TRIP #5, 2014--New Bedford

New Bedford: A Whale of a City
"I feel very sorry for people who plan a three-day weekend starting tomorrow," said Andy, "because rain is predicted and today is spectacular."

Tide is coming in as we
follow Nauset Marsh Trail.

He was right.  At 9:00 a.m., when we parked at the National Park Visitor Center by Nauset Marsh Trail, we didn't need jackets.  We followed the 1.3-mile trail around the marsh dressed in shirt sleeves. Granted we both had long sleeves, but it was still unseasonably warm for a mid-October morning.  "They haven't had a frost yet," said Andy, as we passed a patch of lilies of the valley.  "I doubt it's even gotten as low as 40 degrees here."A week ago we had taken the trail on the other side of Nauset Marsh when we missed the turn.  "Part of this side was closed in the summer," said Andy, "because the footbridge had washed out."  I stayed on the new bridge and looked out over the salt water inlet.  A gorgeous Cape Cod house perched on the hill across the estuary where a great blue heron hunted for breakfast.  "If that house ever goes on the market, the Park Service would be crazy not to buy it," said Andy.  "It's an in-holding."
"Too bad," I told him, "because I'd like it."  I didn't feel like rushing.  It was too pretty to end.

Flat-bottomed marsh boats move salt
hay from the marsh in the 1800's.

We spent a half hour along the trail, enjoying the bright sun and temperatures in the 60's.  Near the Visitor Center was a display outdoors.  Under a solid roof in the open air was a Workboat of the 1850's.  Wide and flat-bottomed, the hay barge was rowed, poled and sailed through shallow marshes to gather salt marsh hay for livestock bedding and feed.  People could tell because it made the resulting milk salty.  This particular boat was used for 60 years as a repair vessel by the French Transatlantic Cable Company of Town Cove.  It is the last remaining hay barge on Cape Cod and perhaps in New England.
Along Route #64 we drove leisurely through mid-Cape and upper-Cape.  Brewster, Dennis, Yarmouth, Barnstable... all of them are beautiful towns. 
There was a crafts fair in West Dennis.  With tents already erected, the crafters were just setting up.

Autumn splashed colors everywhere in the salt marshes.

Andy was not in a purchasing mood, and the carvings were pricey.  Instead, we walked to the adjoining park with the Higgins Farm Windmill and the 1795 Harris-Black House.  It is thought to be the last remaining primitive one-room house on Cape Cod.
In Sandwich we stopped got a look at the estuary.  The gorgeous reds along the marsh had caught my eye.  Beautiful, brilliant, deep red...  It was all poison ivy.  "Up in Maine, the leaves are probably down," said Andy.  "It's past peak there."  But here the trees were just turning, and fall painted splashes of brilliance everywhere.  All the little towns had huge displays of pumpkins, corn stalks and mums in yellow, rust, orange, gold and purple.

The windmill adds a beautiful backdrop
for the local craft fair.

We stopped at one of the pullouts for viewing the Cape Cod Canal.  Below us on both sides bike paths paralleled the water.  A boat passed by, sending white rivulets of waves behind it.  "Cape Cod is actually an island," said Andy.
"Yes, apparently," I agreed, "but only because the canal makes it so."
Woods Hole is the largest private oceanographic research facility in the world.  It is dedicated to the study of marine science and to the education of marine scientists--a world center for marine, biomedical and environmental sciences. A little town has grown up in the vicinity.  We stopped for coffee and Danish at Pie in the Sky bakery and put enough change in the meter to browse in a couple shops and a few galleries.  Since browsing for Andy means walk in and walk out, it only cost one extra quarter.
"There's another lighthouse here," announced Andy, when we stopped in the Visitor Center at Woods Hole.  "I didn't know about this one."

Nobska Lighthouse at Woods Hole is operated by the Coast Guard.

It was easy to follow the map to the point. There the Nobska Lighthouse, built in 1828, flashes every six seconds.  The light is visible 17 miles out to sea.  The current tower, 42 feet high, was constructed in 1876 to replace a stone house with a light on the top.  A red section visible on the east side of the lantern house warns ships away from Hedge Fence and L'Hommedieu Shoals south of the Cape.
Route #28 took us down to the water, but a convenient wrong turn followed Oyster Pond Road to Surf Drive.  "This is exactly what I wanted," I told him.  "Now we can stop and collect shells and driftwood."  It really wasn't what he wanted to hear, but with time to spare and a free beachfront parking lot, he acquiesced.  I gathered a plastic bag of snail shells, and Andy found a huge board of driftwood.  "It wasn't exactly what I had in mind," I told him.

Lost lobster pods provide
decoration at a local coffee shop.

