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788871ec90d476713f73a62c656d53df
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Text
Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
Postcards from Falmouth Oral History Transcript
Recorded: March 3, 2020
Oral Historian: William Swift
Interviewer: Barbara Kanellopoulos
Topic: Dwight Estate
Note: The right column references postcards by identifiers searchable in the Digital
Commonwealth online collection.
00:00
[Music]
00:45
I am Barbara Kanellopoulos
00:47
and Bill Swift is going to talk about
00:51
the Dwight Estate on Mill Road and the
#dwightestate #millroad
Gunning_Village_Sts_0001 through
0016
Hunt_Village_Sts_075 through 178
00:54
history of that
00:56
building thank you Bill you're welcome
01:00
uh I’ll try to bring you up to date a
01:04
little bit on the uh
01:07
the house uh back in
01:10
1882 or 3
01:14
John E. Dwight who was the CEO
#johndwight
01:18
of Arm and Hammer soda
#armandhammer
01:22
baking company and he decided
01:26
to build a summer cottage for his family
01:30
and in
01:34
1884 or so he brought his family from
01:38
Princeton New Jersey down to Falmouth
01:42
and back in those days when houses were
01:46
built along the waterfront
1
#1884
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
01:48
they actually owned the land right
01:51
to the waterfront so he ended up
01:54
owning the beach front and right to the
01:57
water
01:58
in front of his his house and
02:02
he built a beach house on the beach at
02:04
the end of his property
02:06
which is still standing today it's the
02:08
first house you see it's up on stilts
02:11
but it's still there and
02:15
he also built a big carriage house
02:18
down at the other end the north end of
02:20
his property which is still standing
02:23
today
02:25
and he was quite a land owner he owned
02:28
quite a lot of land in Falmouth
02:31
he owned the property down on Locust
02:34
Street right
02:36
as you hit Mill Road on the left there
02:39
was a farm in there and that was his
02:41
farm
02:42
he lived in a farmhouse in the fall and
02:45
spring
02:46
of the year when he probably didn't have
02:48
heat in the mansion he used to live in
02:50
the farmhouse
02:52
and on that property they had
02:55
two other houses and a few outbuildings
02:59
and a big barn which is still there
03:02
today and
2
#locuststreet
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
03:04
they are now remodeling the house but
03:08
he owned that property and
03:11
down Locust Street across from a
03:14
7-Eleven store where the
03:16
Cape Cod Apartments are now he owned
#capecodapartments
the
03:20
land from there
03:21
all the way back to Siders Pond which
03:24
was quite a big
03:26
big piece of land and when we were boys
03:29
we used to play baseball out on the
03:31
field there there
03:32
was a mowed field
03:35
right next to Barbara Jones's house
03:37
which I think
03:39
was included on his property at that
03:41
time
03:42
but he uh also owned
03:47
two houses in Belvidere Plains and
03:51
a piece of property next to the
03:54
Catholic church on Main Street with
#siderspond
#belvidereplain
#mainstreet #saintpatrickschurch
Gunning_Village_Sts_0017 through
0041
03:58
where the nursing home is today he owned
04:00
that property
04:02
and in 1921
04:06
he built a hotel in there called the
04:09
Terrace Gables
04:11
uh excuse me Column Terrace and
#1921
#columnterrace
3
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
04:14
he ran the hotel for
04:17
six or seven years and then he sold it
04:19
to someone else who
04:21
bought it and then eventually they put a
04:24
nursing home in there
04:25
but that was his property
04:28
and he also was a
04:31
shareholder and one of five board
04:34
members
04:35
on the mushroom plant that was on
04:38
Gifford
04:39
Gifford Street across from the
Hunt_Village_Bldg_030
#giffordstreet #coonamessettinn
Coonamessett
04:42
Inn where
04:43
Homeport is now and
04:46
he was running he ran that for a while
04:50
or he was on the board for a while and
04:53
eventually it
04:54
went out of business but he was also
04:58
involved in the
05:01
racetrack the Trotting Park racetrack
05:05
he was an original member of the
05:07
Falmouth
05:08
gentleman's racing club
05:12
and I have happened to find in
05:16
in my home where I lived a stock
05:19
certificate of his
05:21
back in the day when he belonged to the
05:24
racing club
05:26
and Sundays they would have a trotting
#homeport
#trottingpark
4
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
05:28
race
05:29
and that was a big entertainment in
05:31
those days
05:34
and a lot of people attended
05:37
and he also was an early member of the
05:39
Woods Hole Golf Club
#woodsholegolfclub
05:41
back in 1899 when they first
#1899
05:46
built the club it only had nine holes
05:49
then but
05:50
a few wealthy men in town wanted to play
05:53
golf and they had no place to play so
05:55
they
05:56
they started the club
06:00
and when he brought his wife
06:03
and family down
06:06
