EHS Goings On...

 It’s that time of year again and we are gearing up for a busy Spring and Summer season at our museums. Our first event of the season is Sunday, May 15^th -The Annual Spring Meeting - 5pm-7pm at The Nauset Baptist Church. Guest Speaker Joe Manas will tell us about “The History of the Transatlantic Cable and the French Cable Station Museum in Orleans”   Hope to see you there.

 A digital projector for the Schoolhouse
A projection screen for the Schoolhouse
A cassette to digital recorder
  (The cassettes of interviews with Easthamers past and present about our history are rapidly deteriorating and need to be preserved digitally.)
A laptop computer

    VOLUNTEER Wish List

Guides for the Schoolhouse Museum
Guides for the Swift-Daley House
Helpers at the Archives
Guides at the Tool Museum
Computer people to input data at the
Archives and the Schoolhouse

        To Donate or Volunteer:
email:easthamhistorical@verizon.net
 call The Schoolhouse, 508 255 1407

 We now have a page on Facebook. So Visit us! Friend us! Be sure to also check out our website at: www.easthamhistorical.org  A calendar of events for 2011 is enclosed with this newsletter. Have a great summer everyone!

Swift Daley House Museums
Maureen Andujar and Dawn Carlson, Curators

With the arrival of spring, our thoughts turn to the reopening of our museums, including the Swift-Daley house, Dill Beach Camp, Ranlett Tool Museum and gift shop.  We have started to unwrap the interior of the Swift-Daley house, checking closets, drawers, and storage boxes for antiques, fabrics and vintage clothing to display within our two story museum.

The grounds of the museum have seen some improvement. The overgrown lilac bushes between the museum and the post office have been removed.  Trees have been trimmed up and gardens have been tended to.

         GIFT SHOP OPENING
Beginning in May, the gift shop open on
Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
SHOP OUR ANNUAL 50% OFF SALE .

 ALSO  FEATURED IN THE GIFT SHOP:
 Dorcas Gill’s Hand Carved Shore Birds, Vintage Jewelry, Framed Prints, Glassware, and much more. 

 Also
Newly made-up gift baskets suitable for Mother’s Day.  

In Addition
 We will be accepting books for our Annual Book, Plant and White Elephant Sale to be held on Sunday, June 5.

  We are always looking for donations of items suitable for our gift shop—all proceeds from shop sales are used for the upkeep of the museums. To make a donation  please call: Mo Andujar at 508-240-3005 or Dawn Carlson at 508-240-1936.

A Walk in Eastham
With Kate Moore Alpert

Since this winter was cold and snowy with not much incentive to venture outside let’s now take a walk and walk toward Salt Pond, leaving from the National Seashore Visitor site on Treat’s Hill. In 1691 the Town of Eastham authorized the building of a meeting house for the Indian worshipers on the hill overlooking the pond. Reverend Samuel Treat was the minister who learned the Indian language in order to minister to them in their language. Rev. Treat died in 1717 and is buried in the Cove Cemetery.

Our walk will start with the old Prentice house which previously sat on that site overlooking the Salt Pond and ocean. When the National Seashore came to town in 1961, Charles “Buddy” Chase purchased the Prentice house and moved it across the highway, attaching it to the south side of his small restaurant, the Hillside Grille. After enlarging the Grille with this house he renamed it the Hillside Restaurant. It is now known as the Lobster Shanty and no longer owned by the Chase family.

Walking along the sidewalk to the corner of Rt. 6 and Locust Rd. where an old Eastham house, built in 1846 by Jessie Collins, a sea captain was located. Not wanting to leave the ocean behind in his retirement Jessie built the house overlooking the Salt Pond and ocean beyond. At that time the highway was not where it is today, so his property went to the shores of Salt Pond. The house later became known as the Joshua Atwood house where Joshua ran a store, and according to legend, rum was a popular item. In a 1980 tape my parents recorded for the Eastham Historical Society archives my father said his father, Albert Moore, was born in the house in 1866. How he came to be born there I am not sure; although it is possible my great grandfather, Winslow Moore, might have at one time owned the house (old records show he owned several properties in the neighborhood). And of course as a kid growing up in Eastham the furthest thought from my mind was to inquire of history of the Moore family —that only came with older age and becoming home sick for things and times past. The house was destroyed by fire in March 2004, and a new house has been constructed to resemble the original 1846 house.

