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Historic attractions, shipwrecks and solitude on Cape Cod
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Many things come to mind when you mention Cape Cod – JFK walking the beach at his summer White House at Hyannisport, a getaway for the well-to-do, the arts and alternative lifestyle of Provincetown. But an incredible amount of history has washed up on Cape Cod’s shores.
One of the largest barrier islands in the world and shaped like an arm flexing its bicep, Cape Cod protects much of the Massachusetts coastline from the unforgiving waves of the north Atlantic. Between Chatham and Provincetown, a distance of around fifty miles, over 1,000 wrecks are recorded, leading to its designation as an ocean graveyard.
The Sparrowhawk was the first recorded shipwreck on Cape Cod’s shores, back in,1626. That tale had a happy ending, with all the passengers reaching safety and the ship being repaired, only to sink again before it could be relaunched. Over the next few hundred years, shipwrecks became a form of income for the locals, salvaging the cargo, and sometimes the human cargo which washed ashore. Typically ships would flounder during storms however, and it was seldom that the hapless passengers reached the beaches of Cape Cod. As lifesaving techniques improved, when possible, lifesaving crews took specially equipped boats to ships in distress. When the surf made this impossible, they would attempt to fire a small cannon called a Lyle gun with a line attached to its shell to the ship. Sailors and passengers were then brought to shore in a basket above the waves. It was a dangerous task for those charged with saving lives as well, and their motto was “you have to go, but you don’t have to come back.”
Native Americans also were known to rescue stranded mariners, whose ships piled up on Cape Cod’s shore. The Wampanoag tribe has called Cape Cod home for many years, though they only received official recognition from the U.S. government in 2007. Originally numbering around 7,000 at the time of the pilgrim’s landing in Massachusetts, it was the Wampanoag you might remember, which helped them survive their earliest years on the new continent. The arrival of white people on the Cape had devastating consequences on the native American population, as the tribe was hit hard from Eurasian diseases for which they had no natural immunity.
And forget Plymouth Rock. The pilgrims made their first landing on these shores near Provincetown on November 11, 1620. It was there that the Mayflower Compact was drawn up, and a scouting party sent ashore to look for a suitable area for their colony. They encountered Indians near Eastham, and found no spot suitable for habitation, so once again the Mayflower set off, before finally settling on Plymouth.
And it’s believed that the pilgrims weren’t the first Europeans to come ashore on Cape Cod. There is evidence that the Promontory of Vinland mentioned by the Norse voyagers of 985-1025 was Cape Cod. Some believe that in 1006, Leif Ericson and his Vikings started a colony near Dennis. Archeological evidence has been found which might support the theory that it was here that the Norsemen built a form of dry dock to repair their ships. Whether the Vikings reached as far south as Cape Cod will probably never be known for certain however.
Henry Thoreau’s incredibly dry travelogue Cape Cod paints a picture of the area in the years 1849-1857. By then the land had been denuded of trees, and firewood had to be shipped in from Maine. The sand encroached on farm land and ground available for pasture, so much so that farming was abandoned on the Cape by the late nineteenth century, it’s inhabitants concentrating instead on the whaling and fishing industries.
By the end of the nineteenth century, tourism was coming to life on the Cape. Today it’s a major form of income for the locals, with much of the island’s commerce being shut down after the summer months. Which for me is the time to visit Cape Cod.
In late October and early November, you can feel the winter blowing in from the Atlantic winds, which while I was there never seemed to lie down, The colors were changing, far later than most of the rest of the northeast, and the sunsets were truly spectacular. You have the beaches to yourself, bed and breakfasts are off-season and you can get a sense of what Cape Cod was like before it became gentrified. Colonial era houses and buildings, as well as residences built for sea captains dot the landscape, and there are fewer roads which scream New England like Route 6A, which skirts serpent-like along the coast. It’s there in the solitude that the ghosts of Cape Cod speak to the traveller, of a time long gone but still out there. Below the sands and below the waves.
