The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-11-04
TIP.END OF YANKEE LAND.
The Extremity of Cape Coda Quaint
and Historic Spot

The Extremity Of Cape Coda Quaint
and Historic Spot
One of the historic places in America, in
feriorin desert of renown to none, though
comparatively unrecognized, is Province.
town, at the extremity of Cape Cod, in
Massachusetts, bay. Its spacious, deep
and land locked harbor terminates one
of the most formidable parts of u At
lantic coast, where in a single storm,
in 1858, twenty-one vessels were wreck
ed in a space of ten miles. Here, on the
eleventh of November, 1920, the MayAow-
er, after a ~sixty-six days voyage, found
temporary refuge, eighteen years after Bar
tholomew Gosnold had discovered and
given its present name to the cape. Here
occurred the first birth in the Pilgrim
Colony, that of Peregrine White, and
the first death, that of Mrs. Mary Brad
ford, the Governors wife, who fell over
board from the ship. From here the OK
plorations were conducted, which fl
nally discovered Plymouth, twenty-five
miles west, on the opposite side OF the
bay, to be the 6ttest place fer settlement.
Close by Provincetown, at Truro, the
explorers, under Captain Standish, dis
covered the deposit of Indian corn,
which saved the colony from famine.
But that which chiefly gives the place
historic fame is the birth of American
republicanism in the civil compact,
which was here framed and signed by
%forty-one persons in the cabin of the
Mavhower, Just one mouth before the
landing at Plymouth. From the germ
thus unfolded at Provincetown there
came, in natural development, the Dec
laration signed at Philadelphia one hun.
dred and t~ifty-s;x years later. 1t is in
tended ere long to commemorate this
great transaction by a suitable memorial
building on the hill overlooking the
Mayhower's anchorage.
Thoreau called Provincetown the most
maritime of American towns, though
Key West might compete with it for
that distinction. In his intensely realis-
tic book, "Cape Cod," n a almost
smell the salt, and hear the surf, and
feel the land yielding to his tread. One
who lives far inland finds an experience
worth his journey in walking, with
Thoreau, along the desolate seashore, far
from every roof but those of the life-sav-
ing patrol, and by the skeletons of
whales, and fragments of wrecks cast
up by the storms.
Every night, even in the widest
storms, from September to May, this
shore is traverscd by watchers for endan-
gered vessels, each man walking from
his station to the halfway house, where
he meets a man from the next station,
exchanges checks with him, and returns
to the station where he deposits his
check for record of his work.
Massachusetts, bay is enclosed by Cape
Ann on the north, all of rock, and Cape
Cod on the south, all of sand. The lat
ter would seem to have been built out of
the debris Of the former, carried along
In a gigantic swirl or eddy of the current
along shore from the north; and such a
theory has been entertained by some
biologists. On this sandy soil forests
that have now disappeared tlourished a
century ago, and a profitable agriculture
was kept up, but the livelihood of the
population is now more derived from the
sea.
1t is a sight worth seeing to watch the
unloading of a schooner from the Grand
banks. returning after four or five months
absence with fifty or sixty thousand cod
fish, every one caught singly with hook
and line, and rs soon as caught, split,
sailed and slowed away. These are
tossed up on a hay fork by the dozen
from the hold to the deck, and thence
to the wharf, where they are washed by
8 gang in a dory for a tub, then trundled
to the shed, where in summer time they
are picked in huge butts. Thirty
thousand hogsheads of salt, brought
t.. chiefly from the Mediterranean. at about
$3.50 a hogshead, are annually used
here. In the autumn the fish are spread
out to dry on 'fakes," spacious horizon
tai frames of Stats, two or three feet from
the ground, from which, if a rain comes
up, they must be taken in, as if they
were hay. An assemblage of these
s'fakes," covering the space of a good
sized garden plat, is sometimes spoken
of as a ''6sh-orchard." There is more
of work and exposure and risk i'll the
business than of money, at the rate of
two cents per pound, and these two or
three years past have been losing years
for the fishermen, who complain that the
retailers get all the profit.
The mackerel fishery IS prosecuted
from Provincetown all along shore.
Some of these vessels are of most grace
full build, and, but for their boats tow
ing astern, might be taken to be pleas
ure yachts. The seines used are sometimes
of great size, a quarter of a mile in length
by a hundred feet in depth. When a boat
has pulled one of these so as to enclose
q school of mackerel, it is purscd up
at the bottom. and the fish are trans
ferred to the deck of the schooner, as
rapidly as a gang of men can split and
barrel them. In this business also. plen-
tiful as the mackerel have been, the fish
ermen complain that there is for themno
money, cargoes having been sold as low
as $3.50 barrel. half of which goes for
the barrel, salt and cost of inspection.
But where the sea fails to yield q liv-
ing in one way, 1t is made to in another.
Summer visitors come to the cape in large
numbers for its climate and the cool
breezes which from every side blow of
from the sea. Every morning a staunch
boat, stcaming from Boston fifty miles
southeast to Provincetown, affords the
novelty and excitement of a short ocean
voyage, generally calm enough in sum
mer to avoid nausea. Whales are now
and then seen blowing in the bay, and
fishing vessels are passed at their work.