Westport (Massachusetts) History

Annual Report 2008

President’s Report

The Westport Historical Society had a productive year. Our summer show, Winds of Change: Westport’s Hurricanes Revisited, was the best attended exhibit we have ever done, and our new book Images of America: Westport is selling well. (We hope you’ll consider it for holiday gifts!) We carried on our preservation efforts, added to our collection, and delivered an interesting series of programs on Westport’s history. The support of these efforts by the people of Westport has been very gratifying.

I would like to acknowledge the service of Sharon Wypych, who served as Secretary. Her passing is a great loss to the Historical Society. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of two of our long-standing board members, Barbara Moss (Collections) and Jim Panos (Programs), who will be stepping down in October. Their dedication, valued input in board matters, and friendship have been great assets to the society and it has been a pleasure to work with them.

Tony Connors

Director’s Report

Highlights of the past year include:

Images of America: Westport
Our new book of historical images of Westport was published in July. Containing over 200 photographs and postcards of the area, the book provides an engaging introduction to Westport’s history. It also proved to be a successful fundraiser for the Society. Its success is a tribute to the team of authors and advisors who worked on the book and to volunteers who have worked so hard over the past few years to organize our photograph collection. We are very grateful to Partners Village Store for providing a wonderful book signing venue and for selling books on our behalf during that event.

Paintings and Poetry of Mercy Etta Baker
With the purchase of 4 watercolors by local artist Mercy Etta Baker, (funded by a Local Cultural Council Grant), we took the opportunity to display what is now a sizable collection of her work along with many of her poems. We were also pleased to include reproductions of her work held by the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Winds of Change: Westport’s Hurricanes Revisited
We welcomed nearly 800 visitors to our summer exhibition on the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954. Despite the seriousness of the topic, it proved to be an extremely engaging exhibition which focused as much on the pre hurricane landscape of East Beach, West Beach and Westport Harbor as it did on the harrowing destruction of these communities. We were able to display some very unusual lost and found items and record some new accounts of the hurricanes. Special thanks to Anna Duphiney for her assistance manning the exhibition. This exhibition was supported by the Westport Cultural Council through a grant from the Helen E. Ellis Charitable Trust administered by Bank of America.

A Perilous Life Online exhibition
Westport Historical Society developed an exciting new online resource featuring images, stories, letters, first hand accounts of Westporters involved in whaling activities. Highlights include newspaper accounts of cannibalism, letters written to and from Westporters at sea, descriptions of ship building activities at the Head of Westport and at the Point, images of whaling masters and whaling ships. Our thanks to Greg Stone for developing this website which can be viewed at www.westporthistory.com/whaling. This project was supported by the Westport Cultural Council through a grant from the Helen E. Ellis Charitable Trust administered by Bank of America.

Other activities included ongoing monitoring of the storage environment for our collections. This year we were lucky to receive dataloggers from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners which will in turn provide us with concrete data to plan further improvements to storage. Productivity was improved considerably with the donation of funds from members of the class of 1955 towards the purchase of a new computer. We hope to repay them by preserving the history of the class of 1955 as part of our collection. Once again, Westport 3rd grade visited the Bell School, and with the help of Tony Connors, we were able to give them a greater understanding of Westport’s unique history. My thanks also go to Peggy Cornell for her regular assistance with mailings and Lees tapes.

Jenny O’Neill

Collections Committee

Once again we thank our hard working team of volunteers: Suzanne Palmer, Ingrid Davidge, Anna Duphiney, Valerie Tripp Gordon, Eileen Flaherty, Sybil Burda and Rebeca Romero-Alvarez. They have given us at least 600 hours of recorded volunteer time, many more hours unrecorded. We have also been exceptionally lucky to have received a grant from Mass Humanities to fund a survey of our clothing/textiles collection by consultant Blair Walker.

This year we received 114 new acquisitions, a total of 1287 individual items. A few were purchases but most were donations. Early on we received a lovely wedding dress and its silk plush jacket from Walter and Glenda Broadbent. Some of the more unusual, but historically significant, items were a light bulb that burned for 67 years at the Acheson home, a pair of antique marbles, and a school hand-bell. Because of our hurricane theme for the summer exhibit we received many pictures and accounts of the hurricane experiences of our residents. We thank you all for contributing to the success of our great summer exhibit. We added several more issues of “The Brownie” to our collection. Purchases include: five Sanborn fire insurance maps of Westport 1933, 2 watercolor paintings by Mary Hicks Brown, 4 watercolor paintings by Mercy Etta Baker, the collection of her poems titled The White Elephant Sale: A Collection of Previously Used Verse, and the important addition to our Cuffe collection of The Non-Slaveholder Volume 5 (This had once belonged to Mr. Bowditch, a Boston Abolitionist and contains a silhouette of Paul Cuffe). These are just some of this year’s acquisitions. We have thanked the recent donors in the each edition of the Harbinger.