Posted in New England
Also tagged "fine art prints", historical attractions, native american history, travel photographer
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Historical attractions in Gotham City: A gin-soaked stroll through New York City’s Manhattan Island
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For nearly eight years, I lived only an hour’s train ride to New York City. Yet I seldom visited there, and developed a true love/hate relationship with the place. The names associated with the place now don’t ring with the same sweet tones as the ones that came before them. There are no Gershwins, Cohens, Mailers – Dorothy Parker isn’t spilling her wit all over and under the tables of the Algonquin Hotel – even Woody Allen is increasingly abandoning the place for new inspiration.
There’s no doubt in my mind that New York is the most egotistical town in the world. Whereas Paris might consider itself the center of the art world, Milan might consider itself the center of the fashion world, New York skips the modifier and is the only city I know that calls itself the center of the world. Come to think of it, New York would try to lay claims to both those titles as well.
About a year or so ago I read a fascinating book, The Island At the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto on the founding of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and how it shaped the history of what would eventually become known as New York. It turns out that American qualities such as religious freedom and tolerance of ethnic groups other than your own got their start in this country in the original Dutch colony. As well as more tawdry aspects of society such as getting loaded on strong drink and falling into the company of women of ill-repute. While their English brethren at the time living north in Massachusetts were practicing a strict, puritan form of government, the Dutch colony was allowing people to live according to their conscience, or lack thereof, and a fairly lax set of laws.
Keep this in mind the next time Christmas rolls around and people are harping about how Christmas is losing its importance and how the pilgrims who came to this country to worship as they saw fit would be appalled. Those same Christians did not tolerate any deviance from their laws, and the celebration of Christmas was outright banned. That we celebrate Christmas in this country today is a relic of the Dutch colony, whose concept of religious tolerance lives on. This is doubly curious when you consider that Holland was the country the pilgrims sailed from in order to found a new nation based on religious freedom. In other words, that Christmas exists in this country today is because of that heathen bastion now known as New York City.
Anyway, this article isn’t about religious freedom and tolerance, it’s about New York City, and where to see the history of the place, as well as historical attractions there today. It’s not as easy as you think. The original Dutch colony is almost completely gone. In fact, there are more signs of the Viking period in Dublin than there are of the Dutch in New York. When the Dutch occupied Manhattan, there were over 21 fresh water ponds and 66 miles of streams. There was a sandy beach at the southern tip of the island, and the landscape was one of gently rolling hills. The growth of Manhattan has obliterated the very landscape that the Dutch settlers found. There are the occasional discoveries of a piece of road, the foundation of a house or well, and nearly all of it is then covered over with new construction. The best place to see New Netherlands is by looking at a map, where the street layout of lower Manhattan is much the same.
The colonial period doesn’t fare much better. Even the balcony where George Washington was sworn in as our first president, outside the building where the Bill of Rights was enacted, is now remembered by a single stone tucked away in a museum. In New York, history usually plays second fiddle to real estate values.
Walking the streets of Manhattan today isn’t much different than walking the streets of any major city. You have the same chain stores – the high costs of doing business there has pushed out all but the largest retailers. There are restaurants of course, as New Yorkers increasingly define themselves by choices of eateries, few of which reflect any ethnic origins native to a particular neighborhood. The city is still a melting pot of course, but the people you see walking the streets are more than likely living elsewhere in the city or beyond, or tourists, as the cost of living has grown beyond the reach of most mere mortals.
