Barnstable's Forgotten Dude Ranch

Barnstable citizens at the station that day in July 1945 must have watched popeyed as newly arrived passengers from the New York train mounted a western stage coach in time for the grinning driver to rouse his four horses with a crack of the whip.

Even more surprised, if not amused a few days earlier, were motorists on the Old Kings Highway to find their progress slowed by cowboys driving a herd of horses as far as Bonehill Road in Cummaquid.

And why did that gentleman in five gallon hat and western boots strolling along Barnstable Village Main Street remind us of  Roy Rogers? Because … he was Roy Rogers.

Roy Rogers.

Before our astonished witness could swear “never to touch another drop” he would discover that these western anomalies were all associated with Cape Cod’s recently opened “dude ranch.”

Their destination was a rustic imposing building sprawling along the heights overlooking Barnstable Harbor and Sandy Neck.  Today the rambling structure that later housed the Harbor Point Restaurant stands empty, with an ancient millstone for its doorstep. Also near the front door was a large grindstone which once belonged to the Swift family who ran the local abattoir for butchering livestock. Bonehill was then known as “Slaughterhouse Road” before members of the family moved to Chicago to create one of the country’s leading meat packing companies.

Noted for its fine dining, elegant wedding receptions and sweeping views of Barnstable Harbor and Sandy Neck, the Harbor Point restaurant had many other names and colorful diversions in its 100 year history.

The property was originally developed in 1902 as a summer home for the Johnson family of New York.  Mr. Johnson was a silk merchant of considerable influence, as evidenced by the fact that railroad officials would hold the train when Mr. Johnson was delayed on Friday nights leaving his office for the weekend on Cape Cod.

During Prohibition in the 1920s, the gracious family home under new ownership had metamorphosed into a favorite joint of local sports and flappers because of its secluded location convenient to the quiet delivery of “supplies” via Barnstable Harbor.

Bob Borino, the former restaurant manager, would show interested visitors a secret closet in one of the bedrooms with its trap door, where rum runners brought up the liquor.

By the 1930s, the establishment had become notorious as a house of ill fame, although the archives are lacking in details on this phase.

In the early 1940s, Floyd van Duzer was ready to retire from his machine shop in Quincy, and pursue his yen to raise livestock on Cape Cod. According to Caleb Warren, writing in the Cape Cod Business Journal (June 1982), Van Duzer was shown  “a hundred acres with a mile of beach and a well built house” in Cummaquid for $60,000. He offered $15,000 and the spread was his, with even more buildings than he had known about. Being a real adventurous type, and encouraged by his wife, who had western connections, and stalwart sons, he conceived the idea of a dude ranch. 

After the town of Barnstable issued a permit in 1944, van Duzer began searching the rodeo circuit out west to find a suitable manager. He came up with Blackie Karman from Encampment, Wyoming, “once voted the best all round cowboy after a rodeo in Madison Square Garden.” He turned out to be a creative, if unpredictable, foreman. He convinced Van to buy some 30 horses “never ridden before,” which created a problem when cowboys and horses came off the train at Barnstable station. The horses made straight for the green grass of the court house lawn, and during the drive down Old Kings Highway to Bonehill Road they created confusion at the Sunday services of  St. Mary’s Church.

But, by the summer of 1945, Blackie had the ranch rolling with weekend rodeos, “featuring champion cowboys, bull riding, calf roping, bronc riding and trick roping etc.” In the first rodeo, June 23, 1945, the Barnstable Patriot reported that Cummaquid farmer Frank Taylor, “stole the show” from Blackie Karman and his cowhands from Texas and California. He won the “pipe race” and “and rode with the best of them when he handled the brake on the stage coach as the four horses whirled the top heavy vehicle in figure eights.” 

As publicity spread and brochures were distributed, guests came from all over New England, and especially New York. The stage coach would  “roll ‘em in and out” on weekends at Barnstable station.  

In addition to the amenities of beach and surf, the Ranch offered some real western delights. The ranch cowboys led horseback excursions at low tide across the flats of Yarmouth to East Dennis, and “overnighters” to Provincetown.  They even found a way to ride galloping horses towing water skiers.  There were parades down Main Street in Hyannis to arouse interest in the weekend rodeos (admission $1 for adults, 50 cents for children.) Roy Rogers and other cowboy film stars occasionally visited.