Crossing Locust Rd., we walk on the sidewalk and look across the highway at a large piece of vacant land adjacent to Salt Pond. On that site was a large impressive house ca. late 1700s, in later years dubbed the Salt Pond House. Notice of a deed found in the Moore family’s belongings show a deed dating to 1835 when a mortgage deed for $300 from Elisha Cobb was given to John Kenrick of Orleans. Elisha’s second wife was Sophie Kenrick, the daughter of John Kenrick. Elisha was the postmaster tending the post office in the house from 1827 to 1841. Elisha also operated a stage stop and tavern where the stage from Boston to Provincetown would stop to drop off the mail (and maybe a passenger or two would grab a quick drink of rum to sustain them on the way). The notice of the deed also states there is a salt works on the property near the Mill Pond River. At that time our Salt Pond was called Mill Pond, and the referred to river is the inlet going out into the marsh. In June of 1890 my great grandparents, Winslow and Margaret Moore, purchased the property from the Cobb estate for $300. It remained in the Moore family until the late 1930s when it was sold. The Salt Pond House was demolished by the National Seashore sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
Look across Salt Pond and the inlet where now there is a forest of cedar trees, and you will be looking at those hills where once stood an 18 hole golf course built in 1925 by Quincy Shaw. The course, Cedar Bank Links, was built on property owned by the Shaw family and the Richardson family on the north side of the bluffs overlooking the Salt Pond inlet and marsh and, with six holes (11-16) located on the Luce property on the south side of the pond and inlet. To play those holes on the Luce side of the course players certainly had to show their driving skills. Teeing off from the course on the Shaw/Richardson side of the inlet, the players’ drive had to be a good one so the ball did not fall short of its trajectory and land in the inlet. They would then load into one of Quincy’s duck hunting boats and paddle across the inlet to continue their game. Quincy Shaw was no doubt an exacting man, as is evidenced by the letter signed by him on July 10, 1931 to Miss Frances Sullivan when she requested to play on those holes, which were across the highway from her house.

   When the Shaws would retire to Boston for the winter, the neighborhood kids would go on golf ball expeditions looking for lost balls that landed in the brush and into the inlet. My brother had quite a cache of golf balls and it was often the kids would trade balls if one looked as if it might be more valuable (or celebrity used). The course was abandoned in 1950.

The Luce property overlooking the marsh and ocean was at the end of a dirt driveway off Kings Rd. (now Rt. 6) bordered on the north by the Moore property and the south by Town of Eastham property, near where the Eastham Police Station is now located. In going through my late father’s photographs, there is a wonderful old photo of young Matthew Luce’s 14th birthday party taken in 1914 when my father, Maurice Moore, was 13. The Luces were summer residents but in those days the community was small, and summer folks and locals all played together, as they did in my time as a child in Eastham. In that picture are many familiar old Eastham names, Hermie Dill, Muriel and Doris Penniman, Alton Crosby, Bernard Crosby, Althea Bangs, Margaret Dill, Maurice Moore.

If we turn around on the sidewalk and face west we are looking at a ca. 1860 gothic revival house, built by Beniah Higgins, a sea captain. After retiring from the rigors of sea faring, Beniah operated a store in the house until his death in 1876, selling food, sundries, fabrics and other necessities to sustain families in the small community. In 1890 the Henry Sullivan family purchased the property and ran it as a boarding house. The present owner is a granddaughter of the Sullivans. Frances Sullivan whose request to play on the golf course was a daughter of Henry Sullivan.