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So where do you find history in New York? Look up. Once your gaze rises above the first or second floor, the architectural history of the city comes alive. Get off the train at Penn Station and make your way to the Flatiron Building and head down Broadway for some of the best historical architecture the city has to offer. Pass the temple to one man’s retail dreams, the Woolworth Building – as intricate as a child’s dollhouse, past the looming bulk of the Municipal Building complex and wander the archetypical canyons of the financial district in lower Manhattan. Swing by Saint Mark’s Church of the Bowery, a remnant of the days when this land was owned by New Amsterdam’s last governor, Peter Stuyvesant, and the Stuyvesant-Fish house nearby which he had built as a wedding present for his daughter. Say hello to Alexander Hamilton in his final resting place outside of Trinity Church, a structure itself hoary with history. Dine at Delmonico’s which fed such figures as Mark Twain, or at Fraunces Tavern where Washington said goodbye to his officers at the end of the revolution. Or choose any of the outdoor restaurants on Stone Street which has a fairly medieval air, and get casually fed and watered before staggering your way back up the island.
Head up Fifth Avenue and see what used to be the center of the shopping world. Look up at the Empire State Building’s shorter, Art Deco sister the Chrysler Building for a peek at what skyscrapers could be when people actually gave a damn about such things as aesthetics. Stroll into the Plaza in the footstep of the stars of long ago and hold your head high as they kick your ass back out on the pavement. Stroll along Central Park West where notables still live in buildings that might as well be temples. As for Central Park itself – eh, it’s a park. It’s trees and grass and sure, it’s notable for being in the midst of one of the largest cities on earth, but in the end, it’s a park. It’s a living space for those who live here, who’ll you see in expensive recreational uniforms, or just sitting dazed knowing they’re supposed to get sun, but not entirely sure what they should do when the sunshine hits them. And of course a place for buskers to sell their wares and incredibly high priced bottles of water and soft drinks to tourists. It’s a simulation of nature, and for me, I prefer the real thing.
In short, history is still in abundance, but you have to know where to look. And you have to realize it’s not going to be coherent, nor even make sense in the modern sprawl of the city.
Perhaps New York City is best experienced in small doses. Get there in the afternoon and wander the streets into the night. Try seeing it from the top of a tour bus and avoid the lower stories altogether. See it bleary eyed from drink when emotions might be more likely to take over, and the people might seem a bit less irritating. Yes, the fabled rude New Yorker. There are certainly as many assholes per square foot in NYC as Paris. But just as I found most Parisians to be quite charming, the true New Yorker is really quite friendly as well, eager to chat or to help you find your way.
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So it’s late in the night, my last trip there, days before fleeing the east coast and New York for good and I had been walking the streets for hours, my pockets full of cash that was a going away present from the office where I worked, feeling like an emigrant in reverse, fleeing west from the city instead of eastward across the ocean. I always felt like an emigrant here, fleeing my home and poverty for a chance at a better life in the promised land. I was looking to say goodbye to the Chrysler Building when a man came stumbling onto the sidewalk in front of me, mussed-up hair and dressed in his P.J.’s, cursing each step he took, as though he was sent out by a shrew wife on some trivial errand. And yet when stopped by some tourists who had lost their way, he was as friendly and courteous as anyone I’ve met anyplace. I dined in the building which inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, and spent more on it than I would a week’s worth of groceries. A black man outside of Penn Station bummed a cigarette from me and in exchange we walked down Broadway and smoked his marijuana. Waiting for the train I fell in with a group of strangers, ranging in age from 21 to 71 in a small bar and drank toast after toast, as I prepared to leave a place I could never feel a part of, but would certainly never forget. I lived in the shadow of that city for almost eight years, and never felt a part of it. But for a few hours, I was a New Yorker. I missed that train and the next, and as the little group who met as strangers and parted as friends drifted apart and I found myself slouched in a seat on the Long Island Railroad, an old song by the Pogues drifting through my fractured mind …
In Manhattan’s desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon
And “The Blackbird” broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan’s footsteps
I danced up and down the street
Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohan
Dear old Times Square’s favorite bard
Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides
When I got back to my empty room
I suppose I must have cried
Lyrics from Thousands are Sailing, by Philip Chevron, recorded by the Pogues.
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South Carolina’s Low Country: A Jimmy Buffet lifestyle meets the old South
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People call it the lowcountry, or low country, and it’s made up of the coastal lands south of Charleston, South Carolina, including Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties. Some include Charleston, some don’t. Some include Myrtle Beach. But all seem to agree that it’s as much a state of mind as a geographic area.