The ranch produced its own vegetables, milk, butter and cream, and served up seafood from the local fishermen. According to Van Duzer, a goodly portion of the clientele came from New York, including many young women from advertising agencies.

The price seemed to be reasonable at $60 per week in a bunkroom, and $85 for a private room.

Blackie perhaps got carried away with offering the guests western style entertainment when on Labor Day he pulled his six gun and shot out all the windows in the Ranch House. He was fired thereafter.

The Dude Ranch kept on ridin’ and ropin’ until 1948, when Van Duzer sold out.  The new owners continued the food service as the Cape Cod Ranch Smorgasbord  -- “all you could eat for $3.25” -- until 1979.  In the 1980s, new owners renovated the establishment to create the Harbor Point Restaurant for “casual fine dining.”

Presumably the cowboys long ago had ridden off with their horses into the sunset.

by Haynes Mahoney

Seagulls & Yarmouth Dumps

Long ago people simply dug a hole out back or filled a ditch in the woods with their unwanted items. Anyone who has owned an old home has found bits of broken china, pipe stems or coins when digging in the garden. Older Cape Codders knew where some of those old dumps were in the woods and went to dig out treasures like old bottles. Later each village in the town of Yarmouth had its own dump which consisted of trash being piled on the ground with a road running between the piles.

Old bottles found in Yarmouth Port

The South Yarmouth dump was up a dirt road on the north side of Long Pond on what is now Regional Avenue about where Diane Avenue is and covered about two acres. There was no onsite keeper but the trash was occasionally burned. No one had a bulldozer or a front end loader so the trash was not buried. Of course there were dump pickers and a few people probably lived off of the proceeds or furnished their home with the cast offs.

Some brought their own trash and others had it picked up. Harold Kelley had a 1948 Dodge dump truck and picked up rubbish with his brother Don. Bill Angell and Edward (Dooley) Johnson bought the business and replaced the Dodge with a “packer” and expanded the business. In the 1960s Peter, Barry, and Brian Homer bought out Bill Angell and Homer Brothers Rubbish was formed. In 1972 they merged with Browning, Ferris Industries (BFI).

When the South Yarmouth dump was closed about 1950, my father bought the land for $75.00. Within a week he sold it for $125 and made $50. Now there are several homes located there.

A map circa 1935 showing two of the town dumps.

The Bass River dump was located several hundred feet up Forest Road from Long Pond Drive and before the herring run. I remember a man in a chair tending it with a rake and a pitch fork. Forest Road was a two rut dirt road at that time. The West Yarmouth dump was on Sandy Pond Road near the West Yarmouth Fire Station. My father, John Sears, was on the fire department and on many a Sunday afternoon the fires got out into the woods or were burned as a drill.

The north side’s dump was off Summer Street southwest of Dennis Pond. It was perfectly all right to shoot rats and use bottles and cans for target practice.

When the present Yarmouth landfill was opened in 1950, there was a small two or three acre pond with a camp on the land. The Fire Department was designated to clear it by burning down the camp and both Station One (south-side) and Station Two (north-side) wanted the chance burn it on a Sunday. Chief Dana Whittemore wouldn’t choose and gave the job to whoever got there first. Well, the night before, my father and Bill Angell went there with five gallons of gasoline and poured it throughout the house with a trail away from it for about 100 yards. When a match was struck it rippled toward the structure and suddenly the whole place erupted. When the fire crews arrived in the morning, there were only a few smoldering ashes. No one knew who the culprits were for a long time after.

The new central dump eliminated the village dumps. All rubbish, including stoves, refrigerators, mattresses and more were pushed into the pond. A contract to “keep the dump” was let out, and I remember Carl White pushing the trash with a snowplow on his dump truck. Soon the pond filled and the area expanded.

During the 1960s and 1970s the town experienced huge growth. The rubbish now piled on top of the ground had to be covered each night and sand was pushed over it with a bulldozer. Bill Angell again had the contract and Eddie Gibbs ran the bulldozer. With the growth of the town came land-clearing, and trees, stumps and turf came in by the truckload. Adam Watson took over but never could keep up. There were narrow trails through piles of stumps which just seemed to grow and, of course, there were fires.

Frank Johnson, Alec Todd, Herton Hallett and John G. Sears, Jr.

By now I was on the Fire Department and we spent many a day pouring water into holes to try and drown out a fire burning 25 feet below the surface. Sometimes we dug and sometimes we laid a line from a town hydrant. Occasionally I stayed all night with another man moving the fire hoses to different places. When cesspools were pumped the “honey wagons” just emptied their loads on top of the ground in an area designated for them where it just sank into the dirt as they drove away.