his wife liked peace quiet and solitude
06:11
so he decided to build her
06:14
an island on Salt Pond
#saltpond
Gunning_Village_Sts_0010 through
0016
06:18
so she had her own little island which
06:21
is still there today
06:23
and she could go out there and bring a
06:25
chair or bench or whatever and
06:27
sit read and meditate and
06:30
have her own private time and
06:34
they had two daughters one was
06:37
Ruth and one was Janet Ruth married
06:41
Albert McVitty and Janet
06:44
married Frank Nicholson and
5
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
06:49
they lived they lived there they
06:52
actually
06:52
the Ruth and and Albert McVitty
06:55
eventually
06:56
bought the property why I guess
07:00
Mr. Dwight might have died and the estate
07:03
was
07:04
uh trying to be settled when they
07:08
they bought the house and used it for
07:10
their family in the summer
07:13
and uh
07:18
I can't remember exactly when
07:22
I think that was in 1921
07:25
they they uh they bought the house from
07:29
the estate
07:31
and well
07:36
because I think I’m going to
07:39
you may want to cut it a second um
07:44
Bill and maybe it strikes me that um
07:47
Bill that um Mr. Dwight was quite
07:50
influential
07:52
in the town uh doings in at Town Hall
07:56
would
07:56
would you think that he had quite a lot
07:59
to say about how
08:00
the town was run yes
08:03
he did I think he was on some
08:07
quite a few boards and
08:10
at one time uh there was a group of men
08:14
who who decided that Salt Pond would be
6
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
08:18
a great place for Falmouth Harbor
#falmouthharbor
Hunt_Village_Har_103 through 120
Gunning_Heights_Har_1320 through
1334
08:21
because the Old Stone Dock
#oldstonedock
Gunning_Village_Har_0173 through
0188
Hunt_Village_Bch_0089 through 0095
08:23
was not large enough anymore to handle
08:27
the boating traffic and he and some
08:30
other
08:32
influential gentlemen went to the
08:35
legislature and tried to get
08:37
the permit to build a harbor
08:41
well that was fine except that would
08:43
mean
08:44
the road would have to be detoured
08:47
because you couldn't you couldn't have a
08:50
bridge it would be too
08:52
inconvenient so the road plan was to go
08:56
up to Elm Road
08:57
through the moors and down Elm Road uh
09:01
to the beach and that didn't sit too
09:04
well with some of the
09:06
landowners up in the moors and that was
09:10
quickly squelched so that deal fell
09:12
through
09:14
and they did talk about Siders Pond
09:17
being a harbor because it was right to
#elmroad
7
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
09:20
the middle of the town where the
09:22
town hall is today but
09:26
that was too much it was too far to
09:28
dredge a channel so
09:30
they ended up at uh Falmouth Harbor
09:33
where it is today
09:39
I suspect that the joint the Dwight’s had
09:42
some
09:42
rather influential neighbors too they
09:45
did the house across the street
09:48
belonged to Richard Olney
#richardolney
09:52
who was secretary of state to Grover
#grovercleveland
09:55
Cleveland President Grover Cleveland
09:58
and I think he used to invite them down
10:01
and take them out on fishing
10:02
trips the President and
10:06
they had a lovely estate across the
10:08
street and the Minot family
10:10
finally ended up owning that property
10:15
but down the street there was quite a
10:18
few
10:19
uh wealthy people wealthy estates
10:23
and there was a Spalding house
#spalding
10:27
and Harding and
#harding
10:30
there was the E. E. Swift house
#swift
10:34
and uh Emery Leland owned
#leland
10:38
a big house big estate there and these
10:41
were big estates which
10:43
where Salt Pond Road goes in it's the
10:46
loop in there
#minot
#saltpondroad
8
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
10:47
that was one estate and they
10:52
after the war uh housing was
10:55
critical and so these estates were
10:58
bought and and developed
11:01
now the farm that you spoke of was that
11:04
a working farm
11:07
I think he it was a working farm for his
11:09
own use
11:10
I think I don't think that was a
11:12
commercial
11:14
but it was probably a hobby farm but he
11:17
did have a huge
11:19
barn there that took quite a lot of uh
11:22
carriages or horses or whatever he
11:24
wanted in there
11:26
and he also
11:29
as I mentioned he owned the carriage
11:33
house down on
11:34
on Mill Road and he had a caretaker
11:39
that used to come down and take care of
11:41
his property that lived
11:43
in the carriage house and his name was
11:46
George Gammons and he was a Swedish
11:49
gentleman
11:51
and very friendly and when we were boys
11:55
we used to walk to the beach every day
11:58
in the summer
11:59
and outside his house outside the
12:03
carriage house
12:04
he had a Doberman Pinscher dog
9
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
12:07
chained up to a leash on the yard and
12:10
every time we walked by
12:11
he was straining at that leash to get it
12:15
we were scared to death of that dog but
