There's Soooo Much to Learn About Women in US History

1921 photo of Suffragettes, New York Times

Today is International Women's Day, with events, celebrations, and probably a fair number of protests also taking place in various locations the world over. In addition to this world-wide holiday held every year on March 8th, March has been declared Women's History Month in the United States, with special tributes and tidbits featuring little-known women who have shaped US history showing up on TV programs like ABC's The View and in other relevant spots in American News.
I'm going to begin to put up a photo or a quote about women or girls, something that I find interesting or provoking, as often as I can through this month, and maybe beyond that time as well. When I went to look up some facts on this world celebration, along with the convoluted history of America's still-uncompleted Equal Rights Amendment, I read various accounts of the ERA still  short of becoming the law of the land. Pages and pages and pages!
Even after all of these dozens and dozens of years in which good men and women have fought to put in writing the most basic protections for women, and to secure real rights equal to those routinely expected and afforded to men, there were so many pages to absorb that I had to give up as the afternoon slipped away from me.
On their website, at www.womenshistory.org, the  National Women's History Museum begins their timeline of women's suffrage and activism in 1840. I'm woefully unprepared to enlighten on these events, but will study up for future posts (or at least tidbits) during the rest of this month. In the meantime, I heartily recommend playing today's Google Doodle, dedicated to International Women's Day. Just go to Google, or click here and then click on the "start" arrow.
Happy Women's Day!

Take a Peek Inside One of Provincetown's Famous Dune Shacks

Dune Shack Kitchen, Provincetown

My cheeks are beginning to cramp up a bit, because I haven't stopped grinning since the day I discovered this splendid bit of Provincetown nostalgia. I wish I knew who to credit for this photo, which speaks volumes about the history of the dunes without uttering a single word. I found it on the Provincetown Photography Page on Facebook, posted by a man who had found it online, with no information on its provenance.
I was a tour guide on Art's Dune Tours for a few years, and I certainly miss being out there every day, amongst those enormous, sandy hillsides, the wildlife, splendid vegetation, endless vistas of the Atlantic, and most of all, the rambling dune shacks dotting the hills and flats. I would occasionally be asked to drive a shack-dweller into the dunes to spend the week in one of these crude huts, an assignment that I relished. I sometimes got to see inside one shack or another as I helped my passengers carry in things they'd need in a remote little shelter without electricity or even the simplest amenities.

C-scape Dune Shack, photo by Jamia Kelly, shows Pilgrim Monument on the
distant horizon in this lovely view over the dunes toward Provincetown Harbor.
Click to enlarge this photo for a closer look at this venerable shack.

Driving these folks back from their respite, I was regaled with tales of glorious sunrises, the smells of beach roses and wildflowers bursting open, and tastes of blueberries and beach plums found on a hike. Stories of wildlife abound, from the scurrying field mice who share most of these primitive shelters, to foraging deer in the forested spots, or gray seals swimming down the beach every night as the sun sizzles into the ocean and twilight takes over.
The moment I saw this charming photo I knew I was looking through the window of one of the famous dune shacks where the likes of Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Norman Mailer, Lillian Hellman and countless other writers had visited, stayed and worked. In the quiet solitude if the dunes, they were inspired by the sights, smells and sensations of this unique refuge. Nearly every important American writer of the early 1900s sought a bit of solitude in these dunes, and artists flocked there as well. Probably the most universally known artist to have taken inspiration here was abstract painter Jackson Pollock.
Click on the dune tour link above to watch a five-minute video showing you a bit of that adventure led by Rob Costa, whose father, Art, started these trips through the dunes in 1939. You can also reserve a tour of the sand dunes for yourself on this site.
Click this link Dune Shacks: taste of Cape Cods' floating & well-aged homes for a 27-minute video, hosted by a man with current dwelling rights. He'll take you out walking the dunes and beach, learning some of the history of these remarkable shacks, and looking inside the dwelling that his family has been preserving for the better part of the last century. I highly recommend this video.
If you're hardy enough you can walk out into the dunes to spot some of these enchanting shacks yourself. Please try to stay on the trails and avoid trampling the grasses and plant life, and be sure not to disturb folks who might be staying in any one of these primitive shanties. You can also take the dune tour to get out there. It will take you very close to a number of these wonderful shacks.

