Reflections of Cape Cod: Stories of the People, Towns and Times - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Ruth Weissberger received her degree from the University of Rochester in the field of mental health. As a mental health counselor, she worked in private practice, corporate settings and authored a monthly column for the Advocate, a national mental health paper. She developed a corporation, The Natural Response, that produced health programs for corporations and the community.

After retiring to Cape Cod with her husband, Ruth joined the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth where she served as Vice President and Chair of the Education/Program Committee. With the committee, she introduced Cape Cod history programs into the Dennis-Yarmouth schools, developed costumed walking tours of Yarmouth’s cemeteries and historical Yarmouth Port and contributed to development of presentations depicting historical citizens in historical dress. She continues with historical presentations within the community and serves as Associate Commissioner of Yarmouth’s Historical Commission. She serves on the Board of the Education Foundation and is a member of the Education Committee of the Bray Farm Association.

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CHAPTER 1:
MAKING A LIVING

Whaling

Nature is the main force that marks Cape Cod as unique, both in the ever changing land and in the way those who choose to live on this land cope with changes. When the newcomers arrived in the 1600s, they set about making their living through agriculture, stock-raising and fishing. Just getting by was hard work but there were occasional luxuries, as when a whale washed up onto shore. The tale of the whale is fascinating, as whaling progressed from harvesting beached whales, to hunting them from small boats, to worldwide, multi-year hunting trips and eventually to observing whales swimming about a sight-seeing boat.

Cape Cod was made famous by the whaling skill of its people. In early times, whales abounded in Cape Cod waters and often became stranded on the Cape s shores. Sometimes a whole pod stranded, and farmers left their fields and rushed to the beach to tend to the profits that could be made from this gift from the sea. These early whalers never embarked on boats. The bounty came to them. They simply went to the beach where the whales stranded, stripped the blubber and rendered it into oil which was used primarily for lighting.

A noted historian wrote:

"The townspeople looked upon whaling as a lark, particularly since the profits were immediate: and before long some began to wish that whales would come ashore often enough to provide steady work at trying them out. At this point the seed was sown that was to turn the Cape Codders into whalemen."

Drift whales, or stranded whales, were shared among the people, with the minister, the church and the school of the town in which the whales had stranded. Shore whaling brought such profits that men set up outer beach houses as watch sites. It took a lot of wood to keep these houses warm and the wood burned contributed to the stripping of the Cape s forests.

Soon there were disagreements over which town owned a beached whale. Lively discussions developed over where a large whale, or pod of smaller pilot whales, called blackfish, had beached and which town had claim. Before the town of Sandwich was twenty years old it had already promulgated rules and regulations concerning drift whales.

Profits from shore whaling were substantial. In 1687, two hundred tons of whale oil were exported to England. Boiled and refined, it lubricated delicate machinery. Whale blubber was rendered and the resulting oil used in the tanning process and for lighting.