Currently our PastPerfect local history database holds records and digitized images of 3372 photographs, 2087 archives, 1460 objects, and 325 books. We are excited to announce that this database will be online next year, fully searchable and accessible to the local and global community!

Barbara Moss

Programs Committee

Although we presented programs on a variety of themes, our focus this year was on the history of Westport’s many churches. Our thanks go to all the churches that participated and to those who contributed information and personal memories as part of these programs. We continue to videotape all programs with the assistance of Betty Slade and staff from Westport Public Access channel and to show them on Channel 17. Warm thanks go to Debbie Paulo and our director Jenny O’Neill for their efficient and capable support in making each presentation successful. Our thanks also to Lees Market for providing a comfortable venue and donating refreshments for many of our programs.
Programs for the past year include:

The Waite-Potter House with Pete Baker

Kate Cory, the Woman and the Whaleship with Bob Kugler

A History of Westport United Congregational Church with Rev. Sue Moenius

Old and New: Combining the Best of Internet and Traditional Research with Rhonda McClure

A History of the Calvary Bible Church with Pastor Jared Heatherly

A History of Pacific Union Congregational Church with Rev. Nathan Hall

Hurricanes of 1938 and 1954 with Dr. Edward Minsinger

A History of St. John the Baptist Church with Father Leonard Hindsley

Perry Davis’ Painkiller with Tony Connors

Friends and Relations: Quaker Witness in Early Westport and Dartmouth with Elizabeth Cazden

A History of Westport Point United Methodist Church with Pastor Katherine Mitchell

Jim Panos

Membership

447 members in total
36 new members

Life 6, Charter 5, Sustaining 35, Contributing 79, Family 143, Individual 178

Oral History Committee

Betty Slade interviewed the following people as part of our ongoing oral history program:

Jim White: Mover of Buildings 1954-1984 with Frances White and Russ Hart

Glenda Broadbent, Shirley Taber, Pastor Katherine Mitchell on history of Westport Point United Methodist Church

Alice May and Larry Laverge

David and Thelma Smith, Elvira Smith and Cukie Macomber

Gladys Legasse and Michelle Sylvia

Charlotte Fitch

Additionally Westport Historical Society continues to archive interviews and events of more current topics.

Betty Slade

The Harbinger

This year we expanded the number of pages, introduced a larger font size and made overall changes to make the Harbinger easier to read. The Harbinger continued to report to our membership the happenings within the Westport Historical Society as well as those important historical events that occurred in the town. The Harbinger has become a mainstay of our public relations programs. The purpose of the Harbinger is four-fold:

1. Create an awareness of the WHS throughout our community.
2. Present WHS positions on important historical events in town
3. Report on WHS events and happenings
4. Recruit new members

Free point-of-purchase distribution of the Harbinger throughout several businesses and organizations in town has increased an awareness of our Society and has resulted in new memberships.

Jon Alden

Cadman's Neck: Westport's 19th Century Tented City

Even by Westport’s standards, Cadman’s Neck is off the beaten track. This small promontory of land edging into the east branch of Westport River is easily bypassed on Hix Bridge Road. However, what is now a secluded community was once a hub of activity, a place where thousands of people would gather to participate in religious camp meetings. In 1879, one local resident pondered a name for the community of worshipers that gathered annually in the month of August:

“Cottage City will not do, not that the city part of the name is out of place but there are no cottages here, at least but two, the restaurant and stable, and our friend eventually settled on the name Tented City.”

What were camp meetings?