When the town decided that we could not continue to bury our trash, a contract was signed to haul the rubbish off-Cape to be burned at an incinerator and a transfer station was built. Along with that, a septic treatment plant was built to take care of the pumping of the cesspools.

It was the state’s directive to cover and seal the old dump or so-called landfill. There was an enormous pile of rubbish mixed with sand that had to be covered with a plastic membrane and a couple of feet of clay to seal it. It would cost around 18 million to do the job and if only just covered, it would be useless land for years.

A decision was made to grade the land into hills and valleys and build a nine hole golf course. Along with that, adjacent land was acquired and soccer fields and basketball courts were built. This was later dedicated and named the Peter Homer Park. Peter had held many town positions, the last being superintendent of the Transfer Station.

I can’t possibly explain the feeling I had one evening as I played golf alone on the new course. I stepped on top of that finely mowed grassy hill and looked down on a team of soccer players in uniform off in the distance. The lights lit up the field. I remembered back to that pond, being filled with everything you can imagine. I saw the mountains of stumps and brush, the smoky fires that burned for days. Now stood neat buildings and orderly containers to sort and recycle bottles, cans, metal, and paper which could be neatly loaded and hauled off-Cape. 

written by John Sears III

Added note – The Links 9 golf course was awarded a million dollar grant from the state, being the largest recycling project to that time! Links 9 was opened in 1999, officially in 2000. Drivers on Route 6 will remember all the seagulls near the former exit 8. The 50 foot tall landfill, which covered 57 acres, contains 40 wells which collect methane gas. On top of the trash is a six inch layer of sand, covered by durable black plastic sheets fused together. Another 18 inches of sand covers the plastic and it is capped by eight inches of topsoil. More than 240,000 cubic yards of sand were used.

The former town dump, now a golf course.

Funeral for a Yarmouth Fiat

In 2007, the Monterey Sports & Classic Car Auction sold a group of antique autos that were being liquidated by a mid western car museum.  One of the vehicles, a 1904 Fiat, drew particular interest. Bright red with tufted black leather seats and shiny brass fixtures, this restored 4 cylinder touring car was the oldest vehicle to go on the block that day.  By the end of the day, this magnificent specimen was sold for more than $209,000.

What made this car so interesting was that its very first owner lived on Cape Cod.  It was bought while a young couple was honeymooning in Europe.

On June 27, 1902 George Agassiz of Barnstable and Mabel Simpkins of Yarmouth Port were joined in marriage.  The bride was the youngest daughter of John Simpkins and sister to Congressman John Simpkins. Mabel was a beautiful young woman who had often accompanied her brother to gala events in Washington, DC.  She also happened to be the Library Commissioner for Cape Cod and a local benefactress. She and her family resided part of the time at the family home called Sandyside, which was nestled in the village of Yarmouth Port on Dennis Pond.

Portrait of Mabel Simpkins Agassiz by Mary Cassatt

George Agassiz

George Agassiz was the son of Alexander Agassiz, the scientist and the grandson of Swiss naturalist, Louis Agassiz. George was an astronomer who later had a radio telescope named for him at Harvard University. He too traveled among the upper eschelons of society and the local newspapers often reported on his visits to Newport as he mingled among the well-to-do. It was not an extraordinary move to take his bride on an extended honeymoon abroad since they were an adventurous and well traveled pair.

Fiat factory in Turin.

While abroad, Mr. and Mrs. Agassiz may have heard about a relatively new company that was formed in July, 1899 at Palazzo Bricherasio. Fabbrica Italiano Automobili Torino (Italian Automobile Factory at Turin) is known to us simply as Fiat.  Impressed with the new 24/32 model, they placed an order for the car. All Fiat sales in the United States and Canada went through Hollander & Tengeman of New York and it is believed they handled the sale and delivery for Mr. and Mrs. Agassiz. The selling price for this beautiful car was $9,000 (nearly $300,000 in today’s dollars).

The Agassiz Fiat.

