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Cape Cod Pilot
WRITTEN BY JOSEF BERGER-FOREWORD BY EDWARD GOREY
404 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 10, 2024
I have seen copies of this book for years in local bookshops. It has been reprinted several times. I thought it was an old guidebook for the Cape. I was in Tim's Used Bookstore in Provincetown several weeks ago. I picked up a copy and started browsing in it. I was hooked. I bought it for $12.
This book was published in 1937 as a WPA Guide to Cape Cod. Berger was a struggling writer in the 1930s. He and his wife moved to Provincetown in 1934. He got hired by the WPA and got paid to write this quirky guide to Cape Cod. The publication of this book got him a Guggenheim Fellowship which eventually led to a career as a speech writer for prominent Democratic politicians, including FDR, in the 1940s. He later did government and private PR and speechwriting and wrote several books. He never wrote anything else like "Cape Cod Pilot".
Berger takes us down the bay side on the current Route 6A to Provincetown and then back up the ocean side on Route 28 to Bourne. In each town he tells he tells stories, folktales, history and tall tales. He mentions local characters. Josh Northrup of Orleans was the last municipal lamp lighter on the Cape. He tells the full story of the Witch of Billingsgate in Wellfleet.
He describes the industrial glory days. In the 1830s the salt works in the Dennis area were producing over half a million bushels of sea salt annually. In the 1890s David Stull of Provincetown was "the ambergris king". He sold the whale secretions to Paris perfumers for $200 a pound.
Berger has a good eye for domestic architect and gives directions to the houses work looking at. He enjoys stories of great sea wrecks. One of the themes he keeps coming pack to is the scavenging and wrecking history of Cape Cod. Any shipped which crashed on the Cape shore, and there were many, was likely to be stripped clean very quickly by Cape Codders.
The WPA had a reputation for being a nest of left wingers. Berger fits that mold. He is very sympathetic to the Indian inhabitants of the Cape. He tells story after story of them being cheated by the original settlers.
My favorite story is about Captain Samuel Dewey. In 1834 the US Navy installed a carved bust of Andrew Jackson as the new figurehead on the U. S. Constitution. Captain Dewey, as a good Federalist, was outraged. On a bet, he snuck onto the ship. In the middle of a wild thunderstorm, he cut the figurehead off and left with it. Several years he returned it to President Martin Van Buren. It is currently in the New York City Museum.
This is a fun collection of well told great stuff about Cape Cod in the olden days.
This book was published in 1937 as a WPA Guide to Cape Cod. Berger was a struggling writer in the 1930s. He and his wife moved to Provincetown in 1934. He got hired by the WPA and got paid to write this quirky guide to Cape Cod. The publication of this book got him a Guggenheim Fellowship which eventually led to a career as a speech writer for prominent Democratic politicians, including FDR, in the 1940s. He later did government and private PR and speechwriting and wrote several books. He never wrote anything else like "Cape Cod Pilot".
Berger takes us down the bay side on the current Route 6A to Provincetown and then back up the ocean side on Route 28 to Bourne. In each town he tells he tells stories, folktales, history and tall tales. He mentions local characters. Josh Northrup of Orleans was the last municipal lamp lighter on the Cape. He tells the full story of the Witch of Billingsgate in Wellfleet.
He describes the industrial glory days. In the 1830s the salt works in the Dennis area were producing over half a million bushels of sea salt annually. In the 1890s David Stull of Provincetown was "the ambergris king". He sold the whale secretions to Paris perfumers for $200 a pound.
Berger has a good eye for domestic architect and gives directions to the houses work looking at. He enjoys stories of great sea wrecks. One of the themes he keeps coming pack to is the scavenging and wrecking history of Cape Cod. Any shipped which crashed on the Cape shore, and there were many, was likely to be stripped clean very quickly by Cape Codders.
The WPA had a reputation for being a nest of left wingers. Berger fits that mold. He is very sympathetic to the Indian inhabitants of the Cape. He tells story after story of them being cheated by the original settlers.
My favorite story is about Captain Samuel Dewey. In 1834 the US Navy installed a carved bust of Andrew Jackson as the new figurehead on the U. S. Constitution. Captain Dewey, as a good Federalist, was outraged. On a bet, he snuck onto the ship. In the middle of a wild thunderstorm, he cut the figurehead off and left with it. Several years he returned it to President Martin Van Buren. It is currently in the New York City Museum.
This is a fun collection of well told great stuff about Cape Cod in the olden days.
March 7, 2012
This is an historical account of Cape Cod written during the Depression. The authors write as a sort of travel narrative of historic sights all up and down the Cape with lots of local color as they progress. I found my copy at an antique show, so it may be hard to come by, but it was a very enjoyable read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews