History of Whaling Port

HISTORY OF WHALING PORT By Haynes Mahoney PREFACE The Whaling Port Homeowners Association has wanted for some time to attempt to capture the history of our Whaling Port community. This is a very special place to all of us and yet most of us do not know the history of the place we call home. We decided to ask Haynes Mahoney to apply his talents towards a short document that would describe the history of the land, the site of our homes today. This monogram is the result of a considerable effort by Haynes to do that. Haynes and his wife, Catherine, purchased one of the first homes built in Whaling Port in the year 1965. He also was the first president of the Whaling Port Homeowners Association. In addition, Haynes is a gifted writer. His articles on coastal ecology, maritime history, humpback whales, tidal system, and the life saving service and similar topics have appeared in the Cape Cod Times, The Register, Cape Code Life and Sea Frontiers Magazine. The Association is indeed fortunate to have such a talented person it could call upon to prepare a history of our community. We thank Haynes for giving many hours of his busy life to do the necessary work to prepare this document. The Association hopes that everyone in Whaling Port feels an extra sense of pride in our community and a feeling of sincere gratitude to Haynes for his efforts. Lou Martinage President – Whaling Port Homeowners Association November 2002 2 REMEMBERING OLDE WHALING PORT By Haynes Mahoney Under a leaden sky in early December 1965, we pulled off Old Kings Highway in Yarmouth Port to park in front of a barn that according to the sign had become a handicraft shop. It was getting on to the Christmas season and my wife and I were looking for some small gifts that might betoken our new hometown. As the friendly proprietress showed us her hand carvings and locally woven textiles, I could not suppress the impulse to tell her that we were new residents of the village. That we had just bought a house in a new development called "Whaling Port". Instantly her mood changed. A sad look came into her eyes. "I would never buy property in that area," she said dolefully. "That's sacred ground. There are Indian burial mounds in there, and as everybody knows, if you disturb gravesites, you will be haunted forever." While her dire prediction hardly dampened our buoyant mood at the time, it is now, some 37 years later, and, my beloved Kay already resting in peace these past three years, time to consider whether we were ever haunted, or not. The Land and Legend Whaling Port at that time was mostly a land of sandy hillocks, covered by pitch pine and shrub oak, with occasional cedars, extending eastward from Old Church and Center Streets to White's Brook. As we learned later, there certainly had been enough Indian activity and intrusion of Europeans from ancient times to spawn a few ghosts. In 1007, Thorwald, the brother of Leif Eriksson, and his band of Vikings might well have hiked up through the hickory trees and wild grapevines of that day, from his landing at Hockanom on Chase Garden Creek to the area we now call Whaling Port. They had sailed their longboat from their settlement on Noman's Land, the small island off Nantucket, around Provincetown. They were attacked by Indians, and hastily departed in their vessel except for Thorwald, who was killed in the skirmish and buried there on that headland, somewhere around the Chase Garden marshes. Yes, I know, modern researchers have found artifacts and traces of a Norse settlement in Newfoundland, but those hardy adventurers probably settled in various places on the North American coast. The Cape Cod locale was determined by the British scholar, Edward F. Gray, who was master of the languages of both the Greenland and Icelandic sagas of Norse explorations. After spending six years exploring the northeast 3 coast of North America, including a summer tramping the shores of Cape Cod Bay, he determined that our area of Yarmouth best matched the ancient latitudes, and description of flora and fauna, leading to the Norse name, "Vinland", recounted in the sagas. There are not any wild grapevines in Newfoundland. As Gray explained his findings in his book "Leif Eriksson, Discoverer of America" published in 1930 by the Oxford University Press, which is not prone to bringing out trivia. So, we look forward to the day when a resident of Whaling Port, while spading his garden, will turn up an iron spearhead or Val Kyrie medal or other relic of Norse origin. Whatever the facts of Viking forays, Indians were continual hunters, fishers and residents of our area, until the English settlers pushed them out in the 18th century. When the first English families established their homesteads in Yarmouth