12:18
he was friendly and he befriended us and
12:22
I think I was around 12 years old at the
12:24
time and he taught us how to fish
12:27
because at night when his duties were
12:30
over at five or six o'clock
12:32
he had free time and he'd go down to the
12:34
beach
12:36
and cast off the beach and catch fish
12:39
and we were young kids and didn't know
12:42
too much about it but
12:43
he taught us a lot about fishing and
12:45
we'd go down there and meet him
12:47
and go fishing and
12:50
when the when Mr. Dwight died
12:55
in his will he had left George
12:58
life rights to live in that carriage
13:01
house
13:02
and so as the years went by
13:09
actually in 1938
#1938
13:12
we had a big hurricane and it destroyed
#hurricane
13:15
the main house
13:17
and the parking lot and they rebuilt it
13:21
and during the
13:24
the war years I think in 1943
13:28
the government leased the house for
13:31
housing
10
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
13:32
because Camp Edwards was being built
#campedwards
and
Gunning_Hatchville_Miltry_0557
through 0561
13:35
was growing and they didn't have place
13:37
for family so they actually had eight
13:41
married couples living in that house
13:44
during the war until 1944
13:48
when the next hurricane came and
13:51
destroyed the house again
13:54
and this time they didn't rebuild it
13:57
they said
13:58
enough's enough so that is when
14:03
I think in 1945 the Town of Falmouth
14:06
wanted to extend
14:08
the beach and so from the beach house
14:11
down at Old Stone Dock
14:13
they bought the beach front all the way
14:15
down
14:16
to his property where his first beach
14:19
house was
14:21
and so the town owns that today and they
14:26
they also after the
14:29
hurricane the town wanted to buy the
14:32
land for
14:33
a parking lot for the beach so
14:37
that's why the parking lot is there now
14:40
but
14:41
they couldn't do anything with the
14:44
carriage house because of
14:46
the life rights so
#1944
11
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
14:49
the town owned halfway down to the
14:52
carriage house and the carriage house
14:53
was separate
14:55
and back in 1980
15:00
I think it must have been when uh Mr.
15:04
Gammons died
15:05
because one day my wife and I were
15:08
walking by and we saw a for sale sign
15:10
out in front of the carriage house
15:13
and it was kind of in
15:17
disrepair because no one had lived in it
15:19
for years
15:20
it was strictly a summer house with no
15:22
heat
15:23
and no insulation but my wife said
15:27
why don't we look at it and I said are
15:29
you crazy
15:31
and we know the reality and
15:35
we did take a look at it and we decided
15:39
we fell in love with it the the sunsets
15:42
were just
15:42
gorgeous and we decided
15:47
we would take a chance and buy it and we
15:52
did
16:06
[Music]
#1980
12
�
Text
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Title
A name given to the resource
William Swift's Oral History on the Dwight Estate
1884
1899
1921
1938
1944
1980
Arm and Hammer
Barbara Kanellopoulos
Belvidere Plain
Camp Edwards
Cape Cod Apartments
Column Terrace
Coonamessett Inn
Dwight Estate
Elm Road
Falmouth Harbor
Falmouth Main Street
Gifford Street
Grover Cleveland
Harding
Homeport
hurricane
john dwight
leland
locust street
mill road
minot
Old Stone Dock
oral history
Postcards from Falmouth
richard olney
saint patrick's church
salt pond
salt pond road
siders pond
spalding
Swift
transcript
trotting park
william swift
woods hole golf club
-
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f3b772a8908de074ba9a28092c5af618
PDF Text
Text
Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
Postcards from Falmouth Oral History Transcript
Recorded: March 3, 2020
Oral Historian: Kevin Doyle
Interviewer: Barbara Kanellopoulos
Topic: Old Stone Dock
Note: The right column references postcards by identifiers searchable in the Digital
Commonwealth online collection.
The Book of Falmouth is available from Falmouth Public Library under REF LocHist 974.492
BOO, as well as at other CLAMS locations.
00:00
[Music]
00:45
it's always fun to talk about the Old
#oldstonedock
Gunning_Village_Har_0173
through 0188
Hunt_Village_Bch_0089 through
0095
00:46
Stone Dock
00:47
it's uh it's a relic
00:50
of of what commerce was in Falmouth
00:53
during the 19th century
00:55
and you don't get to see things like
00:57
that along the shoreline much anymore at
00:59
all
01:00
in fact if you were to go down to the
01:02
shore today
01:04
there's a sign that says it's the kiddie
01:06
pool and for all the world nobody has
01:09
ever asked why you would build a kiddie
01:10
pool out of granite blocks
1
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
01:13
but nevertheless it's uh it's all been
01:15
silted in
01:17
but in its day and its day was 200 years
01:19
ago
01:21
it was built in 1817
#1817
01:24
following a hurricane of 1815
#1815 #hurricane
01:28
of course they weren't called hurricanes
01:30
then it was the great gale
01:31
of September 1815.