April Fool's Contest, 2017 - Souvenirs That Got PTown History Wrong

This souvenir plate likely sold quite well in the early 1900s,
but it got a bit of Provincetown's history wrong.

Many and various sorts of Provincetown souvenirs have been produced over the years, and many of these items depict our colorful history in one way or another, but a number of them have gotten several little bits of our history wrong.
This lovely plate, likely produced around the 1920s, shows several vignettes of well-known Provincetown sights of the day, such as the Pilgrim Monument, the steamship Dorothy Bradford arriving from Boston, and the building thought by many to be the  oldest remaining house in Provincetown. It's found at 72 Commercial Street.
In about 1746 the house was built by ship's carpenter Seth Nickerson, mainly using timbers and planks he had recovered from shipwrecks over the years. The beehive-shaped brick oven at the rear of the main fireplace dates this house before 1750. More "oldest house" claims are argued for other buildings, but this one was promoted as such, and was opened to the public by its resident owners somewhere in the early 1900s.
This souvenir plate was manufactured by W. Adams & Sons, Tunstall, England, and imported for F. H. Dearborn, who owned a shop near the center of town, selling souvenirs, newspapers and periodicals at 277 Commercial Street. The points of interest depicted on the plate seem to be from photos of well-known Provincetown landmarks, including the "Oldest House."

This image is definitely not the home known as the oldest house in Provincetown.

But look closer…
What's wrong with this picture?
A photo erroneously labeled as the oldest house was used in several postcards over a period of years, and also made its way onto this souvenir plate.

"Details" have been painted into the original black-and-white photograph
of this house, long ago mistakenly labeled as PTown's oldest house.

Here are two versions of this photo, each made into a popular postcard, with a number of artistic embellishments, such as the slightly-too-perfect clouds added in the photo to the left. The flower garden was also painted in.

In this incarnation, the artist "improved" the photo by trimming the trees and
shrubs a little, refurbishing the roof, and giving the house a red brick chimney.

This edition featured an embossed version of the photo, again enhanced by an artist, and pressed into the card leaving the image slightly raised. It made a lovely postcard, but the description was still wrong.
Several things in this photo tell us that this is not the West End building known as the oldest remaining house in town. Whoever can name the most clues to this mistaken identity will win a great Provincetown prize. Just point out as many discrepancies as you can find between this house and 72 Commercial Street.
Click on any photo above to enlarge it for more detail, and list every reason you can spot why this can't be the oldest house. E-mail your list to theyearrounder@gmail.com, or text your answers to 424•237•8696 (that's 424•23P•TOWN, if that's easier to remember, to leave your answers by voice mail, but by entering that way you'll lose a minute-and-a-half of your life listening to my message about my fabulous guided tour of Provincetown before you can leave your answers.)
You can also enter by good old US mail. Send entries to TheYearRounder (all one word,) at P O Box 1632, Provincetown, MA 02657.
Entries must be in my hand, or cell phone, or e-mail, by 12' O'clock Noon on April 28th, 2017. In case of a tie for greatest number of reasons why this photo is not Provincetown's "Oldest House," or for any other dispute, a panel of three level-headed citizens, as determined by ME, will resolve the issue by coin toss, random selection, prettiest handwriting, sexiest telephone voice, or any other senseless criteria they may choose, and by entering, we all agree that their ruling is infallible and FINAL.
And, as usual, I reserve the right to award an extra prize or two for no reason whatsoever, to one or more entries chosen at random from all entries received by the deadline. So, you don't even have to be right to win a prize, but you do have to enter.
Good luck, and happy April Fool's Day to one and all. And for a good giggle, click this link to see my all time favorite April Fools prank, perpetrated a few years back by the BBC.

A Bit of History Lies Beneath Fanizzi's Restaurant, Once Again Open Daily

Fanizzi's "Fresh Fried Sea Scallop Plate" is served for lunch or dinner.