Mabel enjoyed riding around the Cape roads in her shiny red car.  License plate number 3089 was issued to George Agassiz of Yarmouth Port in 1904. At that time, only 16 vehicles were registered on Cape Cod and only one other in Yarmouth Port (the other was registered to a Robert Rogers). Mabel was one of the first women drivers on the Cape; a local newspaper reported she had a small accident when she drove off the road in Plymouth. Mabel’s brother Charles Simpkins also enjoyed driving the sporty touring car, but after his death in 1931 she stopped driving it. In 1932 Mrs. Agassiz made a decision about what to do with her car. She was so attached to it, not wanting to sell it, that she had it buried on the grounds of her family home in Yarmouth Port.

Sandyside estate, Yarmouth Port

It was about 1942 when Ted Robertson of Boston, and founder of the Sports Car Club of America, heard about the buried car. He approached the Agassiz family to see if they would allow him to exhume the vehicle from its sandy grave. With the help of his friends Jack Duby and Al Paradis and some long rods, they located the car intact on its back, wheels removed, and seats missing, like a corpse lying in repose. Ted bought it from the family for $50. Robertson then sold it two years later to D. Cameron Peck of Chicago who put the wheels back on. Peck sold it to Clay Clayberg for $500 who had Tom Carstens of Tacoma, Washington rebuild the oiler.

The uncovered Fiat on Sandyside.

In 1952, Clayberg wanted to dispose of the Fiat and offered to give it to David Uihlein with the condition that David pay to ship the car from Tacoma to Milwaukee and he had to agree to restore it. The Uihlein Collection, a race car museum in Cedarburg, acquired Clayberg’s vehicle and intensive restoration began, taking nearly 40 years. The final result was a bright red car with upholstered black leather and a black canvas top that could reach speeds of 70 miles per hour.

The FIAT touring car was auctioned in 2007 and purchased by a man in the Netherlands who brought the car to England every year for the famous London to Brighton Run. Internet research indicates the car recently sold again. Remarkably, after being buried, and at 120 years old, it is still on the road.

The Agassiz Fiat making the London to Brighton run.

Excerpted from an article researched and written by Maureen Rukstalis.

Highways and Byways of Yarmouth : a history

For the first hundred years after settlers moved to Cape Cod, land travel was so difficult that few attempted to travel distances by roads. Cape Cod’s first highways were actually the sea lanes to Plymouth and Boston.  In 1704 Massachusetts resident Sarah Kemble Knight journeyed from Boston to New York by horseback, a feat that she wrote about because it was so unusual and hazardous.

Yarmouth’s first roads followed existing Indigenous paths, including what is now Route 6A. As soon as a meetinghouse was built, most roads in the town headed toward it, as it was mandatory to attend church each Sunday. Yarmouth’s first church was located in Ancient Cemetery on Center Street in Yarmouth Port. A large boulder there marks the spot. People from the other side of Bass River and Chase Garden Creek had a long distance to travel, eventually resulting in separate churches being organized in East Dennis and West Yarmouth.

Those coming to church or meetings from Hockanom (an area north of 6A) built a bridge across White’s Brook. The pilings of that bridge still remain behind Lookout Road and can be seen by canoe at very low tide. The Brays, Taylors, Hulls, and others living in Hockanom used the bridge rather than the longer journey south around the end of White’s Brook near 6A. 

Early roads had no names but granite “milestones” were erected in the 1700s in some locations with distances to Barnstable or Boston (more about those another day). Boston began naming roads shortly after the 18th century out of necessity - visitors and sailors needed to find their way around, but rural towns didn’t follow that trend until after the American Revolution. Yarmouth’s first map, drawn in 1795 for the state, shows only ten roads within the town, and those are identified with descriptions about the reason for the road rather than names. Today’s West Yarmouth Road was known in 1795 as the Road from Meetinghouse to Meetinghouse (from the church at the Yarmouth Port Common in the north to the church near the West Yarmouth cemetery). Other roads included the Road to Kelley’s Rope Works (Station Ave), Hyannis Road, and Barnstable Road.

By the time Yarmouth’s second official map was drawn in 1830, more roads existed in the town. They weren’t identified by name on the map, because the state didn’t require it. We do know that roads had names before the Civil War, as the 1858 Wallings Map of Barnstable County shows many named roads in town.

The 1830 map of Yarmouth. Bass River is lower right.

During the 1840s Yarmouth voted to plant elm trees along Main Street in Yarmouth Port and the saplings were brought by oxcart down from Middleboro, lined up by eye and planted. They grew to create an arboreal tunnel overhead by 1900.

Yarmouth Port’s beautiful elms.