01:36
there are three hurricanes that have
01:38
really ravaged through the
01:40
New England area has lots of hurricanes
01:43
but the first one was in 1635 when
01:46
Boston and the and the Pilgrims and and
01:48
the colonies were just getting started
01:50
the second one
01:52
the same power and magnitude was the
01:54
Storm of 1815
01:56
and then the third one was a hurricane
01:59
of 1938 which
02:01
which people are far more familiar with
02:03
and they see pictures of the destruction
02:05
and so forth
02:06
but meteorologists will tell you that
02:08
those three hurricanes were very similar
02:10
in their track and their speed they came
#gale
#1938
2
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
02:13
up the coast with a speed of 100 miles
02:14
an hour they were blowing 100 mile per
02:16
hour winds
02:17
and they just destroyed everything in
02:19
their path
02:20
prior to 1817 then this Old Stone Dock
02:25
there was a a dock that was made out of
02:28
wood
02:29
uh and we think it was built in 1805 and
02:31
it would have been built out of palmetto
02:33
logs
02:34
which is basically a palm tree uh
02:37
obviously no palm trees growing around
02:39
Falmouth so
02:40
once again a surmise is that probably uh
02:44
Captain Swift brought them up in his
02:47
as part of his live oak adventures going
02:50
at getting wood
02:51
down out of the Carolinas and into
02:53
Florida
02:54
and so he probably brought these very
02:56
resilient palmetto logs
02:58
up to up to Falmouth there's not much
03:02
that
03:03
will verify that there was a dock prior
03:06
to this but it seems logical that that
#1805
#swift #elijahswift
3
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
03:10
was
03:10
the landing place of some sort it was
03:14
the scene
03:14
of the British invasion or
03:18
attempted invasion in January of 1779
#1779
03:21
during the American Revolution
#americanrevolution
03:23
they were repulsed they never landed
03:26
they did shoot musket balls at us and
03:28
they weren't too happy with us but they
03:29
didn't they weren't able to land
03:31
and the second time was in 1814 during
03:34
the
03:35
towards the end of the War of 1812 where
03:37
once again
03:39
the British came and tried to come
03:41
ashore they were repulsed again by
03:43
by our cannons so it would seem that
03:47
that's
03:47
probably there was probably some kind of
03:48
a landing area in that site prior to the
03:51
Old Stone Dock itself
03:55
the other reason why you'd think that
03:57
that was probably true is because that's
03:59
where
03:59
Falmouth was settled when the uh
04:03
the proprietors as they're called here
4
#1814
#warof1812
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
04:05
they're called different
04:06
different by different names but they're
04:08
the folks who basically
04:10
uh bought the land from the tribes the
04:13
the
04:14
indigenous tribes Wampanoags uh and uh
#wampanoag
04:17
Nauset Indians
#nauset
04:18
which was a sub-tribe of the Wampanoags
04:22
and the proprietors here started in
04:25
Barnstable
04:26
and came down we don't know whether they
04:28
came down by boat or by
04:29
by walking but if you look down in the
04:32
uh
04:33
down at the beach area today you'll see
04:36
what
04:36
what Jim Lloyd of the Historical
04:38
Department [Falmouth Historical Society?] likes
to call
04:40
Falmouth Rock he said Plymouth has their
#plymouth
04:42
Plymouth Rock we have our Falmouth Rock
#plymouthrock
04:44
we have a rock that says these are the
04:47
proprietors they landed here in 18
04:49
uh in 1660 and so forth and
04:53
and founded the town well the
04:56
the tribe had been here first obviously
#barnstable
5
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
04:58
they came down and we
04:59
uh we followed a lot of the Indian
05:01
trails to be here
05:03
uh and it makes sense because that area
05:06
of Surf Drive Beach opens onto a
#surfdrivebeach
05:10
Vineyard Sound and then it has Siders
#vineyardsound #siderspond
Gunning_Village_Pnd_0148 and
0149
Hunt_Village_Pnd_136
05:12
Pond which is freshwater pond after
05:15
named after Consider Hatch one of the
05:16
original proprietors
05:18
is on the one side and on the other side
05:20
is Salt Pond
#considerhatch
#saltpond
Gunning_Village_Sts_0010
through 0016
05:22
which is salt water and oysters are
05:25
plenty and that sort of thing
05:27
so there they were between fresh water
05:28
and salt water and the Sound so it was a
05:31
perfect
05:31
location for commerce and just
05:34
for survival you had the fish lots of
05:37
alewives the
05:38
herring run is right there which
05:40
is brackish water coming in
05:43
from the sound and going up towards
6
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
05:45
Siders Pond
05:46
so it's a perfect area to to
05:50
start the start the town
05:53
a lot of people you know are used to
05:56
seeing towns that have started from the
05:58
center and they move
05:59
outward because that's how the the
06:00
railroads did it
06:02
when when railroads were built and
06:04
they'd go along every 100 miles or
06:06
whatever the distance would be
06:08
did make the town grow right from the
06:10
depot and go
06:12
outward concentric circles for us it was
06:15
different and it was different for
06:16
for almost 100 years the commerce was
06:19
coming off of the off of the Surf Drive
06:21
Beach area
06:23
and the main area to to move was right
06:26
up Mill Road where the current Mill Road
#millroad
Gunning_Village_Sts_0001
through 0016
Hunt_Village_Sts_075 through
178
06:28
goes between the salt pond and the uh
06:32
fresh water pond uh and and on
06:36
up so the green was actually founded in
7
#falmouthvillagegreen
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
Gunning_Village_Sts_0053
through 0078
06:39
1749.
