The Ghosts of Cape Cod Page 6

  At the second service the first comment was like a tiny hole in a dam that leads to the collapse of the whole structure.

  Right in the middle of the sermon, shop keeper John Davis stood up and said aloud, "I wonder why we should be listening to a man who is so vain as to spend probably 800 shillings on a fancy powdered wig when there's folks in town who have not eaten in a week because of the crop failures."

  One after another, they stood up and belittled their humble little Minister. He stood in the pulpit and took it. He bore every barb just as the Master bore the whippings and the crown of thorns.

  When finally their venom had been spit out and there was nothing left, he asked............... "What would you have me do? Would you wish me to go back to the rat-eaten half bare wig that I wore last week?"

  "No, No Reverend," they all said in unison. "It's just a little too gaudy."

  Goody Standish had a suggestion that the parishioners liked and Rev. Metcalfe said he would go along with it.

  Mrs. Standish left services and returned in a few moments with a pair of shears. She said she would just trim the Peruke a little bit to make it acceptable to the flock.

  She snipped a curl here and there and told the Reverend to stand up and twirl around so that every body could see the altered wig.

  Poor Reverend Metcalfe did as he was told and the congregation said it was perfect - except for a curl or two on the left side. Mrs. White volunteered to snip the offenders. She did so and once again the luckless minister was made to twist around and show the wig from all sides.

  Everyone agreed that it was now perfect and the Reverend could certainly wear it without fear of being sinful. The Peruke now was more than fit for public viewing - except for a few curls in the front.

  And so it went for one full hour. One after another the vultures flew onto the grandest wig in all of Falmouth and methodically reduced it to a more threadbare and cheerless Peruke than even the old moth-eaten one.

  In a single day the Reverend's fondest wish had come true and then been sliced and snipped away to nothingness.

  Still he did not complain. At the next Sunday service he wore the wrecked wig just as his Lord had worn that crown of thorns - without uttering a single objection.

  Two weeks later the Reverend was about his daily duties seeing to the sick, the elderly and anyone in need. He and Puffy traipsed over the whole town, much of the time he walked beside the old horse to lighten the load.

  He wanted to get home as quickly as he could, for his wife was nearly ready to give birth again. After seven girls in a row, he wondered if this next child would be a boy. The kindly Reverend would love the child no matter what, but now that he was 42, he thought that having a boy would be good because he was getting a little too old for some of the chores that were too rough for the girls to do. A boy would be handy for such things.

  His last call of the day was at the seaside home and boatbuilding shop of Caleb Gifford. Mrs. Gifford was suffering from a mysterious illness. The Reverend hoped it wasn't small pox. He had heard that an epidemic hit Boston just after he left and wiped out almost half of the city.

  After talking with Mrs. Gifford, he was sure that there was nothing wrong with the good woman. She just enjoyed having the Minister visit now and again.

  Before leaving for home, he talked with Caleb about boats. In the back of his mind was his second great wish - to have a little boat to row out a few hundred yards in the Sound and just 'ease' his mind for a while.

  Caleb had four or five large, elegant boats in various stages of construction in his large workshop. But what interested the Reverend were a few old dories splayed in the high grass behind Caleb's barn.

  "How much would you charge for one of those dories Caleb?"

  "Oh Reverend, those dories are past it. I've put them out back because they are really not seaworthy any more. I might get around to fixing them in a slow period but right now I have more work than I can handle."

  Caleb finally set a price of two pounds for any one of the boats. The Reverend selected one and Caleb said he'd patch it up a bit and deliver it in a day or two.

  At services the next Sunday the Reverend was excited the whole day by the prospect of the imminent arrival of his boat. He would soon be rowing through the waves of Vineyard Sound and 'easing' his mind.

  After services his mind got even more troubled when the group of ladies who had shredded his new Peruke, came up with a new set of complaints. Walking to church in the morning they had noticed the Reverend's fine garden of flowers.