Three Willow Streets in Yarmouth clearly point out the fact that 19th century Yarmouth was really a grouping of separate villages. One Willow Street starts in Yarmouth Port heading to Hyannis; another is in South Yarmouth heading towards Bass River; the third over off Bayview Road in West Yarmouth. It was not unusual for this happen in towns, yet apparently it caused little to no confusion.

The arrival of the bicycle as a means of transportation in the 1880s led to improving roads. A Scotsman named MacAdam created hard surfaced roads by oiling them and then spreading sand on the oil, giving them a solid surface. However, the coming of the automobile to Cape Cod was the real impetus for change. South Yarmouth’s Charles Henry Davis Jr. was one of the first to recognize this possibility. Prior to World War I he founded the National Highway Association with the slogan “Good Roads Everywhere” in an attempt to improve roads and to have maps and information available for the traveler. It is said that the rotary on River Street in South Yarmouth, just beyond his house, was the first rotary in the United States.

The River Street rotary.

At first, many highways were identified by a name rather than a number. Route 6A was named by the General Court of Massachusetts in 1920 “The King’s Highway.” Markers were placed all along the road, though some Cape Codders objected because they thought it unpatriotic.

In 1922, fed up with the confusing combination of names and colored bands painted on telephone poles, the New England states got together and decided to number highways. Numbers below 100 were saved for roads passing through more than one state; above 100 were within a single state only. The Cape’s Route 6 originally ran from Orleans to Colebrook, NH; Route 28 ran from Sagamore to Manchester, NH and Route 3 ran from Provincetown to Providence, RI. The other state highways on Cape Cod, being local roads, all had numbers above 100.

The Route 28 “bypass” in South Yarmouth was built in 1933 and connected to Bridge Street. Prior to that, all traffic went down Old Main Street as no other road existed and what we now call “Four Corners” was then Three Corners. The Bass River Bridge you see now was also built at the same time.

Our roads underwent major changes after World War II. The biggest change was the creation of a new Route 6, a one lane road each way from the canal as far as Barnstable. It was completed in 1950 and the next year extended one lane each way as far as Dennis. In 1959, it was continued to the Orleans rotary.

A 2-lane Route 6 in 1961.

Two lanes each way proved much safer and the capacity was needed, so Route 6 was expanded from Barnstable to Yarmouth in 1967 and to Dennis in 1971.

Now, with our roads at capacity much of the year, it’s hard to imagine quieter days when a horse and buggy, or someone on foot, meandered down Old King’s Highway to the general store on an errand, or to visit a friend.

Researched and written by Duncan Oliver.

The herring are coming! The herring are coming!

The herring family includes several species as well as menhaden and shad. Herring are found along the entire east coast of the U.S., and are one of the most abundant fish in the world. These eight to fifteen inch fish return to fresh water each spring to spawn, usually April to early May. Indigenous people said that a certain bush would flower when the herring and shad returned, and that bush is known today as a Shad Bush. Actually, the fish return when the fresh water temperature becomes warmer than the salt.

Herring have played an important role in our history. They’ve been a food source and are great bait for lobster traps. They’ve been used as fertilizer, especially under corn. Up and through the 1800s, much of the catch was used for human consumption, because they kept exceptionally well when salted and smoked. They were then strung on willow or apple sticks and hung in an out-of-the-way place. Today, the roe (eggs) are eaten, either baked until dry or fried in butter. Cape Codders smoked herring almost from the start, but Nova Scotians and people from New Brunswick gained the moniker “herring chokers” by the amount of herring they ate. The Wampanoag supposedly had a secret recipe for smoking herring that people loved.

Locals have regulated herring runs from the beginning, both to ensure everyone was able to get some, as well as to prevent the damming of streams for water power which could prevent herring reaching their fresh water ponds. 

Barnstable Patriot, 1852

Yarmouth has had at least seven herring runs in its past. Because Bass River runs were difficult to control as the river was owned jointly with Dennis, in 1849 both towns asked the state legislature to appoint a joint herring committee to control weirs and fishing. Bass River is the beginning of two Yarmouth runs. One went to Laban’s Pond on the Bass River Golf Course. Pesticides and fertilizers ended this run. Another run went from Follins Pond to Mill Pond up Hamblin Brook to Miss Thatcher’s Pond near Seminole Drive. This run was quite profitable, selling for $710 to Nathan Grush in 1880. In 1883, it produced the second most herring in the state : 280,797. However, by 1914, the highest price paid for any herring grant on Bass River was just $31.