#1749
06:40
so here we are at 1660 and then 1749
06:43
about 80
06:43
90 years later before they got up to the
06:46
green
06:47
so the center of commerce then
06:50
was right there on the on the beach so
06:53
this hurricane comes along and destroys
06:55
everything that was wooden and
06:57
through natural erosion you can imagine
06:59
the other wooden piers probably gave way
07:02
as the ships became larger or the
07:05
elements took took their toll on a
07:08
wooden pier
07:09
so along about 1817 then they say hey
07:13
what we really need to do is build this
07:16
thing to last
07:17
uh and I should probably just say at
07:20
that point
07:22
as I talked about the progression of the
07:23
town it goes up so it took 80 years to
07:25
get to the green and then it started
07:27
heading to the east it started heading
07:29
back down
8
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
07:30
towards uh towards Barnstable down down
07:32
Main Street
#mainstreet
Gunning_Village_Sts_0017
through 0041
07:34
and after a certain point they realized
07:36
that so far the only road to get to the
07:39
dock
07:39
was down Mill Road so here they are now
07:42
they're up at Locust they're going down
07:44
Main Street
07:46
and they're getting further and further
07:47
away so in 1800
07:50
just a few years before the Stone Dock
07:52
was built but in 1800
07:54
the townsfolk got together and said what
07:56
we really need to do is go
07:58
from this point which was right where
08:00
Barbo’s Furniture is right now
08:02
and go straight down to the pier and
08:04
that's why if you look at Shore Street
#locuststreet
#shorestreet
Gunning_Village_Sts_0080
through 0083
Hunt_Village_Sts_171 and 172
08:06
it's eight tenths of a mile long
08:08
it's straight as an arrow and it's its
08:10
objective was to get
08:12
people from Main Street to the dock
9
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
08:15
uh that's what it was all about so
08:18
uh after this great gale of September
08:21
uh goes blowing through
08:24
the townsfolk got together and uh and
08:28
built this
08:29
granite block now the way that's built
08:32
is they import it and there's some
08:33
question as to exactly what those
08:35
granite blocks are
08:37
I like to think that the Falmouth
08:38
granite
08:40
underneath it all but of course after a
08:41
couple hundred years they're
08:43
they're all black and covered with
08:46
seaweed and so forth so it's really kind
08:48
of hard to distinguish
08:49
the origin of all those granite blocks
08:52
but the point of it was
08:54
they would build a a a
08:57
line which which you see right now
09:00
actually uh
09:01
of of granite blocks and then they built
09:04
the
09:05
the dock the actual docking area right
09:08
over it
09:09
so it's the same palmetto logs it's the
#falmouthgranite
10
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
09:11
same planks it's the same everything
09:13
that you
09:13
used to seeing when you think of a pier
09:16
but this time they put the blocks in
09:18
there
09:19
so that it would be uh it would sort of
09:22
lend some extra support
09:24
to the the pier uh the piers themselves
09:27
and in
09:28
the uh the the structure of the of the
09:31
pier of the wharf so
09:34
that's what it is over time
09:38
all that all that wooden part you know
09:40
washed away again
09:41
but the granite blocks remain so why
09:44
wasn't it maintained
09:46
it wasn't maintained because as time
09:49
went on so that was built in 1815.