Walking back to Locust Rd., on that corner of Locust and the highway known as Kings Rd., is a Cape Cod House built by George Seabury in 1820.George operated a post office in the home from 1843 to 1860. Upon George’s death his grandson John Sparrow inherited the property. John was an asparagus farmer farming on several acres of fields behind the house, continuing up Locust Rd. to where Locust and Salt Pond Rds. intersect. That is a lot of asparagus! And because of the many other asparagus farmers in that particular area of Eastham, we as kids would be sent out by my mother into the long abandoned asparagus fields to find asparagus stalks for supper. There were many meals gleaned from those fields.

Kings Rd., the main road to Provincetown, took a sharp left turn here by the Seabury House and Jesse Collins House. Walking up this part of the road, now called Locust Rd. we come to the little triangle at the intersection of Salt Pond Rd. (now the name of part of the former highway) and Locust Rd. In that triangle was a trough and an old wooden pump as a stopping off point for weary travelers and their horses to take a drink of water. There was a stone mile marker informing them Provincetown was 22 miles away and Plymouth was 52. The trough is now on the Windmill Green; the mile marker is on land in front of the Eastham Schoolhouse Museum.

Archives
Bobbie Cornish, Bonnie Cormier, Curators

In each newsletter the various curators include information of the activities in their Museums and the Archives. Curator Bonnie Cormier was looking through the Archives files for something to include in this Newsletter. Without knowledge of what I was writing about the golf course, she came across the letter written by Quincy Shaw to Miss Sullivan. With her keen sense of history and of what is going on in town, she thought the letter would be interesting. In this year of 2011 the Seashore is celebrating its 50th anniversary of being the Cape Cod National Seashore. Those properties where the golf course was located are all now within the National Seashore. The letter pictured here is not so clear. But to take a look at the original visit the Archives, located at the Eastham Library, any Tuesday between 1 and 4.
 

More Early Eastham Tidbits
By Kate Moore Alpert

In doing some research at the Archives, I found this bit of memorabilia from an unidentified newspaper. It was found in a file of clippings dated from the years 1882 to 1887. This below comes from one dated 1882.

“EASTHAM The monthly collection for the support of preaching in this town, will be taken next Sunday morning. 'Deo Volente.' In case of no service on account of the weather, the collection will be taken the next pleasant Sunday.

Skating parties have been quite the thing of late. On the large pond near the depot, on the moonlit eve of the 30th night, your correspondent counted 50 skaters. The shouts of laughter and glee heard from a distance spoke of high sport.

Trustees of the church will please hereby take notice. A Trustee meeting is called for by the pastor, to be held on Saturday afternoon at 2o’clock at the store of A.H. Cobb. Will those who see this please be present, and give notice to others? A full yearly report must be made out before Wednesday the8th inst. Important business will be transacted.

Nathan Gill, aged 72 yrs., 9 months, died near his home, Jan. 25th. The funeral was held at the house on Friday, Jan. 27. Mr. Gill united with the M.E. Church in April 1845. He was righteous man. When in health he used to attend regularly all the means of grace. The people used to be pleased always to hear him speak in meeting because his remarks carried weight with them. He was gentle, kind and good; above reproach, and honest in all his dealings. The pursuance of evil by any in the community was always a source of grief to this good man. The text and sermon given at the house were applicable to him. The text was, ‘The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.’ Mr. Gill leaves a wife, who united with the church at the same time he did. The children are Thos. K. Gill, Heman S. Gill, Nathan Gill, Jr., Fred Gill, Mrs. John Clark.”