A third run went past West Yarmouth’s Baxter Mill up into the Mill Pond (another one) and on to Little Sandy Pond, now town recreation land. A fourth went up Mill Creek, then under Route 28 near where the 1750 house used to stand, and on through the cranberry bogs and on to Jabez Ned’s Pond just south of Buck Island Road. 

Baxter Mill

A fifth went up Parker’s River to Swan Pond and then up Clear Brook under what is now Forest Road to Long Pond. In the long term, this was probably the most profitable in the town. The state legislature enabled it in 1843 when it allowed the owners to open an outlet from Long Pond to Swan Pond. This was a half mile of digging! It is still an active run.

The sixth and seventh runs both went up Chase Garden Creek on the northside and into White’s Brook.  One then went into Matthews Pond on Bass River Rod and Gun Club property, while the other continued under Route 6A to a little pond behind the town pumping station building on Union Street.

Three runs in Yarmouth are still active. The biggest is the Clear Brook Run. Under the direction of the Yarmouth Department of Natural Resources, the brook was dug out in 2009 where it was too shallow and a culvert was removed at the end of Clear Brook Road. A bridge was built over the stream. Americorps helped improve that run in 2009. In 2011, the Cape Cod Salties fishing organization helped clean the whole brook and did a wonderful job. Herring can be seen from the bridge at the end of Clear Brook Road, and from the walkway on Forest Road. Before the improvements, some herring made it through to Long Pond, but now far more are making their spawning journey.

The fish ladder beside the Baxter Mill on Route 28 is still active. Herring used to swim through Mill Pond and up to Little Sandy Pond, but that stream is now blocked. The herring spawn in Mill Pond and return to the ocean down Mill River.

In the 1960s, the Bass River Rod and Gun Club built a fish ladder into Matthews Pond to allow the herring to spawn there. The state stocked it for several years until the herring returned on their own. The club, with the help of groups such as the Cape Cod Salties, maintains the run.

So, when the Shad Bush flowers this spring, look for herring right here in Yarmouth. Remember the state-wide ban on taking herring, so only look, though local indigenous people do retain the right to harvest. The osprey and seagulls know when they arrive - they are part of the welcoming committee! 

Shad bush

Excerpted from an article by Duncan Oliver

The Pirate’s Girl - Yarmouth’s? Maria Hallett

2017 marked the 300th anniversary of the wreck of the pirate ship Whydah off the coast of Wellfleet. Sam Bellamy was the captain who died in that wreck, and his girlfriend Maria Hallett witnessed the tragedy.

The late Yarmouth and HSOY historian Haynes Mahoney once remarked that he had seen a document which mentioned that Bellamy’s girlfriend Maria Hallett was a tavern maid at the Old Yarmouth Inn before she moved to Eastham. Sadly he never revealed the source of that information and it remains a mystery. Was she?

Author Kathleen Brunelle, in her book, “Bellamy’s Bride – The Search for Maria Hallett of Cape Cod,” writes that in some legends Maria hailed from Yarmouth but later settled in Eastham though she wasn’t able to give definitive information. Maria’s birth doesn’t appear in any of the local town vital records. Yarmouth likes to claim her; little has happened on Cape Cod that doesn’t have some Yarmouth connection!

Maria’s age has never been ascertained with certainty. Most of the legends say she was 15 or 16 at the time Sam Bellamy met her in Eastham in 1715. A girl of 15 could be married then as the age of consent in 1715 was 11, based on the 1642 Capital Laws of New England. Maria’s probable Yarmouth ancestor, her presumed grandmother Anne Bearse, married at age 14. 

Location of the Whydah wreck off Wellfleet.

Maria is said to have met Sam Bellamy at the Higgins Tavern in Eastham, a place where young girls would not ordinarily be unless, of course, Maria had worked at another tavern earlier – perhaps the tavern in Yarmouth.

We all know the story – a pretty young girl, unmarried and pregnant, sees her beau leave on an expedition to the West Indies. Being pregnant before marriage wasn’t a terribly unusual situation in the early 1700s. More than one in four women were already expecting a child at the time of their marriage. Maria’s baby died shortly after being born in a barn and some believed she killed the child. The town fathers imprisoned her and after she escaped several times they eventually banned her from town. She moved to Wellfleet and became a recluse in what is now the Marconi beach area. That land is still called the Goody Hallett Meadow.