early in 1639, the lands were already well defined by the local Whampanoag tribes. The area stretching eastward from Mill Creek, now the Barnstable line, to White's Brook, was known as Mattacheeset, or "Planting Lands". Beyond White's Brook to Dennis was called Hockanom, and eastward from Dennis to Brewster, the regions were Nobscussset, Quivet and Sesuit. Thus, the area of today's Whaling Port occupies the eastern margin of Mattacheeset, between Center Street and Old Church Street on the west, and White's Brook. The first settlers of Yarmouth lands, Anthony Thacher, John Crow and Thomas Howes, received land grants from the General Court at Plymouth in 1639, and were formed Photo 1. Whaling Port’s piney woods. into a committee to make fair division Looking eastward toward White’s Brook and of lands to the Hallets, Nickersons, the marsh from behind #20 Camelot Road. Simpkinses and other settlers who soon followed. According to Charles Francis Swift in his "History of Old Yarmouth", many complaints soon arose against the committee, that they were taking too much land, including the best "meadows and uplands" for themselves. In 1641, the General Court at Plymouth formed a new committee to oversee division of the lands, and sent that stalwart enforcer of the laws, Miles Standish, to Yarmouth to make final decisions. It was not until 1648 that Captain Standish completed the settlement of land claims; no more grants would be made except with his permission. Out of all this, it is difficult to determine who might have owned the lands that make up today's Whaling Port. Historian Swift mentions nearly 25 families occupying the present areas of Yarmouth and Dennis in the 1640s, including Reverend Marmaduke Matthews and Edward Sturges as owning the land eastward of the Meeting House at Fort Hill. This was a slight eminence in the old cemetery, which evidently was fortified by the first settlers to provide protection from attacking natives. It has long since been 4 worn away by the elements, according to Swift. A boulder in the Ancient Cemetery today marks the location of the first church, or "meeting house", which was near the fortification. Rev. Matthews and Sturges may have been original landowners in the area of today's Whaling Port. Reverend Matthews, the town's first minister, was known for long and rambling sermons that sometimes-aroused doctrinal controversy, to the point where his service in Yarmouth was rather stormy, until he removed himself to Hull in 1645 Edward Sturges was town constable in 1641, and "kept an ordinary in which large quantities of liquor were sold" throwing "much light on the drinking habits of our ancestors," wrote Swift. A map of Yarmouth, dated 1644, in the Historical Society's republication of Swift's history, shows the Sturges residence located on the east side of a road running north from the town road in the approximate location of today's Center Street. Thus, Sturges might have been the first resident in Whaling Port lands. Another early owner of Whaling Port lands would have been William Hedge, who was awarded a grant in 1643, running northward from today's corner of Union Street and Old Kings Highway along White's Brook. We will hear more about him later. Of course, it may have been that the town retained ownership of our lands, which would have been leased out for woodlots or cultivation. In those early days it was forbidden "for anyone dwelling here to purchase two house lots or more and lay them together and maintain but one house upon them. This was intended to make the settlements compact, as a matter of safety and precaution." Not everybody followed this dictum, however, since some settlers established homesteads as far away as Follins Pond and Bass River. An early reference to lands in our vicinity appears in the quaint spelling of the town meeting report of 12 May 1687: " At this Town Meeting... the Town Did hier out a piece of crick thach belonging to the Towne lying on the est sid of the bass hole or betwixt Nobcussett beach and the chanell of the Dock near the mouth of Chases garden Rivar on the North sid to John Hall and William Hall and Thomas Sturges ffor this yeare thay paying one shilling to the Towne and they to maintaine and deffend the same against any person that shall lay challing to it and the Town Do hearby ingage and Declare that they will stand by the sad men above mentioned and bare the charges that in the manegement of the premisses in by the law they may be put to." Another notable resident of Yarmouth in the early days, residing near our area, was Jonathan White, the son of Peregrine, who was born on the Mayflower while it was anchored in Provincetown Harbor before proceeding to Plymouth.

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