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Advocate Archives
In this week’s look back into the archives we visit the Memorial Day observances in 1918, look on as Admiral Donald MacMillan sets out on an artic exploration voyage in 1934, and listing to warnings by the 1947 about how the lack of training young men in trades leads to jail for many.
June 6, 1918
Memorial Day Observances
More people, perhaps, participated in Memorial Day exercises in some past years than on Thursday last, but never before was there a larger number of uniformed men in line on a Memorial Day observance in Provincetown. The town’s little bevy of Civil War veterans on parade numbered six: Messrs. Hughes, Allen, Bickers, Marston, Clapp and Pine, and these had with them Comrade Hopkins of Hopkinton and Poore of Wellfleet. Fully 100 men of the U.S. Naval Reserve and Coast Guard with the Boy Scouts, the teachers and scholars of the public schools, with town officials and others were in line, to the number of about 800, of whom half were schoolchildren. The program of exercises included a parade, services at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Gifford cemetery, and services at Railroad Pier, where flowers were scattered upon the harbor waters.
It was with much solemnity that a considerable portion of the resident population participated in or watched the observance. For a period of about 50 years exercises of the kind had transpired here, but since the last observance of the kind the body of the first of Provincetown’s men at war to die in the service of his country since our country’s entrance upon the present world-wide war had been interred in home grounds, and thinking people then realized that others of the many town lads who are numbered with the nation’s defenders on land and sea are likely to give their lives for our common country before the present giant struggle between embattled nations terminates.
June 7, 1934
Commander MacMillan Starts Northward
The Bowdoin, with her skipper, Commander Donald B. MacMillan, at the wheel, sailed out of the local harbor Monday morning at 8 o’clock, bound for Boston on the first leg of her journey of what is known officially as the Bowdoin-MacMillan Expedition.
Remaining for a few days at the Charlestown Navy Yard to take on provisions, she will then proceed to Portland, where scientists and undergraduates from several New England colleges and universities will come aboard. Then her bow will be headed north for the purpose of affording the members of the expedition an opportunity to gather scientific data on the Button Islands and in the interior of Baffinland. For the famous MacMillan it will be only another Arctic trip but for the others it will be an event jeweled with pleasant surprises and golden adventure.
On board the Bowdoin as she left were several guests: Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Look and their daughter Miriam, Mr. Edward Codding, a Boston attorney, Mrs. Fayette Brown Dow of Washington, D.C., and the Rev. Benjamin L. Duval. According to the report of the last named, the sail to Boston was a delightful experience. He describes it as follows.
“The sun was hidden by the clouds and there was a bit of fog which threatened to turn to rain, but preparations were made to start. Commander MacMillan was the last one aboard. Orders were given to start the engine. We gladly lent a hand to raising the anchor.
“So the Bowdoin left Provincetown sans whistles and cheering crowds on the wharf. Porpoises sported about the boat instead.
“We rounded Long Point, passed by Wood End bell buoy, and the commander headed her for Boston. Mrs. Dow was graciously permitted to take the wheel. A whale, black fish, sharks, and a loon successively attracted attention for a moment.
“Approximately off Minots Light we were called below to dinner. Oscar, the cook, had extended himself for the occasion. Previously there had been comments made about the tempting odors from the galley. Now there was set before us roast chicken with dressing, potatoes, string beans, and for dessert, apple pie, all deliciously cooked. Only five of us dared risk eating below, but needless to say we enjoyed a good meal.”
June 12, 1947
Need For Vocational Training On Cape Stressed By Sheriff
Records of men sent to the Barnstable House of Correction are a monotonous repetition of the tragic lack of vocational or other training to fit them into their proper places in society, Donald P. Tulloch, High Sheriff of Barnstable County, told the members of the Provincetown Civic Association at their regular meeting last night, following a talk by John I. Lusk, supervisor of the Vocational Education Division of the State Department of Education, on “What A Trade School Could Do For Cape Cod.”
Sheriff Tullock was of the opinion that many of the men would not be in the institution at all had they been trained to a trade, and he was most emphatic in his support of wider and thorough vocational training on Cape Cod.
In a limited sense, the Sheriff said, the Barnstable House of Correction provides excellent training in certain fields — dairying, farming, greenhouse work and in some of the building trades, and added that there had been numerous cases of men going back into society, following occupations learned at Barnstable and becoming valuable and self-dependent citizens.
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Jun 7th, 2007