We're so happy to have Fanizzi's up and running again after their recent 6-week closing for structural repairs to this cherished waterfront building, which literally sits right on top of Provincetown Harbor. Welcome back!
537-539 Commercial Street, where Fanizzi's restaurant and parking area sit today, was the location of a fishing empire known as Whorf's Wharf, built by Thomas Rider Whorf, Jr. in 1850, and later run by his son, Phillip A. Whorf.
These Whorfs shared an ancestor, generations apart, with the artists John, Carol and Nancy Whorf, though they were not direct descendants.
At one time this busy pier stretched 400 feet into the harbor, serving its own fleet of 16 boats engaged in various types of fishing, while shipping some of the catch to markets as far away as Chicago. 130 men were employed in the operation.
There was a windmill on the property, presumably part of a saltworks where seawater was pumped to a system of trays and troughs. The water was evaporated to produce the salt used in drying and preserving much of the fish caught by Whorf's fleet.

This 1890s photo shows busy Whorf's Wharf, employing some 130 fishermen, salt
workers, sailmakers and others in serving and operating 16 boats. The old
sail loft very likely became Fanizzi's Restaurant by the Sea, as we know it today.

The wharf also had its own sail loft for fabricating and repairing the many sails for its sizable fleet, and Fanizzi's building is almost certainly that old sail loft, still sitting on pilings at the edge of the beach.
The recent repairs, including new pilings installed beneath the restaurant, should ensure many more years of life for this historic building dating back to the height of Provincetown's great whaling and fishing era, often called the Golden Age of Sail.
Sitting in Fanizzi's dining room, above those pilings, with the waves and tides lapping below, is one of the great pleasures of dining in Provincetown. And the view! Cape Cod Bay winds along the distant shoreline of Truro, and becomes Provincetown Harbor as it reaches the tip of the Cape and the lighthouse at Long Point. Our picturesque beaches stretch both east, with a view of Beach Point, and west, offering a striking view of the Pilgrim Monument, and often a golden glow as the sun is setting. These and other stunning sights are easily seen from your table. That superb, 180 degree view of the harbor is unparalleled. There's even a view from the bar.

Fanizzi's Friday Night Fish Fry is a large serving of local cod with fries, slaw,
dinner rolls and salad, all for $13.99. Go early, before this great bargain sells out.

On my most recent lunchtime visit to Fanizzi's, I felt more like having a "dinner" sort of meal, so I ordered from a selection of entrées that started at just $8.99 for Eggplant Parmigiana baked in homemade marinara sauce and a blanket of cheese, served over campanile pasta. Fanizzi's is quite well-known for good food at very reasonable prices. Big, juicy, eight-ounce Angus burgers start at $10.99, while 16 sandwiches, specialties and wraps start at $9.99. There are daily lunch and dinner specials, too.
The meal I chose that day was among half-a-dozen seafood entrées on the lunch menu. I had the  fried scallops, shown in the photo above. This was a generous serving of ten plump, fresh, local sea scallops, lightly battered and quickly fried until just golden brown, served with Fanizzi's great French fries and their unique coleslaw. I believe the very light dressing on the coleslaw starts with a bit of rice wine vinegar instead of a mayonnaise-based sauce. It's fresh flavors give it just a hint of sweetness, and it's probably my favorite coleslaw in town.
Visit Fanizzi's at 539 Commercial Street, now open again every day, serving lunch from 11:30 AM till 3:45 PM, with dinner served from 4 PM till closing. Five Early Bird dinner specials are available from 4:30 to 6 PM for just $15.99. Catch their Friday Night Fish Fry for $13.99, and don't forget Sunday Brunch, 10 AM till 2 PM, serving all you'd care to eat for $14.95, $8.95 for kids. But be sure to save a little room for one of their mammoth-sized, homemade desserts!
We welcome back Fanizzi's Restaurant by the Sea, and their thoughtful, friendly staff.

A Bit of History - A Pilgrim Monument Moment

This vintage postcard shows the type of "Accommodation" driven by
Si Young in 1907, before motorized versions took over around 1911.

Josiah L. “Si” Young made his living driving the “accommodation,” Provincetown's horse drawn, covered, open air wagon that carried people from one end of town to the other for a nickel a ride around the turn of the twentieth century.

On Aug, 20^th, 1907, he was asked to drive a rented Victorian carriage that had been brought down from Boston for a special occasion. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, Young carried President Teddy Roosevelt the short distance from Town Wharf, where he had arrived by presidential yacht, to the top of the hill behind Town Hall, where a grand ceremony had been planned, and Roosevelt would lay the cornerstone to begin construction of the Pilgrim Memorial Monument.