  "We think that our Minister should be spending more time tending his flock than his garden," the women complained. For more than thirty minutes they lectured him about the evils of what he was doing. In the end the poor Reverend promised to give up his flower garden.

  "I'm going to be too busy riding the waves in my boat to do garden work anyway," he reasoned. It made it easier to give up something he had loved and had been doing for sixteen years.

  On Tuesday next, Caleb Gifford delivered the refurbished dory. But the Reverend had no time to use it on that day, for his rounds were longer than usual and he spent every hour of the daylight in going from house to house to offer prayer and consolation and to minister to the needs of the sick and the elderly. For several people he had to run errands that included shopping for items at elder John Davis' Dry Goods Store. It was well after dark when the Reverend and Puffy clip clopped back home. The Reverend fell asleep almost instantly after his supper. His last thoughts before falling asleep were happy ones of riding the waves in his new boat the next day.

  As I am sure you can guess, this was not to be. While the good Minister was out doing the Lord's work, a number of his parishioners were looking over his boat. They decided it was not right for a Minister to be out floating around in a boat when he should be tending his flock.

  So the very next morning almost at the crow of the rooster, the elders were knocking at the Reverend's door.

  "Reverend Metcalfe," said Chairman John Robinson, who now was tripping over that never-cut beard, "It's just not right for our Minister to be out rowing around while the Lord's work needs doing. And if it's fish you need, we will give you fish."

  Patiently, Reverend Metcalfe explained that he just wanted to get out on the ocean to relax and think. The elders would have none of it.

  "If it's out on the ocean you want," said spike thin Moses Hatch, "We'll put you in a big boat and we'll take you around the Sound. If you want to fish we will give you the gear and even bait your hook. We can't have you out by yourself, you might drown."

  So in the end, the Reverend gave up his second great wish and agreed to give the boat back to Caleb and never use it.

  On Saturday night The Reverend did not go to sleep easily or happily. Still, he did not complain. He prayed for his parishioners. He prayed that the crops would be bountiful. He kept praying until finally sleep overcame him.

  In the deepest, darkest part of night - that segment when strange things happen and no man dares walk near the town's burying ground - a great Nor'easter came crashing in. So ferocious was the gale that houses floated away, leaving behind flooded cellars. Like nails yanked from rotten wood, trees were pulled out by their roots and sent thudding to the ground. Dozens of ships were dashed on the rocks and others were loosed from their moorings and freed for crew-less voyages to the old world.

  Reverend Metcalfe huddled together with his wife and the seven daughters, barely able to keep a sputtering fire in the hearth. The family prayed for the safety of the town, the people and the crops as the wind threatened to tear the roof off the small house.

  Just before dawn there was a heavy knock on the back door. Nobody moved. After a moment there was another knock, even louder than the first. Warily, the Reverend went to the door and opened it a crack. He saw nothing but the torment. He opened the door wider and one of his daughters held up a lantern. Still they saw nothing in the darkness but wind swept raindrops and the outlines of trees gyrating
in bizarre dances.

  Reverend Metcalfe felt something heavy brush against his leg. Looking down when his daughter shone the light, he was amazed to see......the boat! It had jumped its moorings in Vineyard Sound and sailed through the flooded village right to his front door! His dory! But it was his no more! For they had forced him to give it up.

  What follows is from an entry into the Reverend's diary the next day. Some words were missing so I (Charles Johnson & my team) have guessed at what the absent verbiage was:

  "I have bin tempted to persue the sea since I was borne. But it may natt be. For, have I pruf of the Lord's harboring no wrath, for this nice gift in a storme cam to me - my bote that wishes to live on land with me ef I can't have her at sea." signed Rev. Jos Metcalfe.

  The ferocious gale raged on all through the Lord's Day, washing away more homes, loosing boats and flooding the village.

  By the crow of the rooster Sunday morning there was more than a foot of water flooding every street in Falmouth Village. The Reverend had to get to his flock and help those in need. Puffy couldn't be expected to brave the waters. What would he do?