09:53
uh the gale was 1815 the the dock was
09:56
built in 1817
09:57
and things were going along fine but it
09:59
was about that time as
10:00
uh the railroad came to town and
10:04
the railroad starts coming down from
10:05
Boston and so forth
10:07
the Old Stone Dock is at least a mile
11
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
10:10
away
10:11
from the railroad station and
10:14
it just didn't work you couldn't send
10:16
freight down
10:19
on a train and get it to the pier in any
10:22
efficient manner the train dead
10:25
ended
10:26
in Woods Hole and of course that's where
10:29
the ferry terminal is today that's what
10:30
the Steamship
10:31
Authority is and that's where the
10:33
trains met
10:34
the boats so commerce went there
10:38
it also it's a much deeper uh harbor
10:41
in Woods Hole than it is off of Surf
10:44
Drive Beach
10:46
so the the question then became so what
10:49
happens now
10:51
it was a stone dock it was made for
10:52
commerce there were whalers
10:54
whaling ships that went there his
10:56
primary function was packet ships
10:58
and and by packets those would be ships
11:01
that would sail when you had the cargo
11:02
they didn't necessarily go on a schedule
11:05
you'd bring down your goods to to be
#woodshole
#steamshipauthority
#whaling
12
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
11:07
freighted up to Boston or down to New
#newyork
11:09
York and every port in between all
11:12
down down across the Martha's Vineyard
#marthasvineyard
11:14
and over to New Bedford and Fall River
#newbedford #fallriver
11:17
and so forth all those
11:18
uh all those ports between Boston and
11:21
Falmouth
11:22
and uh and New York were the frequent
11:27
markets for our strawberries the eels
11:30
the salt cranberries and so forth wood
11:34
that was the main commerce uh forestry
11:37
and so forth
11:38
incoming timbers uh as well uh
11:42
and since the Swifts were big in that
11:44
type of a trade
11:45
they would bring their goods up and
11:47
bring them to Falmouth
11:49
the Sarah Herrick is a uh is a whale
11:52
ship that was
11:53
registered or said to be to be
11:57
brought into the Falmouth dock so that's
11:59
how we know that there were whaling
12:01
ships there as well
12:03
but after the commerce now ends up in
12:06
Woods Hole
12:09
the dock started to become more
#sarahherrick
13
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
12:12
available to people and if it didn't
12:15
have the upkeep that it did
12:16
boats used to be able to sail right
12:18
inside of it uh
12:20
now that won't happen the Book of
#bookoffalmouth
From FPL: REF LocHist 974.492
BOO
12:22
Falmouth mentions a
12:25
a black who had a mail
12:28
route he would uh sail to the Old Stone
12:31
Dock
12:32
with mail for the new town is that
12:35
accurate
12:36
I can bet it is I I I don't know for
12:40
sure but yeah that
12:41
that would be the type of commerce that
12:43
you would find
12:44
coming out of the dock and the heavy
12:47
stuff would end up going down towards
12:48
Woods Hole
12:49
but that type of mail run or milk run
12:52
type of a
12:53
run over to the Vineyard and out to
12:56
Nantucket
#nantucket
12:57
and down to uh Cuttyhunk that would
#cuttyhunk
12:59
have been
14
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
13:00
the the daily commerce going from the
13:03
Old Stone Dock
13:06
when things when the the railroad came
13:08
in then and went down there
13:10
they said that well they needed
13:12
someplace else for
13:14
a dock for for a harbor and that's when
13:17
the Inner Harbor was created
#falmouthharbor
Hunt_Village_Har_103 through
120
Gunning_Heights_Har_1320
through 1334
13:19
and that's why you'll still see
13:20
references on charts and
13:22
when people talk sometimes they'll talk
13:23
about the Inner Harbor
13:25
well that would be sort of old-time talk
13:28
because most people now talk about the
13:29
harbor and they think of the Flying
#flyingbridge
Gunning_Village_Bldg_0377
through 0383
13:31
Bridge Restaurant and
13:32
the commerce that goes on but it was
13:34
never heavy commerce if you look at it
13:37
you say well this used to be the Old
13:40
Stone Dock used to handle
13:42
handle hogsheads of produce and
15
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
13:45
fresh cut vegetables and so forth there
13:47
was never anything like that in
13:49
in Falmouth Harbor all that had gone to
13:51
Woods Hole
13:53
so Falmouth Harbor really became they
13:55
dredged out
13:56
if you take a look and you wonder why
13:58
why in the world Clinton Avenue is
14:01
so abruptly at the Clam Shack and then
14:03
resumes over in front of the Falmouth
14:05
Yacht Club
14:06
that was a road it had been cut off it
14:09
was it was a pond of its own it was
14:11
Deacon's Pond
#clintonavenue
#deaconspond
Gunning_Village_Har_0190
14:12
and when it was dredged out it created
14:14
an inner harbor
14:16
and over the years that had been
14:17
improved and so forth
14:19
but that was in 1908 that the Inner
14:22
Harbor
14:23