The pond where the skating parties took place was probably the pond behind the Eastham Library. In various years known as Long Pond, Mill Pond or Depot Pond—take your pick. The Arthur H. Cobb store where the trustees met was erected in 1879 near the Millennial Grove area - Camp Ground Beach Rd., Massasoit Rd. and Oak Rd. in North Eastham. Millennial Grove was a Methodist camp meeting place started in 1828 on a 10 acre plot of land in what is now the Camp Ground Rd. area. The Grove held preaching and prayer meetings every August under the leafy canopy where thousands would come to worship. They would come from all over the Cape and the Boston area by foot, horse and buggy and packets from the upper Cape and Boston. If arriving by steamer, passengers were put into small boats and then closer to shore would be transferred to horses and wagons, and finally walking a mile to the camp ground. Apparently prayer and meditating was not the sole purpose of attending the camp meetings where accounts of gaiety and picnicking on the abundant seafood and lobsters, children romping in the open grounds, and adults enjoying the serenity of the area. Interest in the Grove campground started to wane in the 1850s and in 1863 when the Boston train was extended to Yarmouth, the Grove was closed and a camp meeting ground in Yarmouth was used for several years. That Yarmouth location was off what is now Willow St. going toward Hyannis, somewhat near where the airport is located.

In the 1980 tape my parents made for the Eastham Historical Society Archives, my father tells a little “tall tale”(?) about his grandparents going to the Millennial Grove for a meeting. His grandparents were not yet married and his grandfather, Winslow Moore, asked his grandmother, Margaret, if she would go to a meeting with him. She replied that she could only go to a meeting if they were married, so his grandfather said, “Well, I guess we will have to get married then.” This may be another Moore “tall tale,” but it was one of those Eastham tales told around the holiday tables, and then made it to the Eastham Historical Society archival tapes. I would venture to guess there may be other tapes with a few “tall tales” thrown in, but the interviews of old Eastham folk is a wonderful history of the townsfolk no longer with us who contributed to life and work in the town. They are available at the Eastham Library. This lady is my great grandmother Margaret Moore who is seen standing in front of the Salt Pond House. (picture on page 2)

In 1886 George P. and Samuel Brackett purchased the Cobb store selling general merchandise, clothing, food, and also had a delivery wagon delivering merchandise to people’s homes. That building is today still standing and is the thrift shop on the corner of Massasoit and Oak Rds.

The church trustees were from M.E. church, the Methodist Church, which was on the grounds of what is now the Evergreen Cemetery on Rt. 6, across the highway from Arnolds. The church was destroyed by fire in September 1920. This picture of the church is from an antique postcard dating to around 1910. The postcard was No. 78202 published by George H. Clark, Eastham, Mass. Printed in Germany. George Clark owned a large store at the railroad station complex on the corner of Samoset Rd., and the tracks, now the bike trail. The store was built by his father Edward in 1871 and in 1879 sold it to his son, George who operated the store until the early 1920s. Shop keepers often published postcards to be sold in their stores to tourists and townsfolk. The store was a gathering place for townsfolk where they would purchase farm equipment, groceries, some clothing and other items, including the postcards. It also housed the post office and the first library in town which was on the second floor. The library moved into its newly built building on Samoset Rd. in 1897.  

And this from September 28, 1883.
 “ North Eastham
Capt. Phil Smith was thrown from his carriage one day last week and was pretty well shaken up, but not seriously injured.
Z.H.F. Smith and wife returned to their home in Charlestown on the 21st.
Geo. H. Dill has had a cupola built on his new barn which adds greatly to its appearance. The work was done by J. E. Brewer.
Arrivals at the Nauset House: R.E. Newcomb, Wellfleet; Mrs. N.C. Newcomb, Mrs. T.S. Dyer, Lynn; Mrs. Carrie A. Harding, Swampscott; George L. Frye, Detroit, Mich; Mrs. H.E. Lewis, North Truro; A. Barlett, Harwich; F. Bryant, New Bedford.
The gale Tuesday about cleared the fruit trees and gave the weirs a severe shaking up.”

Capt. Phil Smith b.1821, d.1891 was an Eastham fisherman and farmer. There were several Smith families in Eastham; the Capt. Phil Smith families’ ancestors and descendents lived in the Kingsbury Beach Rd. area. Capt. Smith owned 200 acres around Great Pond and Kingsbury Beach Rd. When I was a child my parents were friends of Capt. Phil’s grandson, Luther P. Smith, and we spent many happy hours at the ca. 1840 white Capt. Smith farmhouse with a wide sweeping yard and fields overlooking Great Pond. Capt. Phil Smith is buried in the Congregational & Soldiers Cemetery.

