the support of the Nantucket Life-Saving-Service Heritage Museum whose directors began to doubt that we could possibly make our target opening day of July 15th. 

In the meantime, the Barnstable Historic Society systematically looted the old Trayser Museum and took everything including Lou Cataldo’s fantastic collection of Indian Artifacts, paintings donated to the town by people long dead, and everything that could be moved. They even took the chandeliers that had been in place for years.

We had no money, no exhibits to display and a badly deteriorated historic site that had to be restored before we could plan anything.

Lyndon Lorusso Charitable Trust seed money

Seed money for Cataldo’s new Trayser Museum group came in a grant from the Lyndon Lorusso Charitable Trust as promised by Paul Lorusso who, though incapacitated by illness, is still listed as an honorary director.

 Paul and Lila Lorusso had always given generously to Cataldo’s endeavors to preserve and promote local history.  Long time Lorusso friend and associate Mark Thompson now manages the charitable foundation, named for their deceased only child. They came through with the seed money we needed. Without their generous grant, the project would have collapsed.

 Lou Cataldo was determined to get the new maritime heritage museum open. Contractor Sturgis St. Peter, now into his busy season, could not do the restoration work.  He had expected to work during his slack period in February and early March. The lease wasn’t signed and there were many other delays because of regulatory rules and regulations dealing with historic site renovations.

One of our directors, Jim Walker of Tales of Cape Cod, wears many hats. Among them is the Race Point Lighthouse restoration project in Provincetown. He recommended   we contact Dana Green of Buzzards Bay who worked to restore the Race Point landmark.

 It was a brilliant suggestion and Mr. Green, whose Buzzards Bay company is Yankee Wood Products, was perfect for the job. He hit it off with the town’s director of planning and historic preservation Tom Broadrick and Joanna Boucher designated by Town Manager Klimm to be the point person for the project.

We were ready to go and still had no money. That’s when the Chairman of the Board, Joe Dugas, came through with a major loan which he stands to lose if we don’t make it. He and his wife have been involved in charitable fund raising throughout the Cape Cod community. They believe the Coast Guard Heritage Museum at the Trayser is   worth the risk.

We now had enough to place in escrow the deposit demanded by the town and we had money to pay Mr. Green to complete phase one of the restoration.  It’s done. You must see it. The place looks as it did in 1856 when it opened as the U.S. Custom House for Customs District VII which covered all of the ports and lighthouses on Cape Cod. 

Now we must get the exhibits set up, labeled and recorded. We also had to assemble enough volunteers to be docents and undergo training.  That’s where former Coast Guardsman and member of the Nantucket Life Saving Service Association Museum, John Manning of Marstons Mills came in. 

This is a man who knows everybody and everything that is part of the history Coast Guard and the Life Saving Service. He was “volunteered” to us by Maurice Gibbs, president Emeritus of the Nantucket Life Saving Museum.  John was so willing and so knowledgeable that we unanimously voted to make him the “Operational Vice President in Charge of the Coast Guard Heritage Museum at the Trayser.”

When the exhibits looked too thin, he contacted others in the U.S. Life-Saving Service Association asking them to loan us some of their treasures.  They did and what we have assembled is a truly fantastic collection of memorabilia from our maritime heritage. Working with Commander Gibbs and utilizing Lou Cataldo’s long association with shipwreck historian Bill “Shipwreck” Quinn of the lower Cape, we will have an exhibit of his photos of shipwrecks collected over a generation.

Richard Boonisar of Dennis is loaning his incredible collection of medals awarded over the centuries to valorous “surf men” who manned the life saving stations along the Coast from the time they were started by the Massachusetts Humane Society to the present time.  There are historic old Coast Guard flags, books and equipment used by the legendary “Surfmen” whose motto was “You have to go…but you don’t have to come back.”  Many of them did not come back from their rescue missions.

I even dug up some treasurers given to me by the late Charles C. Dalton of Sandwich and his wife, Fanny Cross Dalton.  Mr. Dalton’s father, John W. Dalton, campaigned relentlessly to have the U.S. Government to put the “Life Savers of Cape Cod” and the other coastal states under the umbrella of the Coast Guard. That finally happened.

There is so much already on board, we will have to work overtime to get it all together for our July 15th opening. But the talents, dedication and hard work of men like John Manning and Jim Walker who have been tireless in gathering display cases, putting them together, finding furniture and artifacts, getting our signs done and more are responsible for getting us up and ready.

We have benefited from the advice and counsel of retired Comptroller of the Coast Guard, Capt. Robert O’Brien and Retired Admiral and former State Senator John Aylmer of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.  The skills of the clerk of our Corporation  Attorney Peter Freeman who has worked over time to review contracts and agreements and represent us before the Old Kings Highway Historic District Commission are fantastic. And he has done it all during the time he moved his law offices from Yarmouthport to Centerville.

Another tireless worker who gets things done and seems to move mountains when necessary is our Treasurer, Dennis Mahoney, who was volunteered to the board of directors by Joe Dugas. The guy is making magic for us!

And then there is the quiet advice and generosity of Cape Cod businessman Stuart Bornstein, one of our directors, who donated the video surveillance system without which we could not guarantee the security of the valuable items on display.

Now all we need is more volunteers and more money!  The opening will be on Friday, July 15th at 10:00 A.M. There will be no admission charge until after our official commissioning ceremony in August.  But that doesn’t mean people can’t donate to our cause or purchase memberships which will help us raise the funds we are going to need to complete our mission which is to build and equip a world class, year round Maritime Museum at the Trayser.

Then we have to restore the Trayser Museum, arrange for tours by school children of Cape Cod, restore the Old Gaol, bring the Village Blacksmith up to the site and plan a whole series of lectures and demonstrations to make history come alive on Cape Cod.

We have a lot of history that is being forgotten or ignored. We are out to change that and hope we will have the support of hundreds of like minded citizens—private and corporate—to help us reach our goals.

Francis I. Broadhurst is the senior political columnist on Cape Cod, having written for the Cape Cod Times off and on since 1964. For many years he authored "The Broadhurst Report" on WQRC, and he is a lifelong registered Republican who has served as Chairman of the Board of Selectmen in Barnstable. You may write him at 88 Stony Cliff Road, Centerville, MA 02632 or e-mail him at FIBcape@aol.com.