THE CAPTAINS
When the Cape Captains came home from the sea it was their realization of a dream of security and of normal family life for which they had fought the elements and endured countless hardships. Behind them stretched limitless miles of open ocean, the sea which had claimed so many friends and relatives. In the great days of the Clippers, between 1840 and 1870, the white stones in the cemeteries with the notation “Lost at Sea”, had multiplied so greatly that to a stranger today it would seem that Cape Codders hardly ever lived long enough to die of natural causes. In the year 1840 it was estimated that there were over one thousand “sea-widows” residing in the County. Those who had come home to stay ashore at last did so with humility and thanksgiving in their hearts.
It is sometimes difficult to remember that the life of a deep-water Captain was a business, and a grim and lonesome business at that, in which the Captains were engaged in order to make a living for their families. They chose such a way because the sea was at their doorstep, and in their blood, and in the direction in which their talents lay. Of course there was something in it of the strong call of adventure, and they were equal to it, for they were intelligent and brave, and true pioneers. No port in the world was beyond their reach and in the clipper ships with the wonderful names (Red Jacket, Flying Cloud, Wild Hunter and the rest) they reached them and returned, not once, but a score of times, girdling the globe and reducing its size to the glory of their country. But for most it was the vision of a final haven in some Cape village, with wife and family, and enough money for security, that kept the Captains going through all the lonely years at sea.
It is in the ship’s papers and correspondence of the Captains that the inherent homesickness shines through and in ways that, in their subtlety, make it all the more poignant. Thus a river across the world “looks a little like our own Bass River”, and a distant shoreline “makes me think of the highlands at home”. Perhaps the Captain practices penmanship on a spare page of his log. Then you will see that the names he has written over and over again are those of wife and children, or of his home village on the Cape. Many would use their spare time to dream of the home they would one day build ashore and in the notebooks are frequent drawings of dream mansions, many of which became reality in a Cape village.
Sometimes the controls are off and in some moment of nostalgia he writes from the heart, baldly. One Dennis Captain writes to his owners, “Please to send someone to take over the ship when we reach San Francisco as I have been over three years without seeing home or family and cannot be away from them longer.” Sometimes when things were going especially badly the Captain’s remarks even broke into the “Remarks” column of the ship’s Log as in this entry by a famous Cape Captain on his fortieth day at sea in the Pacific: “Oh, for a cot in some vast wilderness where I shall never see a ship again. If ever one poor fellow has tired of anything it is I that is sick and tired of going to sea.”
As you look over the yellowed pages that the Captains have left behind, you feel that they only were able to shake their haunting vision of home and family when they had the greatest reason to have overwhelming pride in their craft and the challenges they offered. Let them break a standing record for crossing a sea, or triumphantly outsail a superior vessel, or accurately guess a position in mid-ocean just “from the look of things”, or sail through tortuous straits where more timid men had said “can’t be done”, and the pride of honest achievement brought compensation for tiresome, lonesomehours away from home.
Many of the Captains never realized their dream of retirement ashore, but many did, and with the money from their voyages they built their lovely homes along Main Street. Into them went some of the most exotic woods of the tropics, molded into fine panelling by ship’s carpenters who loved the feel of fine wood, and played their own kind of music upon it. And into the panelled rooms went the relics of their hundreds of thousands of miles at sea—teakwood stands and rosewood chairs, tables inlaid with mosaic and ivory, the finest of china and crystal, wallpapers from France and carpets from Belgium, and all the countless odds and ends of curiosities that have appealed to souvenir collectors of all times and generations. Often there were so many things that they spilled out of the house and into the attic where they reposed in the Captain’s sea chests that were kept standing “at the ready” just in case. Every house had such a surfeit of Oriental silks and embroidery that many a young girl, who wanted something really different to wear to a dance, preferred to buy a bolt of calico from the village dry goods store. But when all the curios and souvenirs had been distributed about the Captain’s home, the place of honor would still be saved upon the parlor wall for the oil painting of the Captain’s vessel as it was depicted by some far away artist as it entered the Port of Naples, or Calcutta, or Singapore. For the Captains could never divorce themselves entirely from the beautiful winged ships that had brought them safely home.
From their homes the Captains took their thankfulness and humility to the white churches of the Cape, many of which they had helped to build, and to which they gave their active support. All of the Captains had held regular Sunday services aboard ship, fair weather or foul, and many had held daily readings from the Bible which they kept in their cabin and from which they found frequent solace. Hardly anyone has been so thoroughly committed to the careof the Almighty as the Cape Captain putting out to sea. Church-going brought the same kind of inspirational orderliness to their life ashore as they had taken to the helm of their winged vessels. At every Cape Meeting House one would see faces that had been long gone, but dearly remembered, as the Captains came home. These marine aristocrats were a subject of awe to the young, and their return was an occasion for joy to the adults, for there was hardly a family which did not have some connection of its own with the blue waters that stretched away from the Cape. So to the churches they came, imposing figures in Sunday black, often with magnificent beards and mustaches, always with a kind of slightly rolling gait that set them aside from their land-bound neighbors.
The Captains took their pleasure too. Fraternal orders were established in every village and they took an active part in them. There were trotting races over established courses such as the track which once ran around Wychmere Harbor, or the Trotting Park at West Dennis. And there were wild races over the snow with sleighs, such as took place over South Main Street in South Yarmouth down to the river, with horse manes flying and the beards of distinguished gentlemen thrust into the wind, while sleigh bells tinkled and the unblemished snows of yesteryear crunched beneath the racing hooves of the Captains best horse flesh. Having a fast horse was almost as important to them as a fast ship. And in every village there was a favorite gathering place where, in winter, they would sit about a sizzling stove and have a pipe, and rattle off tales of faraway places which were then so familiar that no Cape boy could have been troubled with geography. In summer there were other things to do for recreation. Then it was time to paint up, caulk, and launch the small boats that they always kept handy. From them they could fish in the bounteous home waters, and feel the old, familiar swells of the sea, and dream a little.
But the Captains had not come ashore to live in idleness.Almost at once they threw themselves into hard work ashore, putting the hard-earned money from the sea to good use. The biographies of the Cape Captains show them to have been as much masters of trade as they had been of their vessels. The list is imposing—bank presidents, and founders of banks, railroad presidents (for they sensed the wisdom of joining forces with the puny ribbons of steel that were already luring freight away from the sea), founders of manufacturies such as the mammoth salt works of the Cape and the 100 worker shoe factory at West Dennis, cranberry-growers and exporters, shipbuilders and ship owners—they were active in everything, and often they were as successful ashore as they had been at sea.
When the Captains came home from the sea they had a busy life and a good life, and it was good to be at home. And for the communities whose life they had so greatly enriched it was good that the Captains had come.