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History Highlights
Lighting the Pilgrim Monument
Laurel Guadazno
BANNER COLUMNIST
Here's a trivia question for you. When was the Pilgrim Monument first lit to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrims at Provincetown? If you answered 1910, you're correct. The Pilgrim Monument was lit on the evening of the dedication ceremony. A Boston Globe reporter described the event: 'After dinner the street quieted down, for rain, coming lightly at first, increased to a full-sized shower, driving people to cover and spreading gloom among the fakirs, who huddled in doorways, covering their precious gewgaws with oilcloths and accepting the situation with stolid patience. Electricians at work stringing ropes of electric bulbs from the battlemented gallery of the great tower to the ground were greatly inconvenienced by the rain and wind, but stuck to their posts and completed their task before nightfall, when the lights were turned on.'
The lighting of the Pilgrim Monument has a long and varied history that reflects the history of the town as well as the sensibilities of society. In 1927 the Town of Provincetown celebrated the 200th Anniversary of its incorporation with great fanfare. The Pilgrim Monument was at the center of the festivities. Outlined 50 feet up from the base in electric lights on the side of the tower were the dates 1620, 1727 and 1927. 'The Provincetown Monument, 252 feet high, was brilliantly illuminated tonight.' reported Charles Merrill for the Boston Globe. 'It was visible many miles out at sea. Ropes of electric lights were strung from the ground to the tower and searchlights, playing on the monument from the battleship Arkansas outlined the entire structure against the night.'
For a period in the mid-1950s the Pilgrim Monument was strung with multi-colored lights. Unlike today when we refer to the lights as 'Pilgrim Landing Lights,' in the past the lights were often referred to as Christmas lights. During the winter of 1955-'56, 13 strands of colored lights adorned the Pilgrim Monument. The Cape and Vineyard Electric company set up a nativity scene and decorated Christmas trees in front of the Bas Relief in a tableau that would not be considered politically correct today. Many people still fondly remember these displays. John Bell took a photo of the decorations, published in the Advocate, that he sold to the Associated Press. The Associated Press put the photo on the wire service for all its subscribers. The brightly decorated Pilgrim Monument appeared in newspapers all over the country much to the delight of residents spending the winter elsewhere. Peter Hand sent a note to the local Provincetown newspaper from Florida, 'Imagine our surprise this evening when we opened the pages of the Miami Daily News and discovered the enclosed picture! In the midst of all the holiday glitter and glamour that Miami is noted for it was like a breath of clean, sweet Cape Cod air to just see the picture. Always homesick at this time of the year for Provincetown, this picture certainly did not help matters.'
There are few records regarding the tradition during the 1960s and 1970s in the Provincetown Museum's archives. In 1986 the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce took over the responsibility for lighting the Pilgrim Monument to commemorate the Pilgrims and their thankfulness for having arrived safely on our shores. The Chamber raised money for equipment, and volunteers strung in excess of 5,000 lights on more than a mile of wiring. They carried on the tradition for eleven years. The Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, the non-profit that administers the Pilgrim Monument, has assumed responsibility for the lighting of the Pilgrim Monument since 1995. People from all over the U.S. donate money to help defray some of the cost of having the lights strung by a local company and for the cost of electricity to operate the lights.
In recent years there have been several illuminations of the Pilgrim Monument to remember events. On the 375th Anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims in 1995, the Monument was decorated with red, white and blue lights during the month of July. Thousands turned out for a laser light show projected on the Pilgrim Monument to celebrate the turn of the century in 1999. Finally, after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, the Pilgrim Monument was strung with strands of red, white and blue lights to commemorate the lives lost and celebrate the freedoms we all cherish.
The lighting of the Pilgrim Monument is a Provincetown tradition that has come to symbolize all that is special about this community. It unites the community in a spirit of thanksgiving and goodwill. As William Bradford wrote in his journal ten years after landing at Provincetown, 'As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled has shone unto many, yea in some sort to a whole nation.'
[Laurel Guadazno is curator of education for the Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum. She also writes and narrates 'History Highlights,' heard regularly on WOMR, 92.1 FM.]
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Nov 27th, 2003