"But this is REAL driftwood, and I'll split it in little pieces for you," he answered.
"Perfect."
And then we were back on the road.
Traffic in and around Buzzards Bay was absolutely horrendous.
It could be the upcoming holiday weekend, but we were on the Boston-bound leg and clouds were already moving in with the promised Saturday rain.  It could have been going-home-from-work traffic, but it was only 2:30 p.m.  When we crossed the bridge, the line-up was just as bad going the other way.  "The traffic is too much for the rotary to handle," commented Andy, "and Massachusetts is one of the few states to use rotaries instead of traffic lights."
New Bedford is beyond cool!  The WHALE Association acquired and preserved 32 old buildings downtown, where all the streets are cobblestone or brick.  The concept wasn't to drive out the fishing industry but to preserve the working town so it actually looked like it did in its 1850's heyday when the city of New Bedford "lit the world."
We parked at a meter and walked around town.  The Visitor Center showed a film called The City That Lit the World about New Bedford.  We rated a private showing in the theater.  We learned that at its peak New Bedford sent out 500 ships with 20,000 sailors to catch and kill 300,000 whales. The primary prize was sperm whale for its valuable oil.  Later baleen was also used for the stays in corsets, because it was tough and bendable.
In 1850 Herman Melville in Moby Dick wrote, "For many years past the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the world."  Chapters 2 through 13 vividly describe the New Bedford landscape.

New Bedford preserved is cobblestone streets and gracious,
noble homes and offices that reflect life in 1850.

We browsed in a gift shop and then headed along cobblestone and brick streets to the wharf.  Today the boats in the harbor are mostly commercial fishing vessels--primarily draggers and scallopers like the Christine Julie and the Emma Nicole.  By the 1930's, fishermen in this region began to drag the Atlantic for scallops and flounder.  They were immigrants from Norway and Portugal joining local fishermen and others from Maine, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.  Whales had been slaughtered to near extinction and petroleum had been found an effective alternative to whale oil.
But in the heyday of whaling, New Bedford ruled.  Today it is still the number one fishing port in the country in terms of the dollar value of its catch.

Fishing boats line the wharves of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The waterfront wharf was a place of preparation for sea:  carpenters building vessels from white oak timbers; caulkers hammering oakum, hemp mixed with tar; coopers shaving staves for casks to hold whale oil; packers preparing hard tack for food at sea; sail riggers crawling about the masts to tar, hoist and fasten; painters working on vessels afloat and in dry-dock; specialized craftsmen repairing the tryworks where blubber was melted into oil.  A typical New Bedford whaler made six voyages in its lifetime and each voyage lasted typically two to four years.

Scallopers and draggers ply the waters of the North Atlantic.

The worldwide reach of the New Bedford whaling fleet created a diverse population, a feature of the city that extends into the current day. In Moby Dick, Melville depicted this community of many races and ethnic backgrounds.
In 1857, ninety-five ships and barks left the wharves of New Bedford on whaling voyages. The industry had reached its peak, and half of all the worldwide whaling was conducted from the New Bedford customs districts.  Before petroleum was discovered in 1859, whaling was the nation's fifth most valuable industry. Nothing cast a brighter light than sperm whale oil.  That is where the term candle-power came from.  Nothing lubricated high-speed or delicate machinery better.  Whaling agents were among the richest people in the U.S., and New Bedford was the nation's richest city in 1861.

A mural at the wharf
celebrates the beauty
of seafaring.

We walked up the cobblestones away from the wharf, admiring the architecture of old New Bedford preserved.  "That's the Custom House," said Andy, pointing to a Greek-style building on the corner of North Second and William Street.  Built in 1826, it was a stop for many seamen in the mid-1800's.  It is the oldest continuously operating custom house in the U.S. Captains seeking to clear their ships and cargo through customs and seamen wishing to take out protection papers walked up the granite stairs to transact their business with custom agents.

A chapel for seamen, the
Seaman's Bethel serves
as a moral compass.

Further uphill was the Seaman's Bethel.  The street was really quiet in the late afternoon.  After months at sea, many were unable to resist the temptations of the port. In 1832, the New Bedford Port Society for the Moral Improvement of Seamen opened the mariners' chapel "to protect the interests of seamen and furnish them with... moral, intellectual and religious instruction."  It was meant to protect them from liquor, licentiousness and dishonest merchants.  A survey in 1852, found 37 liquor shops and 21 houses of ill repute in this ward alone.  Herman Melville visited the Seaman's Bethel before shipping out on the whale ship Acushnet in 1841.  Ten years later in Moby Dick, he described the cenotaphs of the chapel, markers on the wall for those who lost their lives at sea.
The Seaman's Bethel is the Whaleman's Chapel of Moby Dick.
"In the same New Bedford there stands a whaleman's chapel and few are the moody fishermen shortly bound for the Indian or Pacific Oceans who failed to make a Sunday visit to this spot."


Andy meets Moby Dick outside the Whaling Museum.

Conveniently, next door to the Seaman's Bethel is the Mariners' Home.  For whaling men, the ship was essentially their home. In New Bedford the poor, unskilled sailors were basically homeless until the next voyage.In 1850, the daughter of William Rotch, Jr., one of New Bedford's leading whaling merchants, donated her father's house to shelter and feed needy seamen.

The Mariners' Home assists needy
sailors, sea merchants and fishermen.

After the whaling industry declined, retired whalemen, merchant seamen and fishermen lived here.
To this day, the Mariners' Home provides lodging for mariners.  "How cool is that!" I said to Andy.  "The city that lit the world" by slaughtering 300,000 whales has the foresight to light the lives of those who need help.