I just spent a week in the lowcountry, in a house on Edisto Beach, where I’m assured by the travel literature that I’ve had the real island living experience.
Lowcountry refers to the fact that much of the land is at sea level. In short, much of the time you’re in a swamp, or to put it euphemistically, a coastal wetland. There’s beauty in the lowlands. A subtle beauty perhaps – wild, earthy and damp. Shooting photos along side Store Creek, I found myself growing increasingly creeped out when I remembered that I was less than a hundred yards away from a tourist attraction called the Serpentarium. The point was drilled home a day or two later when I noticed a freshly squashed rattlesnake on the highway.
The first evening there we were treated to a dramatic thunderstorm, complete with torrential rains. The dunes lay between my screened-in porch and the beach, spanned by a boardwalk. Usually this is to protect the dunes. But these dunes aren’t covered with dune grass. Instead you have your own private swamp between you and the beach, and after the storm, the frogs started. Eventually I had to call someone to let them hear the chorus, which eventually got so loud we literally had to go inside to escape the sound. The next night, and all subsequent nights they were gone.
I’m not a beach person. I prefer my beaches strewn with stones and boulders rather than sand. But I can adapt to warm water. Don’t get me wrong, Edisto Beach is certainly a nice place to spend a week or two. But at times it feels more like a plantation lifestyle, rather than a Jimmy Buffet song.
There are former plantations a plenty on Edisto Island, but most are in private hands, and the only view you’ll likely get is of an avenue of oaks behind wrought iron gates. Edisto island was settled during the early days of our country, first by the Spanish, then by the English. Commerce thrived with the production of sea island cotton, considered the king of all cottons, and untold wealth poured into the area up to the Civil War. Or the War Between the States, the Confederate War, or whatever your politics lead you to call it.
This wealth was made possible with slave labor, and there’s no getting around that. By most reports, slavery in the low country was less abhorrent than in other places, not only because of a system which gave the slave more free time to live their life, but perhaps a bit more respect as well. But there were atrocities too.
And the low country is certainly haunted. There are enough legends and stories to keep a ghost-hunter busy for some time.
The war slowed commerce, and the boll weevil finished the cotton trade. Farming now consists of vegetables, fruits and tourists.
Edisto Beach is certainly one of the less touristy spots a person could visit. There are only a few gift shops in town, a scattering of restaurants and most refreshingly, very few tourist traps. There is also only one grocery store in town, and one liquor store. If you come for a visit, it’s best to come prepared, or be prepared to pay.
You come onto the island down SC 174, and there’s no getting away from the fact that you’re in the deep south. Alongside the highway you find farm stands – fruit, boiled peanuts, sweet corn and a variety of sea creatures ready to boil. There are also churches dotting the landscape, at times less than a mile apart.
There’s no escaping the poverty. Many of the houses lining the highway are little more than shacks, with blacks sitting on the porches, trying to avoid the heat. One out of five residents on Edisto island under the age of 18 are below the poverty line, and over one in three over the age of 65. The median household income for the island is just under 26,000. But once you hit Edisto Beach, it jumps to $54,400. The percentage of blacks, which is at 40% on the whole island, drops to below 3% in Edisto Beach.
In short, as someone told me down there, they just haven’t gotten the hang of desegregation. Instead of working the plantations, now blacks work the Piggly Wiggly.
The lowcountry gullah culture of the African-Americans has preserved more of their African heritage than anyplace else in the United States. In fact, it’s one of the biggest tourist attractions to the area. Unfortunately, there seems to be less interest in the individual as there is in the culture. In the 140 page South Carolina Low Country Tourist Guide, there are no black families enjoying the beach and sites. Only living history demonstrators and performers.
But hey! It’s the old south, and if this kind of thing bothers you, you’re in the wrong place. As Lynyrd Skynyrd pointed out to Neil Young, who took Alabama to task for the treatment of blacks in Alabama, “southern man don’t need him around, anyhow.” The politics are nuanced and well beyond me, and besides, I was on vacation.