The newspaper later quoted Young, who called the drive “…the most jittery experience I ever had and I thought we would never get to the top of that hill.” The President tipped him a dollar, which Young pressed between the pages of the family bible for safekeeping.

Photo of "Si" Young on the right, "holding down the bench" with friends.

Around 1911, when motorbuses became the mode of transportation for town folks running their errands, Young continued to drive the “Accommodation.” In the 1940s (and his 80s) Young became a fixture on the bench in front of the family antique business at 375-377 Commercial Street, where he chatted with friends who would stop by to rest a little and shoot the breeze. A 50s era postcard shows him there in his rocking chair.

Shops there have sold, glass, bamboo, Portuguese crafts, and even gourmet foods, but of all the shops operated here over the years, Silk and Feathers, with its eye-catching window displays of free-spirited clothing, may be the one best remembered.

Can Anyone Identify this PTown Location?

Can you identify this spot? Help me if you can.

Does Anyone recognize this spot, or know the name "The Bars" as the title of this postcard reads? Printed a bit faintly in the upper right corner of the card is "c. 710 The Bars, Provincetown, Mass." I've never seen, nor even heard of this place, which certainly doesn't mean that it didn't exist, but I find it curious. For one thing, there aren't a lot of tree-covered hillsides around town, as seen toward the back of this view.
In my vast collection of photo and postcard images of Provincetown and its history, there are a number that were incorrectly labeled by the publisher, and I'm wondering if this is another of those. That doesn't seem very likely, though, since the publisher was the Advocate, the venerable Provincetown publisher that put out the weekly town paper of the same name, and also ran what may have been the largest postcard operation on Cape Cod, publishing their own cards.

Now Waydowntown, the old Advocate Building is still quite charming.

There was another building, attached at the back of 265 Commercial Street, where the newspaper was printed, but most of the postcards of that era were printed in Germany, owing to the superior quality of prints achieved by the skillful Germans and their very advanced presses. The early Advocate postcards were no exception.
Boston architect T. M. Sargent designed the storefront with rather oversized windows to show off the cards, newspapers and souvenirs offered to a tourist trade that was already beginning its steady growth by 1911, when this shop was built in the center of town, right across the street from Town Hall. The windows above, made up of a couple of hundred tiny panes, create one of my favorite architectural details on Commercial Street. The decorative woodwork above and below the windows also helps to make this building one of the most charming in town.
For a time the postcard business even seems to have spilled into the next building to the east through a "hyphen," a small addition built between two structures to join them. As it turns out, there are quite a few hyphenated buildings in Provincetown.
At any rate, there's a bit of the history of The Advocate Building, as it was known. Now, back to my question… Does anyone know a spot in Provincetown called the Bars? If so, please leave a comment here, or e-mail theyearrounder@wildglobe.com, or call me at 42423PTOWN. This one has me stumped.

This Day in Boston, 1896, Fannie Farmer's Cookbook is Published - Still a Best Seller

Fannie Farmer is still America's most famous cook.

Today marks the 120^th anniversary of the singular cookbook that taught generations of Americans how to cook. First published on January 7^th, 1896, as The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer, later on known as Fannie Farmer's Cookbook, this book was much more than a mere collection of hundreds of recipes. It was an educative revolution in cooking.
The book actually sought to teach its readers how to cook, and what to eat. Included in the book were “lessons” on choosing foods and the science behind their best use and preparation. Through studying this book novice cooks could learn why to choose one vegetable over another, what makes milk turn sour, and why the temperature of the oil used in frying was crucial to the outcome of the dish. Simple recipes and instructions taught the basics of good cooking and proper nutrition. For more experienced cooks there were hundreds of more challenging recipes to expand their skills and palates.

Fannie’s book gave detailed instructions on achieving the correct temperature in an iron stove by proper selection of coal, soft wood like pine, and various hardwoods, along with adjusting the flue and damper and controlling the amount of oxygen for precise results. Fannie also taught her readers that there was actual science involved in cooking and baking. She was the first to give instruction on ensuring results by using standardized measuring cups and spoons to accurately measure ingredients.