opened up and for many years thereafter
14:26
people would sail their sailboats up to
14:29
up to the Old Stone Dock and they'd put
14:30
in there and many of uh
14:32
the Robert C. Hunt postcard collection
#1908
16
#robertchunt #postcardcollection
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
14:36
has great pictures of tourist day
14:39
sailors
14:40
you know boats that you and I would have
14:42
uh pulled up to the Old Stone Dock
14:44
and it's featured right there you'll see
14:47
some that have a uh some of the pictures
14:49
will have the old time
14:51
uh bath house still in that picture
14:54
and you look at it and you get a much
14:57
better picture
14:58
in looking at those old postcards
15:01
than you would ever get today when you
15:03
look at at the
15:04
Old Stone Dock but those postcards will
15:07
give you some idea of the depth and the
15:09
type of commerce that could pull up
15:11
some of those postcards still have the
15:14
pilings that were lining the the Old
15:17
Stone Dock and if you look real close at
15:19
some of them
15:20
you'll see wooden side buoys there where
15:23
you'd be pulling up
15:25
so nobody wants to pull a ship up beside
15:27
a granite block I mean that's not how
15:29
you
15:29
how you treat a boat but so
#bathhouse
17
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
15:33
over time as I say it's become a
15:35
favorite now for
15:37
the uh for the kiddie pool
15:40
if you talk to kids in Falmouth today
15:42
they'll tell you that they learned how
15:43
to
15:44
how to swim in the Old Stone Dock and
15:47
most of them don't even know that it was
15:48
there
15:50
a neighbor of ours Jim Crossen started
#jamescrossen
15:53
the Old Stone Dock Association up in the
#oldstonedockassociation
15:55
1970s
15:56
and really brought a lot of history with
15:58
it and brought a lot of
16:00
attention to this relic it is
16:03
really it's a monument to to Falmouth to
16:06
have that here
16:07
and there's very few towns who can point
16:09
to something on the waterfront and say
16:10
that was there 200 years ago
16:12
so the Old Stone Dock Association has
16:14
really worked to preserve that heritage
16:16
and
16:17
that type of history the other place
16:19
where you'll find a reference
16:21
to it is is on the there's a big
18
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
16:24
uh boulder with a
Hunt_Village_Sts_179
16:27
with a plaque on it and with an anchor
16:29
atop it right at the end of Mill Road
16:31
right where Mill Road turns on to Locust
16:34
and if you take a look at that you'll
16:35
see that that was a monument dedicated
16:37
to the seafarers
16:39
uh of in 1908 and it was really
16:44
the end of the Old Stone Dock that was
16:46
their farewell
16:47
uh to what had been such an active
16:49
center of commerce and the seafarers who
16:52
who made it such uh but in 1908
16:55
the the uh the harbor had been
16:59
dredged the Inner Harbor was now taking
17:01
over
17:02
and over time people started bringing
17:04
their boats into the Inner Harbor
17:06
and the Old Stone Dock became the Old
17:09
Stone Dock
17:12
and was there a window
17:15
a windmill and an attempt
17:19
to manufacture was it
17:23
a product glass no well yeah
17:26
a couple of things going on right down
17:28
there on the beach the windmill was up
19
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
17:30
on Mill Road and if you were to drive go
17:32
up Mill Road from the beach uh
17:36
just as the road bends and it bends
17:38
right at the end of the salt pond
17:40
that's where the windmill was located
17:42
that windmill was actually
17:45
made to to grind uh corn
17:49
it wasn't it wasn't part of the glass
17:51
tree but i'll bring that up in a sec
17:54
that was that was that was a grinding
17:56
mill and I know that because Bill Swift
17:59
told me and if anybody knows anything
18:00
about the town of Falmouth it's Bill
18:02
Swift
18:03
and he used to live right down there so
18:05
that's where that's where the windmill
18:06
was
18:07
now there were many windmills along the
18:10
shoreline uh of
18:14
Surf Drive Beach the point of
18:17
them was to to bring in salt water they
18:20
would go out into the
18:21
into the Sound and suck up the water
18:23
bring it up and put into great big vats
18:26
typically about 10 feet by 10 feet and
20
#williamswift
Gunning_Village_Bldg_0439
through 0450
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
18:28
it put water in it probably about 18
18:30
inches deep
18:32
and it would they would leave it out in
18:34
the sun
18:35
to evaporate and what you'd end up with
18:38
after
18:38
after all that water had been brought up
18:40
and left in these vats for
18:42
for some period of time it would
18:44
evaporate and you'd have salt
18:46
up until the Civil War salt was a
18:48
prime
18:49
a premium product in fact many
18:53
Civil War battles were fought
18:56
at the shoreline to destroy what was
18:58
called the salt works
19:00
and the salt works was the windmill and
19:02
the vats that dried the water
19:05
