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Advocate Archives
This week the Advocate Archives talk about a pest, those blessed and some fish that got second guessed. In 1939 we read about a new, voracious mosquito. In 1948 a group of Latvian refuges makes port after 43 days at sea. And in 1962 a local pilot drops a note from his plane to help a friend find a big school of stripers.
July 20, 1939
New Type Mosquito Baffles Usual Methods of Control
Summer Scourge Identified As “Mansonia Perturbans” — Practically Unknown to Cape — Breeds in Deep Water — Draining of Ponds May Be Necessary
State and County officials charged with the control of mosquitoes are baffled at present for effective methods in combatting a type of mosquito new to this section and against which the usual methods of control and elimination are ineffectual.
For several weeks now Provincetown has been swept with a scourge of mosquitoes such as it has not known since the Cape Cod Mosquito Control Project began taking drastic measures to eliminate the pest. For years mosquitoes have been more or less a rarity but this summer swarms of them have descended upon the town at dusk making life in the open a losing battle with the insects. Drugstores have sold out on preparations distasteful to mosquitoes and in the evening Commercial Street is fragrant, or otherwise, with the odor of citronella. Pedestrians and groups who stop to talk shadow-box like fighters warming up for the ring.
There has been considerable criticism of conditions and inferences that someone must have fallen down on the job of mosquito control during the breeding season. But investigation reveals that Provincetown is still free of the type of mosquito which once infested the town. This is the swamp or marsh mosquito and County entomologists making tests here with the cooperation of townspeople find practically no example of that type and that practically every specimen is the “mansonia perturbans,” a freshwater, deep water breeding mosquito.
July 22, 1948
Latvian Refugees Make Port Here After 43 Days in Sailing Schooner
Shortly before 7 this morning, the brave but insignificant looking, two-masted, 64-foot schooner Grundel, and her cargo of 29 courageous Latvian refugees ended their thirty-hour stay in Provincetown Harbor and moved out beyond Long Point with a Coast Guard escort and then set sail for Boston, prepared for the next events in their long flight from oppression to the freedom of the New World.
If friendship and hospitality mingled in their dreams of that New World their hopes found full confirmation in Provincetown.
It was about 12:30 yesterday morning that the Grundel came slowly into the harbor and dropped anchor. Recognized by the Coast Guard look-out as a foreign craft, she was soon boarded by Chief Warrant Officer Alfred Volton, commander of the Race Point Coast Guard group, and a crew.
Aboard were 15 men, seven women, and as many children. All but the skipper, who was Swedish, were Latvians, and they had sailed from Dover, England, 43 days ago.
Gradually it developed that supplies aboard the little craft were almost entirely exhausted and that rations for the last four or five days had been reduced to very little.
Chief Volton and his men went to work. They told the story to fishermen on the wharf and at once supplies of water and boxes of fresh fish were ferried out to the drab little schooner.
Soon cases of food were going out — bread, milk, sugar, coffee, tea, flour and meat — stew meat and hamburger, potatoes, oranges, peaches, plums, fresh vegetables, candy, tobacco and fresh butter.
Those aboard the little schooner were speechless as the supplies of food came aboard. Chief Volton said that when some fresh white bread was handed one woman she sat and looked at it with tears streaming down her cheeks.
They left their homes in Latvia for Sweden four years ago to escape what they feared would be imprisonment in concentration camps when the Russians took over.
July 19, 1962
Pilot Aids Fishermen
Tony Pereia came to the aid of fishing guide Matt Costa and his fishing guest, Lou Simon. Tony saw Matt guiding in his boat off the back beach as he flew his sightseeing aircraft over the area. Matt was located in an area void of stripers but close behind was a large number feeding in the eel grass. Tony grabbed a paper container, wrote a fast note and on the next flight dropped it out of the sightseer. Matt grabbed the message, turned around, and in a few minutes Mr. Simon had a 47-pound fish. He dropped by that evening at the airport to express his appreciation.
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Jul 19th, 2007