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Advocate Archives
This week’s trip back into the Advocate Archives takes us to 1918 when a fishing boat was struck by a naval vessel; to 1947 when a gale made rough going for 13 men in a small boat and to 1957 when early talk about a national park along the Cape’s Great Beach surfaced.
Feb. 28, 1918
The Advocate reports...
The trawling schooner Mary C. Santos, Captain Marion Perry, was run down by a naval patrol boat while approaching the entrance to Broad Sound, Boston Harbor, on Friday last and was towed to the upper harbor by the craft that did the ramming. The Santos was bound to market, with 6500 pounds of fresh fish, at the time of the collision.
The Santos was struck on the port bow and the naval craft’s stern cut through the planking into the schooner’s forecastle where most of her crew were assembled at the moment. Fortunately, none of the men were injured.
Feb. 27, 1947
13 Reach Shore After Icy Battle
Thirteen men, eight of them skilled technicians associated with the General Electric Company and Westinghouse, and five Navy enlisted personnel, can now add their testimony as to the roughness of Provincetown Harbor when a stiff wind is kicking up a sea, for they were almost drowned Saturday morning when the 28-foot motor whaleboat in which they were making their way from the new U.S.S. Rochester, five miles out, broke down and nearly swamped. They managed, somehow, to reach the dock of the Cape Cod Cold Storage in the West End and there they were hauled from the boat, soaked and half-frozen.
All in the party suffered to a greater or less degree from exposure in the long trip during which the 50-mile gale broke icy waves over and into the small boat, and when it finally reached shore several of the men had to be carried into the warmth of the storage engine room.
The Rochester, newest of the heavy cruisers, longer and heavier in tonnage than the largest battleships of World War I, arrived in the harbor here on Thursday on the start of her shake-down cruise to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and anchored off the Truro shore. Aboard were a number of technicians, specialists to test the many new appliances and equipment with which the cruiser is equipped.
Then during the night the blizzard broke and the next day, it was said, the cruiser’s skipper sought permission to take the civilian party back to Boston. When this was denied a request was made to have the technicians continue on the cruise to Cuba. This, too, was refused, so on Saturday morning a whaleboat was lowered and the eight civilians and crew of five debarked. Trouble was encountered almost at once and the battle continued across the harbor. As the craft slid into the troughs and mounted the crests of the billows, the men were cut with the freezing spray and the boat began shipping quantities of water.
Feb. 28, 1957
Resources Chief Backs Proposal to Create Cape Cod National Park
A federal proposal to develop Cape Cod’s Great Beach, a 33-mile shore line at Provincetown, as a national park today received the solid backing of Francis W. Sargent, Commissioner of Natural Resources.
The plan, outlined in a National Park Service report some time ago, has produced controversy on Cape Cod. As a result Mr. Sargent wrote a letter to the editor expressing his views as requested by that paper.
The commissioner said that while as a Cape Cod resident he understands the feelings of persons opposed to the Great Beach park plan, he fears that unless the federal plan is put into operation immediately the area may be lost as one of the state’s natural resources.
Pointing out that the park service conducted a two-year survey of the entire 3,700-mile coast line from Maine to Mexico to determine how much desirable shore line still was free from commercial and private development, Mr. Sargent said only 640 miles were found to be undeveloped and suitable for conservation.
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Feb 28th, 2008