Cape Cod is a number of things

by Allan Neal

The Third Baptist Church of Barnstable was formed in 1842, after it had purchased, for $77.00, the second Barnstable Court House which had been built in 1774. The old, wooden building had been abandoned by the County upon the erection of the new granite Court House and the Baptists found it well suited to their needs. The building was turned around from the Highway to face Rendezvous Lane and some alterations were made to make it more suitable for a Meeting House. Today, a bronze tablet within the church proclaims that “this building was the Court House where the Kings Court was forced to end its sessions by a band of patriots in September 1774.”

The march of a “Body of the People” to Barnstable on September 27, 1774 took place as the result of an Act of Parliament which, in those hectic days, seemed to be enacting everything possible to alienate its colonials. The new act proclaimed that jurors, heretofore drawn by the selectmen, should now be chosen by the Crown’s own representative, the Sheriff. Under such a system it was obvious that the Crown would control the whole local system of justice, and those who came before the courts, and were known to be unsympathetic with the Crown, would receive very short shrift. The patriots decided that, to effectively show protest to such an act, they must close the lower courts, in order that no appeals would reach the “packed”, higher courts. To carry out this purpose a large body of men assembled at Sandwich on the night of September 26, 1774. There they planned for the morrow what must have been the Cape’s first picket line.

On the morning of September 27, the newly-formed Body of the People moved towards the old Court House at Barnstable. They were afoot and on horseback, with the horsemen in the lead, and through every village they passed their number was swelled. When they passed the home of Chief Justice Otis they respectfully raised their hats in salute and preceded him to the Court where, 1500 strong, they awaited the opening of Court. The air at Rendezvous Lane must have been charged with suspense and expectancy when, at last, the Chief Justice and his aides, led by the Sheriff, complete with drawn sword and staff of office, approached the unprecedented group who blocked their passage to the Court House door. Justice Otis, upon ascertaining the business of the group, ordered them to disperse. Through their leader, Nathaniel Freeman of Sandwich, they replied, “We thank your honor for having done your duty; we shall continue to perform ours.” And continue they did, until the Justice left the scene and it was established that there would be no session. Before the day was over the patriot band had furthermore obtained written agreement from the Justices that they would not carry out the objectionable Act of Parliament that had inspired the march.

If the Body of the People became the Cape’s first picket line, it was also the most orderly one anywhere at any time. In their preparations for the march on Barnstable they had ruled against the use of profanity and alcohol. They were well-disciplined, and entirely under the control of their democratically-chosen leaders. The group at Rendezvous Lane on the September morning was no “rabble in arms”; it consisted of some of the truly great men of the Colony, making an effective, but respectful, protest against an injustice which threatened the freedoms for which they had crossed the broad Atlantic. It was like the men of the Cape to settle their own problems in their own way. Two years later the Colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence. Cape Codders had chosen their way at the little white church in Barnstable.

From the window of my old house at West Dennis I look out over the blue Cove of Bass River to where the white Captain’s Church rises on the hill at South Dennis. It is bright and peaceful and meaningful. In summer it is framed by the lacy branches of elm trees on the near shore; in winter it is a beacon of light in a gray landscape. I have watched the purple shadows of night slide softly from its sides in the spring sunrise; and I have watched an autumn sunset gild its steeple with burnished gold. It is good to have it there, where it has stood and looked across the Cove for over a century.

It was felt that Dennis had come of age when, in 1795, the Southside of town were granted a Meeting House of their own, to be erected at South Dennis. At first the new Meeting House was supplied by ministers from other churches but by 1817 the Reverend John Sanford was called as its own pastor to administer to a church membership of twenty-nine persons. Eighteen years later the church had become too small to accommodate the growing parish. Then, too, there was already stirring within men the inspirations of a country come of age, when the hurried, rather crude buildings of another era must be replaced by an architecture that was more expressively American. So, in 1835, it was decided to tear down the old edifice and build a fine, new church on the same site. It was hoped that the auctioning off of the pews, combined with the voluntary labor of men of the village, would be enough to get the building started, at least. Fortunately for all of us there was also the matter of the beans.