George Dill’s property where Jesse Brewer built the new cupola on the barn was located on Kings Rd. (Rt. 6) in North Eastham. The house, a 1-1/2 story Cape with windows tight to the eves indicate it was most likely built around 1830, perhaps even a little earlier. The house was purchased in 1973 by Robert Erickson who moved it further east so it now faces onto Nauset Rd. The Viking Shores Motel is now located on that spot where the Dill house originally sat.

People arriving at The Nauset House were coming to what once was a store built in 1830 and operated by Abraham Horton in North Eastham on Kings Rd. (Rt. 6). When Mr. Horton died the store became a hotel, The Nauset House. Judging by the arrivals in Sept. of 1883, Eastham had become something of a vacation spot long before tourism became so popular here.

Both cemeteries mentioned in this newsletter are a chronicle of life in Eastham beginning in 1829 when the Congregational & Soldiers Cemetery was established. The Eastham Historical Society published a book compiled by Margaret H. Weiler in October 1987, entitled “Cemetery Inscriptions, Congregational & Soldiers Cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery.” It can be purchased from our two museums. Margaret Weiler’s ancestors were Eastham Hortons. The Cemetery book is dedicated in memory of her parents Clarence Reuben Horton Jr. 1914-1984 and Louise Carolyn Gardner Horton, 1911-1987.

40 Years Ago in April in Eastham
From the Eastham column in the Cape Codder, Thursday April 29, 1971, by Katherine Moore

  “The Eastham Conservation Commission will distribute free trees to all the people who ordered them last fall on Saturday May 8 from 9am to 3pm, and on Sunday, May 9 from 9am to 12noon at the Eastham Town Hall parking lot.

CHANGES
  The former home of George Wiley on Massasoit Road in North Eastham has been sold to George Horton, who will do some renovating in preparation for occupancy upon his retirement. Miss Amelia Sylvia, who lived at the Wiley home for 20 years, reports that she is very content in her own home in Orleans—a little lonesome perhaps for her Eastham friends of so many years, but she hopes to see them, or hear from them often. Amelia was only twelve years old when she went to live with William and Carrie

 Forrest in the house which is now the Grist Mill Restaurant opposite the present Eastham Post Office.  Mr. Forrest owned and managed a country grocery store across the road on the site of the present Whispering Pines Service Station—a fascinating store with a side porch on the front. After selling the store to Mr. Stowell, William Forrest had a home built in Orleans; Carrie Forrest having passed on, Amelia moved along to the Orleans home. Mr. Forrest died in 1951, and in his will he had bequeathed the Orleans home to Amelia.   And there she is, her 20 years in the George Wiley home ended, because of the death of Mr. Wiley. Conveniently located near the center of Town, Amelia hopes her friends will ‘drop in.’                
SPRING.   
Now the bees often find the mid-day sun warm enough for them to venture forth. Fifty-three degrees is their heat—or cold---threshold. Below that they stay in the hive; above, they buzz about in the sunshine, drink at the edge of the pool, or venture farther toward the swamp to the south. All three hives seem to have wintered well. But it is a rather austere time for them—the fruit blossoms have not arrived, and only the tiniest of the wild flowers, such as the blue ground ivy blossom or the storks bill. The slopes are carpeted with the lovely blue myrtle, but somehow I never see the bees on them. They go for the few crocuses and hyacinths, but for thousands of bees the harvest is pretty sparse. But there was a good shower last night, so what can follow but May flowers?”

   William Forrest’s house (ca. mid 1700s) is now the property belonging to the Grist Mill Antique Shop. I believe the Grist Mill Restaurant vacated the property sometime in the mid 1980s.  The Forrest’s Gift Shoppe and Filling Station was as my mother stated, a local grocery store (today I guess we would call it a convenience store) selling staples, miscellany, candy displayed in large bow front glass cases with oak trim, and gasoline. It was the gathering place for the men in town to sit around the old pot bellied stove and talk the local gossip, or how things should be done in town. I don’t remember much about going to Forrest’s when I was a small child, although I am sure I did go with my dad as he was most likely one of those present who enjoyed talking about “how things should be done in town.” I do remember it as Al Stowell’s in the 1940s. Many a day after school we would walk up to Stowell’s store for a loaf of bread or a quart of milk, with pennies in hand to purchase the dazzling array of colorful candy. Occasionally Al would give us an extra piece, which of course we began to expect with each trip to the store.