  "Joseph. Take the boat," said his wife. "It's the Lord's will for you to use the boat not to ease your mind in the waters of Vineyard Sound but in the waters of our streets."

  Instantly Reverend Metcalfe was filled with inspiration, love, hope and jubilation. He would at last get his second and greatest wish, to ease his mind in his own boat.

  He loaded his craft with what food and other items he had been able to keep safe from the storm and giddily rowed off to the nearest neighbor's house.

  For three days and three nights, without rest or sleep, Reverend Joseph Metcalfe was the happiest man in the world. He was rowing his boat and doing the Lord's work at the same time. He brought food, medicine, and spiritual comfort to the whole village. The residents by now (even the three elders) had begun to realize how wrongly they had treated the kindly Minister and as the water finally receded and the streets dried; a goodly number of people decided to take up a collection to pay the Minister his back wages and buy him a new wig.

  The exhausted Reverend gleefully rowed home, parking his boat right in the middle of his front lawn next to his flower garden. He was saddened to see that his beautiful flowers that he had been forced to neglect, had been uprooted by the storm.

  Since the garden was still partially flooded, he scooped shovel fulls of dirt into the boat and replanted his flowers in the dory. He paused frequently because he had developed a nagging cough and a slight shortness of breath during his ordeal.

  Fighting against eyes that felt as heavy as full grown hogs and a desperate need for sleep, the Reverend spent a few minutes admiring his boat of flowers.

  His wife put him instantly to bed when he entered the house. She fed him chicken soup and smoothed his brow, which by now was as hot as a blacksmith's iron.

  Joseph Metcalfe died during the night. He was 42 years old.

  In the morning his wife looked out at the boat of flowers and was amazed to note that they had almost doubled in size. Neighbors came by all day and were horrified to learn that their Pastor had died. They brought more flowers for the boat and every flower that was put into the dory became the most beautiful posey of its kind in all of the new England.

  People came by the score to bring food, household items and clothing to the widow and her family. In a month a baby boy was born to Abiel. She named him Joseph Dory Metcalfe.

  Every spring thereafter the whole village would come to Rev. Metcalfe's house to tend the flower boat. They began to call it "The Joseph's Boat".

  Soon people all over Cape Cod began to pull old weatherbeaten boats from the sea and drag them on land to fill with flowers. By the year 1900, almost 200 years after Rev. Metcalfe's passing, "The Joseph Boat" was everywhere on Cape Cod.

  You couldn't go down a single street in any one of the 15 towns of Cape Cod, without seeing "The Joseph Boat" on at least one lawn.

  "and that my friends," concluded Charlie Johnson, "is the legend of 'The Joseph Boat' and the haunting of them by Joseph himself."

  "It's a pretty good story Charlie," Frank Woodard said, "Yet I can't help but think that you put some neighbor up to running out into your boat in the middle of the storm just to spice up your story."

  "That's something that I might do Frank. But I did not. I really do believe what we saw was real and really is Joseph's ghost. I'll tell you why I believe it."

  The two couples sat back in their Morris chairs and Kennedy brought food and drink while Charlie continued his story........

  "A few years after Rev. Joseph Metcalfe died, every year, on the anniversary of the big Nor'easter, people began seeing a ghostly figure in their 'Joseph Boats'. The ghost would only appear once a year. He never did any harm to anyone, other than picking their flowers and standing in their flower boat.

  "So consider this Frank. We have tried under controlled, investigative circumstances to film him and we cannot. That goes a long way toward proving he's a ghost.

  "And here's another thing to consider. How many Joseph's Boats do you think there are on Cape Cod?"

  "Eileen and Frank both speculated that based on what they were told there must be thousands of them."

  "You would think so. But there are not. The number of flower boats peaked a hundred years ago. By 1920 people began chopping up those boats and burning them as fast as they could."

  "Why did they do that?" asked Eileen.

