wooden boat: A missing piece of history
By ERIC WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER
EASTHAM - Hey, you with the oxen! Looking for some free hay? Well, lucky for you, Nauset Marsh is full of the stuff - but you're going to need a boat.
That kind of thinking likely inspired a hard-working Cape Codder of the 1850s to build a double-pointed, flat-bottomed, 31-foot hay barge and get busy in the salty pastures of plenty.
Back then there were likely scores of these boats - a precursor to pickup trucks - but there may be only one left in New England, or beyond for that matter. Behold the Cape Cod National Seashore's historic hay barge.
The barge - known by some as a ''scow'' and by others as a ''gundalow'' - was exhibited to the public for the first time last week, part of a Seashore project to research the history of the vessel and eventually install it as a permanent display at the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham.
Historian Jim Mitchell has spent the last several months ferreting out the available facts on the barge.
While speaking with a crowd at the visitor center, Mitchell made it easy to see why skinflint Yankees of yore were attracted to salt hay.
''It grew every year,'' said Mitchell. ''You didn't have to fertilize it. It was great for the cattle, it was great for the horses, it was great for the oxen. In 1850, you had all three. So you had to feed 'em somehow.
And there it was, free for the taking.''
Kept in storage
When the boat was given to the Cape Cod National Seashore in 1969, an accompanying letter from Richard Nichols of the Orleans Historical Society included the following passage: ''As far as I know, this is the only Hay Scow now in existence and dates back to around 1850. ''¦ There were a number in use at that time and they were rowed or sailed to the Salt Marshes to pick up the Salt hay which had been mowed and raked by hand. ''¦ The Scows were then sailed or rowed back to the farm and the Salt hay fed to the cattle. ''¦ I used to taste salt in the milk when I was young and it was not unpleasant.''
Originally used for salt haying and possibly trap fishing, the boat had a second career laying and repairing the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable in Town Cove in Orleans.
The boat was a workhorse for more than 100 years, according to Mitchell's research. It was eventually donated to the Orleans Historical Society, then passed along to the Seashore in 1969.
In 1973, the Seashore commissioned stabilization work to keep the barge from falling apart, then stored the vessel at the old North Truro Air Force base.
Researchers believe the boat's second career with the cable company saved it from being pulled up on a beach or marsh to rot away. Salt-haying, once common along the New England coast died out by the 1930s, said Mitchell.
''A great find''
Recently, Seashore personnel started thinking about bringing the boat out of the shadows. They commissioned Mitchell and marine surveyor Paul Haley, a
wooden boat expert, to examine the vessel.
Haley recalled that he was instantly struck at first sight.
''You've got something here,'' he said. ''This is unbelievable.''
Haley pointed out the use of wooden pegs, also known as ''tree nails'' or ''trunnels,'' instead of nails or bolts, as well as the use of curved braces, called ''knees'' cut from a naturally curved root or branch of a tree. ''It's a great find,'' he said.
But lest you think salt-haying was all beauty and free money, we provide this cautionary tale from John Hutchinson of Salem, historian, artist and flat-out salt hay nut.
Hutchinson recalled a conversation several decades ago with a certain Farmer Brown of Rowley, an older fellow who was perhaps the last of the salt-hayers on the North Shore.
''I'm telling you, it was hell,'' said Hutchinson, recalling Farmer Brown's testimony. ''Mosquitoes, horseflies, falling in, and it was so (darn) hot out there. Terrific greenhead fly problems. The horses would be pestered by them all day. The horses would come home bloody.''
William Burke, branch chief of cultural recourses for Cape Cod National Seashore, said he hopes to have the barge on display at the Salt Pond Visitor Center within a year.
Eric Williams can be reached at ewilliams@capecodonline.com
(Published: May 22, 2006)