   A new sweet novelty came on the market in 1947, the Hoodsie cup. On those days when we did not have basketball practice or orchestra practice after school at Orleans High School (now the Middle School on Rt. 28), we would ask Nate Clark the bus driver to drop us off at Stowell’s to purchase our after school Hoodsie fix.

   My father kept bee hives on the little hillside overlooking his vegetable garden, and the split rail fence covered with succulent grapes. He had built a small pond next to the gardens which had families of goldfish swimming among the gorgeous pond lilies, and on warm days one would see the bees at the edge of the pool quenching their thirst. I can still see him standing at the hives covered in protective clothing and face mask smoking out the bees in order to extract honey from the combs. That honey was indeed delicious.

How doth the little busy bee, Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day, From each opening flower.

Isaac Watts

2011 Schedule at The Schoolhouse
Open: July and August,
Tuesday and Wednesday 1 PM to 4 PM
Thursday and Friday 10 AM to 4 PM.

Join us for our annual Old Fashioned
Ice Cream Social on the lawn
Labor Day weekend, 1 to 4 PM,
Saturday Sept. 10
Windmill Weekend, Saturday, 1 to 4 PM

 
2011 Schedule at
The Swift-Daley House Museum,
Ranlett Tool Museum
Dill Beach Camp
Open July and August,
 Monday-Friday, 10 AM to 1 PM,
Saturday Sept. 10
Windmill Weekend, 10am to 2 pm
Gift Shop At Swift-Daley
Open Each Saturday in May
Open during July & August the same hours as
the Museums at Swift Daley

Sunday May 15
Eastham Historical Society
Annual Meeting
&
Pot Luck Supper
5 to 7 PM
at
The Nauset Baptist Church
Voting for officers plus
an overview of the Society’s business.
Guest Speaker Joe Manas
The History of the Transatlantic Cable
and the French Cable Station in Orleans.
 
Please join us and bring your favorite dish for 6 people. In addition be sure to bring a place setting .
We’ll supply the coffee and beverages.

Proposal for by-law change:

“The Board of Directors shall consist of no more than 12 members”

2. Election of Officers and Board Members

 Proposed Slate of Officers

Gloria Schropfer—President

Maureen Andujar—Vice President

Mary Sedlock—Secretary

Lucy Cookson-Treasurer

Proposed Slate of Board of Directors

Kate Alpert—Board Member 3 yr Term

Lucy Cookson-Board Member 3 yr Term

Tom Lenox-Board Member 3 yr. Term

Kathy Sette—Board Member 3 yr. Term

Please send in your 2011 Membership dues if you haven't already done so. Dues are an important part of our budget toward the maintenance of the museums. Check the mailing address for your dues status. 2011
membership dues are payable by the date of the Annual meeting.

 Dues: $15 per Individual ______ $25 per Family_____ $50 Friend______$100 Donor_______

 Donation toward the reprinting of the Alice Lowe History of Eastham Book which is an important history of our town. ________Proceeds of all publications (after the expense of printing) go toward the maintenance of our museums.

 Donation towards our Scholarship Fund:_________Each year a scholarship is awarded to Eastham High School Senior.

 Total Amount Enclosed:__________

 Name_________________________________________________________________________________
Street/PO______________________________________________________________________________
Town____________________________________________________State___________ Zip___________

 Telephone______________________ Email ___________________________________________________

 Don’t forget, your total donation is tax deductible and also qualifies for Matching Gift programs.

It has been said that, at its best, preservation engages the past in a conversation over the present with a mutual concern for the future.   William J. Murtagh