and they would just they would try to
19:06
destroy that because
19:08
salt was used to preserve meats and
19:11
anything that was perishable would be
19:13
encased in salt uh prior to the period
19:16
of refrigeration
19:19
the glass company uh was because of the
19:22
sand
#americancivilwar
21
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
19:23
and they would use the furnaces to heat
19:25
that sand up and get the silicone
19:27
and yes that was that would have been
19:29
located at the corner of Shore Street
19:32
so it's right kind of where the parking
19:34
lot is now
19:36
where Shore Street comes down and Surf
19:38
Drive goes across
19:40
it was on that corner uh and that's
19:42
where the Beach Breeze Inn is
19:44
right now and that's sort of an area
19:47
there was a bank down there there was a
19:50
tavern
19:51
and there was this glass manufacturing
19:54
and when you think about it of course
19:56
with the uh it was a perfect place for a
19:58
tavern and
19:59
and the bank because these packet ships
20:03
are coming back from their run
20:04
and now they want to deposit the money
20:06
or they need the money for some purpose
20:09
and and having a tavern and a little
20:12
little spot for the sailors to pull into
20:13
when they get there
20:14
is was kind of refreshing
20:18
yes it's interesting that you talk about
22
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
20:21
the center of town as being right on the
20:23
shore there which is makes a lot of
20:25
sense
20:25
we we don't think of uh the center of
20:28
town as being
20:30
out there no you wouldn't and and as you
20:33
look
20:34
there's actually the first two meeting
20:36
houses if you take the time to
20:38
to go along Surf Drive and then up Mill
20:40
Road to the very end right up to where
20:42
that boulder is that I talked about the
20:44
head the plaque and the anchor
20:46
there's a cemetery off to the one side
20:49
in that cemetery of course the reason it
20:51
was the cemeteries
20:52
when they used to bury their dead
20:54
outside the church outside the meeting
20:56
house
20:57
and that was the site of two meeting
20:59
houses the first two meeting houses that
21:01
were built in Falmouth
21:03
were built in that in that cemetery area
21:06
the third meeting house is it has a
21:08
stone marker
21:09
as you turn onto Locust Street before
#oldburyingground
23
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
21:12
you even get up to the green
21:14
there's a marker on the side of the road
21:16
that says this is the site of the third
21:18
meeting house uh and it's not until you
21:21
get to the green
21:23
1749 that you will find the fourth
21:26
meeting house
21:27
so yes it was it was the center of life
21:30
the houses that are extinct is still on
21:33
Elm Road there's the Hatch
21:35
foundation I guess the house is
21:38
questionable
21:39
there's a sons houses across the street
21:41
but there's a
21:42
heavy granite foundation on the left
21:45
side if you're going
21:46
up from away from the water which was
21:49
the foundation of the Hatch house and
21:50
Hatch was one of the original
21:52
proprietors
21:52
of Falmouth I have heard that at the
21:56
at that triangle with that rock and
21:58
anchor
21:59
underneath is a time capsule with
22:02
the names of 100 more than 100 sea
22:06
captains
#elmroad #hatch
24
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
22:07
but what you say is interesting because
22:09
I've never thought of that before as a
22:11
kind of
22:12
putting a period to period two seafarers
22:16
I think it was I think it was their
22:17
goodbye uh
22:19
and uh whether there's a time capsule
22:22
under there
22:22
or not I don't think we'll ever know and
22:24
I don't think the
22:26
DPW will let us dig it up anymore so
22:30
uh I don't know I don't know I've heard
22:33
the same thing whether it be under that
22:35
boulder or
22:36
in front of the boulder we've certainly
22:37
done lots of plantings around the
22:39
boulder
22:40
no evidence of it has ever come up so
22:44
perhaps it's there I don't know
23:07
[Music]
25
�
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Title
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Transcript of Kevin Doyle's Oral History on the Old Stone Dock
1749
1779
1805
1814
1815
1817
1908
1938
American Civil War
american revolution
Barbara Kanellopoulos
Barnstable
bathhouse
Book of Falmouth
Clinton Avenue
Consider Hatch
Cuttyhunk
Deacon's Pond
Elijah Swift
Elm Road
Fall River
Falmouth
Falmouth granite
Falmouth Harbor
Falmouth Main Street
Falmouth Village Green
Flying Bridge
gale
Hatch
hurricane
James Crossen
kevin doyle
locust street
martha's vineyard
mill road
nantucket
nauset
new bedford
new york
old burying ground
Old Stone Dock
old stone dock association
oral history
plymouth
plymouth rock
postcard collection
Postcards from Falmouth
robert c. hunt jr.
salt pond
sarah herrick
Shore Street
siders pond
steamship authority
surf drive beach
Swift
transcript
vineyard sound
Wampanoag
War of 1812
whaling
william swift
Woods Hole