Shipwrecks on Cape Cod

Transcriber’s Note
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ISAAC M. SMALL
WHO RESPECTFULLY DEDICATES THIS LITTLE VOLUME OF “SHIPWRECKS” TO CAPE COD’S SUMMER VISITORS
THE STORY OF A FEW OF THE MANY HUNDRED SHIPWRECKS WHICH HAVE OCCURRED ON CAPE COD
By ISAAC M. SMALL FOR SIXTY YEARS MARINE REPORTING AGENT FOR BOSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
HIGHLANDS OF NORTH TRURO, MASSACHUSETTS HIGHLAND LIGHT MAY 1st, 1928
Reprinted 1967 By THE CHATHAM PRESS INC. CHATHAM, MASS.
I hardly know whether to call this a preface or part of the story, it seems rather too long for the former and too short for a chapter of the latter, but I may as well follow the general rule and call it a preface.
Friends have often said to me, “Why don’t you write some stories concerning shipwrecks which have occurred on Cape Cod?”
Perhaps one of the strongest reasons why I have not done so is because, to describe all of the sad disasters which have come under my observation during my more than half a century of service as Marine Reporting Agent, at Highland Light, Cape Cod, would make a book too bulky to be interesting, and a second reason has been the difficulty of selecting such instances as would be of the greatest interest to the general reader.
But out of the hundreds of shipwrecks which have become a part of the folk lore and history of this storm beaten coast I have finally decided to tell something of the circumstances connected with the loss of life and property in a few of the more prominent cases.