In 1889 Fannie would graduate from The Boston Cooking School (Boston's first,) which was founded 10 years earlier by the Woman’s Educational Association of Boston in order “to offer instruction in cooking to those who wished to earn their livelihoods as cooks, or who would make practical use of such information in their families.” Fannie studied under Mary J. Lincoln, who researched and wrote Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book: What to Do and What Not to Do in Cooking.

Miss Farmer teaches pupil Martha Hayes Ludden about precise measuring to achieve consistent results.

At The Boston Cooking School, Fannie had begun to understand the association between eating certain foods and maintaining good health. She then took a nutrition course at Harvard Medical School to learn as much as she could about healthful eating and proper preparation of foods. Having been one of the top students at the cooking school, Fannie would become assistant director there shortly after her graduation, and would go on to become head of the school a few years later. Meanwhile, she continued to study food and the science behind cooking at every opportunity.
Fannie began revising and expanding Mrs. Lincoln’s cookbook, building on her teacher’s detailed and methodical approach to recipe writing, and presenting a thorough discussion on the careful measurement of each ingredient in a recipe. In 1896, when Miss Farmer approached the publisher Little, Brown & Company with her book, The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, they didn’t think it would do very well, so they would commit only to printing a limited run of 3,000 copies, and only if Fannie would cover the costs. It turned out to be the best-selling cookbook of the era, with over 4 million copies sold in Fannie's lifetime, and it remains a perennial favorite today. In the 120 years it has been on the shelves, Fannie Farmer's Cookbook has never been out of print.

Fannie Farmer's lectures were very popular despite the 30 cent admission.

After a number of years running The Boston Cooking School, Fannie left in 1902 to open her own Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, also in Boston, aimed toward training housewives rather than household service staff, professional cooks or teachers.
Together with her sister, Cora Farmer Perkins, Fannie also wrote a regular column for the Woman's Home Companion. Her cooking demonstrations and lectures became widely known, costing 30 cents for admission to the morning session and 25 cents in the evenings, as shown in the ad from this unknown periodical. The Boston Evening Transcript published her lectures, which were printed in newspapers all across the country.
In the preface to her cookbook, our Miss Farmer writes “At the earnest solicitation of educators, pupils, and friends, I have been urged to prepare this book, and I trust it may be a help to many who need its aid. It is my wish that it may not only be looked upon as a compilation of tried and tested recipes, but that it may awaken an interest through its condensed scientific knowledge which will lead to deeper thought and broader study of what to eat.”
The book was rather an education in cooking and nutrition, as well as keeping house, all bound in a single volume of 39 chapters, hundreds of pages, and hundreds of recipes from simple sauces and condiments to an elegant 12 course meal. The table of contents alone was 22 pages!

The book has been updated quite a bit from time to time as the field of cooking has evolved, with nearly 900 pages in the current edition, and roughly 1,900 recipes. After all, the way to make a classic veal stock hasn't changed, nor the way to debone a chicken, nor the proportions of flour, sugar and butter in a pound cake. Many of the original recipes remain in the book, unaltered, along with new ones.
I found Fannie Farmer’s recipe for Cape Cod Oatmeal Cookies on several websites, including Just a Pinch Recipes, written by Debby Nelson, who writes “This recipe is from an old Fannie Farmer Cookbook I bought not long after I married. My Dad and my husband loved them so I would make them every year at Christmas and in-between. They are chewy and nourishing. Give them a try!”

I also found these cookies at Lynne Feifer’s 365 Days of Baking and More, where she challenged herself to bake something every day for a year and write about it on the Internet. This recipe also popped up at full tummies, where, for nearly eight years now, someone known only as Betsy has been writing about healthful, nutritious food choices and sharing recipes that “our whole family loves!” Both Lynne and Debby found this excellent, very popular cookie recipe still in the current incarnation, the 13^th edition of Fannie Farmer's Cookbook, which was published 20 years ago, in 1996, celebrating the book’s 100^th anniversary that year.

Click this link to find Fannie’s Last Supper, an excellent video that just may make you want to cook. It's a teaser for the 2007 PBS documentary of the same name, following folks who decided to throw a dinner party recreating the 12 course meal in Fannie's cookbook using only a wood stove to cook on. Now I'm looking for the DVD of that program, because that's something I'd like to see.
In the meantime, I'll settle for a plate of Cape Cod Oatmeal Cookies from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Thank you, Miss Farmer!