Was she bitter about Sam leaving her and dying? Legends take two directions on this. In one, she pines for Bellamy and is devastated by his shipwreck near her shack. In the other, she blames him and puts a curse on his boat, causing it to wreck. In this version Maria has become a witch, called Goody Hallett, able to do such things.

Since then, many, many authors have given their own spin on the story, with Kathleen Brunelle’s book covering virtually all of the variations in the Maria Goody Hallett legend. Wherever Maria hailed from, her legend lives on.

*********

To learn about a very real pirate’s lady, join us on April 19th at 7:00 pm at the South Yarmouth Library when local author Daphne Geanacopoulos will tell us about her research into and subsequent bestselling book about Sarah Kidd, the wife of the pirate Captain William Kidd. Not legend, Sarah was a very real person and a very interesting one!

Victorian Feminist Meets Yarmouth Sea Captain

In the heady days of the burgeoning gold rush to California, two unlikely shipmates found themselves under way in the old packet, Angelique, which departed New York in April, 1849 for San Francisco.

Eliza Farnham, published author and former matron of the female section of Sing Sing Prison, was not going for gold but “to bring refinement to that disorderly city.” Sturgis Crowell, from West Yarmouth, was making the voyage as first mate but hoping one day to get a ship of his own.

According to the book Eliza wrote about her California adventures, both of them suffered under the irascible command of Captain Phineas Windsor.

Eliza’s original intent was to claim a tract of land near Santa Cruz left to her by her adventurous husband who had traveled to California several years earlier and died there in 1848. But true to her feminist idealism she developed a plan to organize a group of well recommended marriageable women who would “bring their kindly cares and powers” to that rough hewn society of gold miners. In the end only 2 accompanied her.

Sturgis Crowell, born in West Yarmouth, had gone to sea at age 10 as cook on a coasting vessel. And, now at age 27, was making his first voyage as first mate on a full rigged ship, rounding Cape Horn to San Francisco.  While his association with Mrs. Farnham was limited to this voyage, it must have been an unsettling experience for both of them.  The formidable lady was soon involved in a raging feud with Captain Windsor, whom, she said “never named women but to deprecate them in the coarsest terms.”

The captain suspected the lady had inspired a rebellion among the 22 passengers, forcing him to make a stop at St. Catherine’s to give them a rest and replace “the bad water” on the ship about which all complained. Their relationship was further inflamed when Eliza’s nursemaid began an affair with the ship’s purser and the captain did nothing about it.  Ultimately they rounded the Horn and put in to Valparaiso, Chili, where the girl married the purser, and Eliza recruited a young Chilean woman as servant. Evidently the Captain had enough of Mrs. Farnham, and while she went back ashore to get the necessary passport for her new servant, Captain Windsor raised sail and put to sea, taking her companion and her children.

Valparaiso

Through all these tribulations, she wrote kindly of first mate Crowell from Yarmouth, “whose good nature and kindness to the passengers, especially to the females and children, had caused him much difficulty with the captain...”

A lone woman, friendless and penniless in a foreign port was in dire circumstances -- even for the resilient Eliza. Eventually with the help of the American consul she found passage to San Francisco, arriving a month later.  There she was soon reunited with her friend and children.

Eliza soon left San Francisco, found her husband’s property, and with her own hands and help from her friend Miss Sampson and later Georgianna Bruce, rebuilt the house and developed a farm.  Her companions returned home after two years with sufficient fortune to keep themselves comfortable for the rest of their lives.  Eliza did not say how they gained such wealth. Eliza married in 1852, and developed a successful agricultural business but she divorced in 1856, and returned to New York City, where she published several books based on her experiences, and helped destitute women to find new homes in California.  

Meanwhile Sturgis Crowell continued as first mate in various vessels until 1861 when he was finally made captain of the clipper, Boston Light, departing New York for San Francisco, May 23, 1861. After a month unloading and gathering a new cargo, he was off to Honolulu, Mauritius and Calcutta where he received a message from the owners to sell the ship. Instead, Crowell sailed with a cargo of rice to Hong Kong, and there sold the vessel in January, 1863 at a price which pleased the owners.

Captain Crowell retired to his home in South Yarmouth on Old Main Street in 1873, nearly 10 years after Eliza Farnham died of tuberculosis in New York.  Honored and respected, Crowell lived some 40 years in South Yarmouth until he died at age 89.

Excerpted from an article by Haynes Mahoney