|
“There are two Cape Cods in the world, one the picturesque and familiar land… the other the Cape which the sailors see, the Cape of the wild, houseless outer shore, the countless tragic wrecks, the sand bars and the shoals…. Once a sailor has picked up Nauset Light on his way north to Provincetown, the only sign of life he will find along the beach will be the coast guard stations and the little cottages which the surfmen build about them for their families.”
So wrote writer Henry Beston in 1923 in his article The Wardens of Cape Cod (December 1923. The World’s Work magazine.) Henry Beston is probably best known for his timeless work THE OUTERMOST HOUSE – A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod [1928]. A classic of American nature writing, The Outermost House is the journal of a year spent in a small cottage, “The Fo’Castle”, on Coast Guard Beach in Eastham on Cape Cod. But in the late winter and early spring of 1923, Beston, then 35 years old, came to several of the Outer Cape’s 12 Coast Guard stations to research for a magazine article, The Wardens of Cape Cod, that he was working on for The World’s Work magazine. While on the Outer Cape, his journeys took him to Race Point in Provincetown, Highland Light in North Truro, and Cahoon’s Hollow in Wellfleet. Beston, still shaken from his experiences as an ambulance driver during World War I in France, was enamored with the Coast Guard patrolmen. They walked the beach for several miles each night, regardless of weather conditions. He referred to it as “in many ways quite the most wonderful experience I’ve had on land.”
As Beston lived with and watched the Coast Guardsmen and light keepers on the Cape’s outer beaches, he continued to record his thoughts and experiences, saving in his words a way of life for us to revisit today. Beston continued:
“It is the task of surfmen to warn vessels standing into danger, to rescue them and their crews from positions of peril, to furnish fuel and food and water to ships in distress, and even should occasion arise, to navigate a ship into the nearest port.
Including the Monomoy and Chatham region, the patrols of the outer Cape cover a length of fifty wild, breaker-beaten miles…. There is nothing quite like the night patrol of the Cape in all the seaboard world.
The stations on the Cape stand on an average of some six miles apart, and house a crew of eight men together with the life boat and life line cannon used in case of wreck. The men upon patrol, however, do not walk from station to station, but to a halfway house built in some more or less sheltered nook upon the bank. A man going south from Highland station for example, leaves a kind of brass ticket [surfman check] to be collected at his southern halfway house by a man coming north from Pamet River; a man going north from the Highland exchanges tokens with a man coming south from Peaked Hill.
In summer the night patrols go smoothly enough, though it is something of an experience to walk the beach through a midnight thunder squall…. But when the bitter northern winter descends, each patrol is an adventure in itself…. In the depth of winter the steep bank becomes a glare of coated ice and sand and snow strangely intermixed. Sand covers snow till a new surface seems secure, but rather it hides the deceit from view.
There are dreaded nights when a certain north wind blows directly down Cape carrying everything before it, flying sand, fragments of ancient wrecks, cobbles that have rolled out of the bank and been caught up by the wind….”
I was staying at the Race Point Station on the back shore of Provincetown. It was close upon eight o’clock at night, the lamps were lit, the living room was still, and at the end of the cleared and covered dining table a surfman off duty was reading the day’s paper and puffing a quiet pipe…. Suddenly this quiet world woke to a faint sound, the sound grew of an instant to a dull and hollow roaring; a whirl of unseen sand swept like sleet against the northern panes…. A fierce, crystally patter of sand was striking at the pane; the hollow roaring had become a wintery howl….At the Race and several other stations there are sets of windows which must be renewed every single year.
Then slowly, very slowly midnight came, and I dressed to go on patrol in an old suit with socks pulled over the trouser ends, a watch cap, and my old navy pea jacket snugged round me with a poilu’s army belt. The sand takes the surface from oilskins. My fellow patrolman, Mr. Morris, was clothed in one of those excellent navy wind proof suits which are ousting oilskins from the Cape; the jumper has a hood attached to it and the whole suit has a kind of polar explorer air. After looking to see that he had his flare light signal safely tucked away, Morris threw open the station door.