News of the Day in Provincetown, 1954...

Click on this photo to enlarge it and read the names of the 1954 First National staff.

The front page of the November 18, 1954 issue of the local weekly newspaper, the Provincetown Advocate, featured this group photo of the staff of the First National Bank of Provincetown, taken from the company's just-published book (and perhaps more of a public relations tool,) One Hundred Years of Growing with Provincetown, which commemorated the centennial of one of the earliest commercial banks to have been founded in the United States.
It was launched in 1854 as the Provincetown Bank in a new building at 290 Commercial Street, known today as Puzzle Me This. It became a national bank in 1865 with its capital stock doubling from $100,000 to $200,000. It was quite different from Seamen’s Savings Bank, which had incorporated in 1851 as a mutual bank, owned not by stockholders but rather by its depositors, and remaining so today.

The 1854 original building at 290 Commercial Street still stands,
now hidden by a newer front added on in stages, beginning in 1921.

In this early photo the sign above the door simply reads "Bank." The men on the front porch are the Board of Directors, and 290 Commercial Street, built in 1854, doesn’t look much like it does today, though the original building is still there.

It had its ground floor extended through the front yard to the sidewalk in 1921. Later, the other two floors were extended. In the photo below you’ll recognize the First National Bank building as today's Puzzle Me This, one of just a small handful of brick storefronts found along Provincetown streets nowadays.

Picture bright colors, harlequin flags and benches in front of Puzzle Me This.

The 1921 ground-floor addition to the front of the building granted the First National Bank of Provincetown a new, businesslike look that served the institution well until it moved into its brand new building in 1950, there on the corner of Winthrop Street, now known as Joe Coffee, at 170 Commercial Street.

The American Revolution had been financed by the printing of paper money, basically an IOU, to pay the soldiers and suppliers, who could spend these notes just like the reserve of gold and silver coins that theoretically backed up these bills.
Soon banks in various states were printing their own notes, and a dollar issued in one state could be worth a lot less elsewhere. Eventually President Lincoln signed the National Currency Act, declaring the federal dollar as the sole United States currency, with a couple of thousand federally chartered banks printing the notes. Each particular design and denomination looked alike, wherever it had been printed, except for the name of the bank and its charter number, appearing on every note. The charter number of the First National Bank of Provincetown was 736.

This 1882 series $5 note was a brownback rather than a greenback.

Dozens of thousands of $5 notes exist, as the most common denomination after the $1 note, with some banks issuing only $5 notes. This same design was printed by banks all across the country,

This crisp, clean 1863 series $50 Provincetown note is worth about $13,734.

Larger denominations didn't circulate much, and not many large bills were kept over the years. $50 was a huge amount of money to let sit idle rather than deposit or spend it. There are just 35 of these notes left, issued by various banks around the country, making this Provincetown specimen pretty valuable. It could be worth about 275 times its face value, around $13,734. Wouldn't you like to find a couple of these tucked into an old book? Drawer? Picture Frame?

The First National Bank of Provincetown was gobbled up in the 1970s by the powerful Shawmut Bank, which was itself later devoured by TD Bank, while Seamen's Bank remains an independent, mutual bank serving the best interests of its customers, doing good things in Outer Cape communities, and eschewing the smarmy world of corporate greed. I'll say it again… Ya gotta love a town like this!
So keep an eye out when you come across old books, papers, boxes, trunks and the like, when you tear down a wall, or even visit a thrift shop or yard sale. If you see something that vaguely looks like money, it may be worth something.

Read PTown Newspapers Dating to 1869

A 1904 Provincetown newspaper advertised Widow Jones's Clothing For Boys.
The New York Store building is still located at the corner of Commercial and Standish streets.

This is an ad placed in the Provincetown Beacon newspaper on March 19th, 1904. In this issue we learn about burning events of the day, such as Joshua T. Small, "a well-to-do citizen of Provincetown" having been arraigned before U.S. Commissioner Goodspeed on a charge of having deposited an obscene letter in the United States Mails, to which he entered a plea of not guilty.
I found a wonderful archive of five old Provincetown newspapers, with some of these issues dating back to 1869. Ads, stories and news tidbits in dozens of newspapers found in this archive tell tales of small town life in Provincetown nearly 150 years ago. This project is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, thanks to the Library Services Technology Act, which is administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. We thank the Town of Provincetown and the Provincetown Public Library for helping to bring us this wonderful resource and insight into PTown history, as recorded in these papers of the day.
In this issue, we also learn that "Miss Minnie Matthews substituted at the western school building for Miss Anna Dolan the past week." These old newspapers are full of tiny "stories" like this. Look for more of these to appear here soon, as I dig them up.