Sitting at home now, a few days later, scratching my chigger and mosquito bites, as well as poison ivy and other assorted bites and rashes, I find myself missing the place. But I just can’t put my finger on why.
On Edisto Beach, bottle-nosed dolphins swim just off -shore, sometimes in twos and threes. The sunsets are majestic, the light dancing over the wetlands magical. And gnarled oaks hung heavily with Spanish moss is about as magical as you can get. There’s history for those who look for it, but once again, it’s a subtle history. An abandoned plantation here, a ruined church there. A minor battle or skirmish from the revolution or War Between the States. Subtle enough that you get a feeling of discovery when you come across them, and all draped in that magical moss.
Then there’s Beaufort. Instantly recognizable for anyone who saw Forrest Gump, it’s an example of the southern tendency to remember and live with its past. If you were to suddenly materialize in New York City, Chicago, London – any number of increasingly faceless cities – you’d have a hard time knowing where you were. But find yourself in Beaufort, or it’s larger sister, Charleston, and you’ll instantly know you’re in the south. The architecture stuns the senses with grandeur and intricate details. Civic buildings, shops and houses aren’t pulled down as frequently for new projects. Instead, new businesses go into old structures. In places, whole towns seems like one interconnected historical attraction. It’s not living history, the people there are surrounded by history every day.
And then there’s the landscape. The wetlands, the oaks dripping with Spanish moss, as well as the baking heat, all come together to give the area a sense of identity. One that can’t be altered by architectural styles, history or politics.
Maybe that’s the key to island living. Life and change moves slowly, and some things never change. Like a pile of shrimp at the end of the day, rum drinks with fruit juices and the sun sinking into the sea, wondering where the time goes.
Posted in South Carolina, Southern Seaboard
Also tagged historical attractions, low country, south carolina lowcountry, travel photographer
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Newbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts: Early American history and historical attractions from the colonial era in an enchanted New England landscape
Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, circa 1695, Newbury, Essex county, Massachusetts
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Newbury reminds me of the west of Ireland. You come into Newbury via a roundabout. Head one direction and you’re going back in time to Newbury’s early American roots, to Newbury itself. Take off in the other and you end up in Newburyport, a town full of subtle historic attractions in a resort-type atmosphere. Or as I was told by a resident, if you’re looking for the historic attractions, just go up and down Massachusetts 1A – it’s all there.
Like Ireland, Newbury’s history blends in with the landscape. A modern day house, relatively speaking for New England, may sit next to a First Period home. The land is still farmed, small farms with stone walls. There’s enough of the past intact to slip in and out of the 21st century just by driving down the highway.
There’s very little left of the first settlement in Newbury, just a stone marker near the banks of the Parker River, where young Nicholas Noyes leapt ashore in 1634 with about a 100 pilgrims from Wiltshire, England. The original name for the river was Quascacunquen, which was an Native American term for waterfall. The falls are still there, where the river is bridged by Central street. If you head south from the bridge, you’ll find a charming, quintessential New England countryside. Head north and you’re following the path of settlement from the town’s founding
Newbury suffered the same fate of many of the early American colonial settlements. It’s roots were farming, fishing and hunting, and except for spells of industry, those roots have held throughout the centuries. Today, fishing and hunting are done recreationally, and indeed, Newbury has been a popular tourist destination since Victorian times. It’s just that it finds it hard to compete with its more glamorous neighbor, Newburyport.
As you come up Route 1, a keen eye will catch the First Burying Ground of the Settlers on the left hand side of the road. Founded in 1635, you’ll come across the names of the earliest settlers of Newbury. Graveyard travelers will find much to like about this one – some great carvings, winged effigies and other symbols, even stones to mark graves when no head stones were available. The Burying Ground was restored in 1929, and you’ll notice several stones with extremely old dates that look rather, well new actually. It’s not great conservation, they’re restorations.