  "They did it because of the Reverend. Everybody who's had a Joseph's Boat sooner or later sees the ghost. Folks nowadays don't want any part of a ghost. Oh, there are ghost hunting groups in Salem and elsewhere, but they are just for fun. Show the ghost-hunters a real ghost and they'll end up in Taunton State Hospital in diapers.

  "Up until last year, there were just two 'Joseph Boats' left in all of Cape Cod. There was one in Wellfleet. It was owned by an old sailor. When he died the family destroyed the boat."

  "Then there was just one 'Joseph Boat' - ours," said Maria, "and as long as we live, our yard will always have a boatload of flowers for the Reverend Mr. Joseph Metcalfe.

  -0-

  (Author's Note: 'The Joseph Boat' is a centuries old Cape Cod fact-based legend that is little known today. The boats are one hundred per cent real! Whether Reverend Metcalf comes around every year to check up on them and pick flowers, is another matter. I myself am tempted to test the tale – but like the good Minister Metcalfe, I think if I had a boat I would rather be at sea easing my mind in it, rather than using it as a wooden planter.

  At one time they were seen as often as white churches and village greens. In the 21st century there are very few left, for reasons we can only speculate.

  When I first began telling this story in a blog article, I received a few reports of sightings of Joseph’s Boats. Yet each time I visited the location, I found that there was no Joseph Boat.

  In July of 2015, a longtime business associate told me that he knew for sure where a Joseph Boat was located. He claimed that there was one at a restaurant off Route 6A in Brewster. I challenged him to show it to me.

  Early in the afternoon on a sunny Sunday, we set off for Brewster to see the boat planter that my friend assured me was still there. We arrived at the eatery and the front lawn had NO Joseph Boat!

  “Where is it? You were so certain that they still had it and yet it is not here,” I said.

  “They must have moved it behind the building,” he said and he set off to search every square foot of the property without success.

  We queried the help, but being seasonal summer help, the young students at the serving counter, knew nothing about the boat.

  So that it was not a total loss, my friend and I each had Fried Cod and chips, with a side of onion rings.

  As summer neared its end, in late August I received another tip about a Joseph Boat from a friend who said she had seen one for certain and it was right at my fingertips.

  With more than a little dis
belief I set out with my friend on the first day of September and drove to the very popular, but highly secluded Northside Dennis recreation area called ‘Corporation Beach’.

  As we wound our way through ancient maze like streets with quaint names, we finally sighted the beach road.

  There it was!

  On the side of the road by a fire hydrant, dressed in a banner of red, white, and blue flowers; was a beautiful battered old craft – an honest to goodness Joseph Boat. It might just be the last one on Cape Cod.

  The Joseph Boat – Proudly on display every summer at Corporation Beach – Photo by bill Russo

  A recent play based on this legend has been well received and there’s hope that 'The Joseph Boats' will make a comeback on Cape and elsewhere.)

  Mashpee – The ugly and talented ‘Ahsoo’

  The Mashpee branch of the Wampanoag/Massasoit tribe numbers more than 1400 people, about 10 per cent of the population of the town.

  Since the community is the headquarters of the federally recognized tribe, it’s fitting that our next story comes from Native American folklore.

  This legend was initially described in a WPA document produced during the ‘Great Depression’. It relates the sad narrative of a homely tribeswoman named Ahsoo and a fish called, ‘The Great Trout’.

  Ahsoo was a young lady of the Mashpee people who had a misshaped face that closely resembled the bark of a knotty and gnarled oak tree. So ugly was the girl, that none of the braves would speak to her. When she was near, they would turn their backs and flee as if being chased by full grown grizzly bears.

  Though skilled in all the crafts a woman of the tribe was supposed to know, there was not a single man, young or old who would take her to his wigwam.

  Despite her unhappiness, Ahsoo sang bright, pretty songs every day at the creek when fetching water, bathing, or washing clothes. Her voice was so lovely, that all the beings of the forest would gather to hear her impromptu concerts.