End of an Era for Adams Pharmacy

What will become of this plaque, since Adams has moved?

After 146 years, as the oldest business operating in the same Provincetown location for all that time, the shop that will perhaps forever be known to Townies and frequent PTown visitors as Adams Pharmacy, finishes that legacy by moving across the street.
Known at various times as 252 and as 254 Commercial Street, the house at the corner of Commercial and Gosnold streets was built about 1850, with the small front yard giving way at some point to the storefront that was built on sometime later.
In 1869, Dr. John M. Crocker, who was the original publisher of The Provincetown Advocate, was living in the house when he started printing his weekly newspaper. It seems that the pharmacy business was started in the same year. Born and raised in Provincetown, Dr. Crocker had graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1866, and practiced medicine here for some 20 years.

Adams' Pharmacy, at the right, about 1880. Gosnold Street sign is on the tree.

John D. Adams lent his name to the business when he bought it in 1875. Later, relatives in the Norman Cook Family got involved with the business, followed by Norman Jr., who ran the place for over 40 years, beginning in the 1930s.
He was a volunteer on the Provincetown Fire Department, as well as a licensed pharmacist. His wife Dorothy ran the store while her husband served briefly in the Pacific in WWII, having been drafted into the Navy. They eventually passed down the management of the shop to Joe Ward, whom they had more or less "adopted" when he had begun working at the store as a troubled teen, needing a home.

The town shovels out after a huge snowstorm in 1939.

Adams Pharmacy has always been a sort of gathering place for PTown folks. After the second enlargement of the storefront there was plenty of space for three tables in the center of the room, where people could have a cup of tea while they discussed the events of the day or swapped stories and rumors.
When a long counter with twirling stools and an old fashioned soda fountain was installed, the place instantly became a hangout for high school kids sipping sodas after class and on weekends, and by then most of the town was starting each day with a hot cup of coffee at that counter, along with a couple of juicy tidbits from a neighbor or two.

This photo from Adams' Facebook page looks like it was
probably taken in the 1950s. Notice the old ice cream chest. 

Vincent Duarte bought the property in 1989, and he continued to run the pharmacy.
When he removed the beloved soda fountain and counter in 2003, the entire town seemed to go through a period of mourning.
Tables and a few chairs were once again employed, and folks could still stop in for an ice cream treat from the self-serve freezer, or share a little gossip over a newspaper and a cup of coffee, but it just was never quite the same. Although Duarte still owns the shop today, he sold the pharmacy interest in the business to Stop and Shop when they came to Provincetown in 2009.
I'm afraid this week's move will really prove to be the end of an era as Adams moves across Gosnold Street, trading places with Big Vin's Liquors.

Today is Cape Cod's 413th Birthday, sort of

English Explorer Bartholomew Gosnold gave this spit of sand a name on the morning of May 15th, 1602, but by the afternoon, he had changed his mind. Here's the story…

An artist's conception of the ship sailed by Thorwald Ericsson,
who was likely exploring Cape Cod waters around the year 1004.

Explorers from foreign lands began sailing the waters surrounding Provincetown at least 1,000 years ago, giving the land we call Cape Cod today many names over the years.

The Vikings were among the early adventurers in these waters, with Thorwald, the younger brother of Leif Ericsson, damaging the keel of his ship in a serious storm off the shoreline of what has been presumed by many to be Cape Cod, based on Thorwald's description of the land and the huge bay he found on that journey, around the year 1004.

The Vikings didn’t begin to record their history in writing until about 200 years later, but stories of their adventures, passed down orally to later generations, included details of these voyages. Historians presume that Thorwald’s ship struck a sandbar, whereupon he and his crew came ashore to make repairs, calling the land Keel Cape, named for the damage to his ship.