The men of the parish met on a bitter, cold day in January to consider ways and means of financing the new church. It was the kind of day to discourage any kind of action, and the offers of financial help were desultory and infrequent. Thoroughly discouraged, one of their number slipped out of the meeting and returned to the warmth of his own fireside to think the matter over. Finally, he had an inspiration and, calling his wife he asked her if she could provide dinner for as many as were attending the meeting. “For,” he said, “if those men go home for dinner they will never come back and that will be an end to it.” Upon hearing the problem the good wife set to work. Luckily, the weeks baking was almost intact in the buttery, and, by the standards of the Cape in 1835, it was not at all unusual that there were twenty-five pies stored there. But that was not all—there was Indian Pudding, and baked beans galore, yearning for the company of the huge loaves of brown bread that soon came steaming from the oven. All that was needed to complete, a dinner, the very smell of which might fill any man with a sense of well-being—and generosity—was coffee. And soon she had made coffee, scalding hot, and brimming over from the biggest container in her house. In no time at all the full dinner had been delivered to the meeting where its effect was such that the men of the parish took on a whole new lease on life and began to outbid one another in generosity. The huge sum of $6000 was raised, enough to build the new church, and some of the men became so enthusiastic that they could not wait to get to the bank to withdraw their money.

So the white church was built, there upon the hill, and it was not then very different from the building a visitor would enter today. The same tower clock, and the same auditorium clock would, when not seized by the temporary fits of temperament that are the privilege of age, be telling the same old time, while the same chandelier with its lovely etched globes would be sending forth the same warm glow over the white walls and straight-posture-demanding pew. And the light would glint as ever from the sides of old silver, the original Communion Set. Now, from the front of the church, instead of from a balcony as before, would come the strains of organ music from an instrument that has been doing its Sunday duty for nearly one hundred years at the same church, and had done duty elsewhere for a hundred years before that. This is very likely the oldest organ still in regular use in America, and it is not just by coincidence that it is frequently used to play hymns which have in them the fresh, salted breath of the sea. Tablets offer long lists of names of the South Dennis Captains who were members of the church. Now, as then, among the congregation to whom “He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore”, there are Nickersons and Thachers and Crowells and Bakers and Kelleys, and there are newer faces and newer names. Many have followed the advice of their first pastor to “read and understand the history of your pious forefathers, than whom no people under heaven are entitled to higher honors.” And all have helped, and gladly, to keep this splendid symbol of the forefathers faith a living and a meaningful one. So it is too all across the Cape and up and down it, wherever a white church looms by a village street, and its noble spire points to the blue heavens.

When you have finished with it you have only begun. You speak of a number of things that are yours, and it is the smallest fragment of the picture. Have you seen the Cape at Christmas? Then the nights are black and the Christmas lights shine brighter and in the crisp night air the stars shine brightly too. The villages are evenly-spaced islands of lights along the highways, cheerful islands and brave ones, and you feel that there would have been room at the Inn here, or in any of the small homes which look through unshaded windows and greenery toward the streets. Do you know the Cape in summer? Then there is a sudden hustle-bustle along Main Street and you count the number plates from every state in the Union. It is a time of sunshine, tanning and gilding, and the soft, dreamy haze of August. It is roses tumbling over fences and the merry tinkle of ice in frosted glasses. It is blue skies and white clouds, and blue waters and white sails, and the drone of outboards on the River.... It is extra clerks in the stores and the cheerful jingle of bulging cash registers, and better still, the shouts and laughter of children as they splash in the warm waters of the Cape while the fizzing spray breaks over them, and the sun toasts them, and they are free. Have you seen the sunrise over Chatham Bars? Or seen it set from St. Andrews or Sunset Hill? What of the woodsy road that winds along Shawme Hill where you can watch the old town of Sandwich dreaming through a summer’s afternoon, where you look over the quiet mill pond and its white church spires to the blue Bay and the cliffs of Manomet. Have you watched one of nature’s miracles at the Herring Run in Brewster of an April day; or stood beside a quiet inland pond at Harwich of a fall evening and watched plumes of mist rise from the water to do a graceful ballet while the Cape begins to sleep? Have you followed any of a hundred beckoning roads to whatever treasures they may reveal? When you have done all these things you will begin to know a part of it. One day, as you cross the Canal bridge, your heart will begin to lighten, and the tensions of the Mainland will slide away. The land will take on a wonderful familiarity, and you will know that you are home, and that is all there is to it.