If you ever meet Milton Chase, see if you can get him to tell you of the adventures, and strange doings of an old-time travelling barber, one Frank Clifford, who went around to all the business places, livery stables, and grain stores with his little black bag, plying his barber trade, and who employed a most ingenious method of warming the shaving lather for his customers.
Or perhaps it was enthusiasm of Margaret Perkins. Maggie, as we affectionally call her, spent long hours in tedious searching of the records at the Deed Registry, Town Clerk’s office, Proprietor’s Records of the Town of Yarmouth, and interviewing everyone she could think of who might know something of the history of the old mill. Maggie was the motivating force in presenting an article at our Town Meeting about a year ago, requesting the Town to purchase the mill or take it by so-called eminent domain proceedings, so that it might be preserved and restored, but the townspeople were not eager to invest in the past.
Strange how so many people insist upon their rights and forget their obligations. Strange again, how so many people are looking for something without giving part of themselves.
Whatever it was, or however it arose, I found myself engulfed in the middle of hard but fascinating work.
Having lived for thirty-five years close by the old Baxter Mill in West Yarmouth, it is not surprising that my curiosity and interest were aroused. Somehow, I felt called upon to restore this old mill, perhaps to keep a way of life now forgotten in our present civilization, perhaps merely as a means of self-expression.
A clipping from the Yarmouth Register, November of 1935, speaks for itself of the lethargy of present day thought, when the old Farris Mill that stood for many years at the corner of Berry Avenue and Main Street in West Yarmouth was purchased by Henry Ford and moved to Dearborn, Michigan, despite violent protest. The clipping reads as follows:
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO—From the files of the Register—November, 1935.
It is reported that the oldest windmill on Cape Cod is to be moved from West Yarmouth. The West Yarmouth Association is attempting to obtain the sentiments of Cape Cod residents, both permanent and seasonal, on the rumored removal of one of the Cape’s most picturesque objects of great historical value to the Cape—the old windmill in West Yarmouth. Mrs. George Breed of Englewood and Germantown has wired Mr Ford, the new owner, direct, expressing her individual feelings in the matter, and the West Yarmouth Improvement Society has done the same.
We quote from a letter also dispatched, “If the windmill is to be retained by you upon its present location, we are delighted, but if it is to be removed it is a calamity.” “It may be well to explain that there is no record in the offices of the Town of Yarmouth whereby any offer was ever made and presented to the voters that the windmill was to be a gift or offered to be purchased; thus the townspeople have never been allowed to express their opinion on this matter, nor have they been allowed to visit and inspect the mill. The door is always locked.”
I can distinctly remember at about this time the concern and heated meetings held by civic groups, the letters and telegrams of indignation sent to high public officials, and the angry voice of the people protesting the removal of this old landmark, but it struck me as being a bit strange that not one person (including myself) came forward with donations to purchase the Farris Mill and keep it where it belonged. Needless to say, it was the usual story of “Let George do it.”