Later, exploring nearer to the area we call Boston today, Thorwald and his men fell into a skirmish with a native tribe. As he lay dying from the wound of a poisoned arrow, Thorwald asked his men to return his body to the place where they had stopped to repair the ship, and to bury him there with a cross at his head and a cross at his feet, and to then call that land the Cape of Crosses. So Thorwald had twice changed the name of Cape Cod himself, and others also changed it over the years.

By 1475, the Basque fishermen had made several excursions on the Atlantic Ocean, reportedly to an island location they never disclosed, carrying back great shiploads of cod, and keeping their destination in the Atlantic a secret. By the 1500s the Portuguese had discovered the tremendous stocks of cod and other fish to be found in these waters, and began sailing across the Atlantic to easily fill their boats with fish. In 1525, Portuguese explorer Estêvão Gomes had sailed this way under the Spanish flag, returning with a report on all the fish he had found near the land he had named Cabo de la Arenas. All of the early explorers mentioned those huge schools of fish.

This reconstruction of Gosnold is in the collection
of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

That leads us to Gosnold, who gave the Cape the name that would finally stick. 

Nascent British explorer Bartholomew Gosnold was born into a rather well to do family, and had studied law at Cambridge University, but at the same time he had become enchanted with the sea.

On the 26th of March, 1602, sponsored by members of the British aristocracy, Gosnold took command of a small ship called the Concord, weighing anchor in the port of Falmouth, England, and setting out on a grand adventure seeking a new route between Europe and the “New World,” which we know today as the continent of North America.

Rather than sailing along the established southern route through the Canary Islands and the West Indies, he was in search of a shorter route, a northwest passage, to Virginia. At that time the entire North American shoreline from Florida to Canada was called Virginia, named for Elizabeth II, the Virgin Queen of England, by Sir Walter Raleigh, who had introduced Gosnold to life on the high seas.

Besides establishing a new, shorter route across the Atlantic, Gosnold was also on a mission to establish a British colony in northern Virginia, and had set a course to the west, running fairly straight across the ocean from England. Due to bad weather, an inadequate ship, a crew that was only fair at best, and perhaps his own uncertainty, Gosnold soon found himself in the Azores, far off course from the route he had planned. But that turned out to be a stroke of luck.

Setting out once again for the New World, Gosnold sailed almost directly west from the Azores, and within a record breaking forty-nine days the ship and its 32 passengers came within sight of the rocky shoreline and beaches of Maine.

Artist's sketch of Gosnold's leaky little bark
'Concord' by James W. Mayor, Jr.

The Concord was a leaky, 39-foot, 30-ton Dartmouth bark carrying roughly 22 would-be settlers and a crew of perhaps ten men. There are a number of accounts of this adventure, each written by a man who was on the voyage, but none could concur on all the details, though the majority agreed that the total of men onboard was thirty-two. Upon arrival on this continent, they anchored overnight off the shoreline of Maine.

The following day they continued their journey, sailing southwest and following the coastline, staying some distance off the shore and measuring the depth of the unfamiliar waters as they traveled. They found a large, curling peninsula encircling a huge bay, the entire area teaming with cod, mackerel and herring, and Gosnold named the place Shoal Hope. Here, he and four other men went ashore in a small shallop, and are presumed to have been the first Englishmen to have set foot on this sandy hook of land.

Meanwhile, that afternoon the men remaining aboard the Concord caught so many fish that they soon began throwing some of them back into the sea to make more room on the ship’s overcrowded deck, piled deep in fish, most of them being cod. Upon his return to the ship, Gosnold was amazed at the catch the men had made over the course of a single day. Of course, he then changed the name of this long, curving spit of sand to Cape Cod, naming it for its abundance of the codfish. One of his crew was reported to have remarked that a man could practically “walk across the bay on the backs of ye cod fishes.”

The name stuck as other explorers came this way, like Captain John Smith, who noted Cape Cod on his map in 1614, and the Pilgrims knew that they had found Cape Cod when they landed here, also through navigating errors, on November 11th, 1620.

Next month I’ll bring you another chapter in the saga of Bartholomew Gosnold, who failed in his attempt to build an English settlement on a tiny island off the shores of the Cape on that trip, but that’s a story for another day. Today, let’s just celebrate May 15th, Cape Cod’s birthday (sort of,) when it finally got its name, 413 years ago today.