The night was bitter cold and overcast, and the air was full of the strangest dry hissing in the world…. The wind was thick with sand; invisible sand that blew directly in our faces, struck our eyes, and set us to blinking, blowing, and weeping; it forced its way into the nostrils, it invaded the pouches of the ears, it gathered in the crease of one’s lips and set one to chewing out grit, one’s eyes in gritty anguish all the while….
We hurried on, and, coming to a wide turn, found ourselves exposed to the full fury of the sand… But we luckily had but a little taste of this, and soon reached the end of the first half of our patrol by Race Point light.
The squat white tower stood close at hand, its placid and unearthly beam glancing along the length of the bordering floe….
Soon Mr. Morris and Beston reached the limit of their patrol, turning to return, with the sand at their backs ,soon to reach the hospitable door of Race Point station.
In his writings, Henry Beston reminded us that the service of the light keepers and patrols on Cape Cod and other beaches around the country was indeed heroic, and its fine traditions rich in honor. For many years after, “through starlight or buffeting storm,” the yellow lantern of the beach patrols would continue to shine nightly along the beach, and the men who carried it worthy of one’s admiration.
Having spent considerable time on the Cape after completing his magazine assignment, Beston longed to remain. He drew up floor plans for a house on the dunes two miles south of the Nauset Light and Coast Guard station in Eastham. Carpenter Harvey Moore and his crew were the builders. Beston intended to use the cottage, “The Fo’Castle”, as a retreat to visit whenever he could, but soon found he did not want to leave. “[A]s the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go,” he wrote.
The story of Henry Beston’s year on the Great Beach has become a classic of American writing: THE OUTERMOST HOUSE – A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod. Through these wonderful writings we can sense the true feeling of life on the solitary beach as we watch the seasons unfold. As we watch the Coast Guardsmen patrol the beach for wrecks and invite a few in to warm themselves, we see too the numerous shore birds and other creatures of the dune world. Cited in 1960 by federal officials as one of the motivating forces in the creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore, this is a true classic and a wonderful vehicle by which to experience the outer beaches. Reprinted numerous times in the eighty years since being first published in 1928, today Beston’s words are more true than ever.
Beston finally left the “Fo’castle” in September 1927, to return to his native hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts. There he completed his manuscript for The Outermost House and was married to writer Elizabeth Coatsworth. They were married in June 1929 and honeymooned at the Fo’castle for two weeks.
The house, soon named as a National Literary Landmark, remained on Nauset Beach until February 1978, when the storm known as “The Blizzard of ’78” sent high tides over the barrier beach and swept the Fo’castle away.
At the time of Beston’s solitary vigil, so too were other writers succumbing to the lure of the outer beaches, penning numerous articles for periodicals describing the work of the life-savers and solitary lighthouse keepers. Such titles as Life on the South Shoal Lightship, Life-Savers Old and Young, Pacific Coast Light Service, Our Surfmen, The Highland Light, Heroes of the Surf, Heroism in the Lighthouse Service, A Canal at Sea, From Light to Light, and many more filled the pages of magazines and newspapers. Books too based on the work of the Lighthouse Service, Life-Saving Service and early Coast Guard, filled the library shelves.
Occasionally we can still find a good library or collection – maybe one that has saved these early publications in a back corner rather than replace them with shelf after shelf of DVD’s. It may be worth a few hours search.
Like our column? Have suggestions for future subjects?
Please send in your suggestions and questions, or a photograph of an object that you need help dating or identifying. We will include the answer to a selected inquiry as a regular feature each month in our column.
Jim Claflin is a recognized authority on antiques of the U.S. Lighthouse Service, Life-Saving Service, Revenue Cutter Service and early Coast Guard. In addition to authoring and publishing a number of books on the subject, Jim is the owner of Kenrick A Claflin & Son Nautical Antiques. In business since 1956, he has specialized in antiques of this type since the early 1990s. He may be contacted by writing to him at 1227 Pleasant Street, Worcester, MA 01602, or by calling 508-792-6627. You may also contact him by email: jclaflin@LighthouseAntiques.net or visit his web site at: www.LighthouseAntiques.net
This story appeared in the
Sep/Oct 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
All contents copyright © 1995-2024 by Lighthouse Digest®, Inc. No story, photograph, or any other item on this website may be reprinted or reproduced without the express permission of Lighthouse Digest. For contact information, click here.
| 