Next up on the right is the Dole Little House, circa 1750, one of a handful of historical attractions administered by Historic New England. Just past that is the road the leads to the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, which has been a working farm since 1635, with the house dating from about 1690. The house is built of local stones, with a porch and gables of bricks, and is the only 17th century stone house to survive in New England with the outer walls intact.
Further down Massachusetts 1 is the Upper Green, where the colonial militia trained starting in 1646, and scattered around it are a number of early American homes. The John Atkinson House, a first period house circa 1664-1665, has a connection to the Salem Witch hunts of 1690. According to the testimony of Sarah Atkinson, Susannah Martin visited the house during a storm some years previously, and having had to walk so far in such bad weather, she was surprised to see her bone dry and her feet mud free. The unfortunate Susannah was hung based on Sarah’s and others’ testimony.
A short distance later finds the First Parish Church of Newbury, dating from 1869, which is the third structure to bear the name, and is one of the oldest congregations in America. Then-president Gerald Ford wrote in 1984, “The values and traditions brought to Newbury by its first settlers and handed down through the decades have withstood the test of time. They are the same qualities that have made our nation great and hopefully, with the help of the citizens of today, these gifts will be treasured and protected by the generations of tomorrow.”
Life was tough for the earliest churchgoers in Newbury. The Reverend Glen Tilley Morse wrote in his Events of the Early History, “There was no heat in the first Meeting House which was probably a rude structure built of logs with cracks and crevices filled with clay to keep out the cold…. The congregation had to sit during sermons that were two hours long. They could not doze, for they would be rudely awakened by having a fox’s tail on a long rod brushed against their faces. They would be punished if they disturbed the meeting by moving about or causing any commotion and fined if they missed a meeting or service. Parishioners attended the meetings at the perils of their lives. They were in danger of attacks from Indians and wild beasts on their way to and from worship.’
In addition, armed guards were posted at the doors during services to protect against Indian attacks.
Across the road is the First Parish Burying Ground, another venerable old cemetery. Further up the road is the Coffin House, dating from 1678.
And then it’s into Newburyport. One thing you’ll notice as you travel High street from the spot where the original settlers landed, up to Newburyport, things get tidier. By the time you reach the Upper Green, houses are restored a bit better, a bit more often. But in comparison to that even, Newburyport sparkles.
As the name implies, Newburyport is on the Atlantic Ocean, and I didn’t have a chance to get down to the water, or even more than a cursory walk around the historic area. So I can’t tell you other than what I’ve seen and heard about the town’s reputation as a beautiful resort. But based on what I saw of the rest of the town, I think that’s a fair assumption.
You ever set aside a few hours for a day trip, and just before you have to leave, you find yourself in one of the most beautiful places you’ve ever been? Newburyport is like that. I got out of the car to take a photo, and found myself drawn down the street, then around the corner and I had the distinct feeling I could have gone on and on for another day or so.
Instead I found myself parked next to Bartlet Mall, the site of the Old Gaol (jail for you newcomers), and the curiously named Frog Pond. According to legends, which according to the newspaper isn’t legend but fact, there are tunnels which run beneath the pond down to the ocean, used either by the Underground Railroad in the Civil War, or were used by bootleggers. Or both. Both the Gaol and Frog Pond are reportedly haunted. And hovering over Frog Pond is the Old Burying Ground, which in addition to holding countless curious headstones, is also home to the Pierce Mausoleum, site of some of the strangest graveyard desecrations to take place in this country.
By then the sun was hanging low and I still had Concord to go, and then home to New York later that night, and it was with a heavy heart I left Newbury and Newburytown. It was there I came to the realization which is probably apparent to anyone who lives in New England, but was quite unexpected to me. If you’re looking for early American history, historical attractions, or just like to feel the past wash over you, you could spend a lifetime in New England and never see it all.
Posted in New England
Also tagged early american history, early american homes, historical attractions, travel photographer
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