In the late 19th century, Westport hosted two camp meetings, one at Cadman’s Neck, the second at Beulah Grove near Hemlock Station (North Westport). They were among several camp meetings in this region, the largest being Wesleyan Grove (also known as Cottage City) on Martha’s Vineyard. These events were scaled down versions of the camp meetings first held on the western frontier. Cane Ridge, Kentucky was one of the earliest and most infamous of all camp meetings. Held in 1801, it lasted 6 days and nights, involving 10,000 to 25,000 people. The meeting was said to have made a noise like Niagara and people fell by the hundreds as men slain in battle. These gatherings were powerful tools for religious conversion, and for those already converted it was an opportunity for renewal and for mending what was called a “backslidden state.” Even here in Westport, camp meetings were undoubtedly intense emotional experiences. The Republican Standard (August 26 1880) informed its readers “that the young lady made insane by the excitement of the camp meeting has been insane twice before. Her mother and sister have been insane and her father and grandfather died in an asylum.”

On the East Coast camp meetings were primarily adopted by the Methodists. Cadman’s Neck however was notable for involving all Westport’s religious societies. Quakers, Baptists and Methodists combined in 1878 to form Westport Camp Meeting “for a spiritual quickening and reviving of the churches, creating a spirit of unity and goodwill among the members of the Association and throughout the community.” Reverend Elihu Grant was the first president and Cortez Allen, no doubt seeing a good spiritual and business opportunity, agreed to give use of his grove at Cadman’s Neck for meetings.

Why Cadman’s Neck?

Given the specific logistical requirements for a successful camp meeting, Cadman’s Neck was a natural choice, offering good drinking water, pasturage for horses, shade for the audience, a central location, a landowner who would allow wood to be cut for tent poles, a forest to screen the meeting from the world, and access by water. In the late 1800s Hix Bridge Road was a main thoroughfare from New Bedford. The crowds arrived by water, or by road on the excursion wagon “Sunshine” from New Bedford. Those who came by rail were given free return tickets.

A correspondent for the New Bedford Mercury in the early 1880s sets the scene:

“The grove consists almost entirely of oak in a good stage of growth, and has been carefully and thoroughly cleared of dead limbs and underbrush so that it is easy and safe even with thin shoes and stove pipe hats. The southwestern breeze keeps it temperate.”

The correspondent goes on describe a gateway opening into a pasture and an ingeniously constructed “tabernacle”, the gathering place for preacher and audience:
“A new and substantial stand has been built to the north and west of the old one, it has permanent seating running the whole length. By a neat arrangement of doors and shutters the light and wind can be shut out. The front can be opened by hoisting the whole upper half which is hung on hinges and which when up acts as an awning for the preachers and singers. In front of the stand seats are arranged in semi circles, sufficient to accommodate 600. From the stand to the back seat is a rise of some 10 feet so that one’s view is not obscured except by some “poke” bonnet or sun umbrella.”

Preparations also included the construction of wharves for those arriving by boat
and a flagpole was placed on or near the Tabernacle “at such a height it can be seen for miles around.” (Republican Standard, August 4 1887).

“There is abundant entertainment for man and beast. Mr. Cortez Allen has a dining tent 24 feet by 60 full board is 60 cents, dinner 40 cents, supper and breakfast each 30 cents. Across the carriage drive from the grounds is a stable 30 by 75 feet with 36 stalls for horses and carriages. Near the stable is a horse grove where horses may be hitched.”

Held in August, the week long camp meeting followed a relentlessly regular schedule of preaching, praying and singing. Preachers from all parts of the country entertained the crowds of up to 2000 people beginning at 9 o’clock and continuing into the evening

"Dwelling in the goodly tents of Jacob"

Tents were an integral part of the experience. They were preferable to wooden cabins which, according to one contemporary authority on camp meetings, encouraged “a class of low and ludicrous ideas, since they give a spectator rather the idea of a huddle of Irish rail-road shanties, than of a worshipping people "dwelling in the goodly tents of Jacob."”
During the 1880s a large number of attendees at Cadman’s Neck remained in camp all night. Women occupied St Paul’s tent and men stayed in Mt Zion tent.

Three types of tents were used at Cadman’s Neck: family tents, society tents and boarding tents. The rent, to be paid to Gilbert Wordell, for pitching a tent was 1 dollar. Eventually summer cottages replaced tents, but even these cottages mimicked the concept of a tent. Like those built at Cottage City on Martha’s Vineyard, they were typically two story rectangular buildings, with a wide double door centered just like a tent opening, narrow windows on each side, and equipped only with an outdoor kitchen.

Under cover of darkness…

Clearly such religious gatherings were also important social events. The following reports provide an entertaining glimpse into exuberant youthful antics:

“Police discovered some liquor hidden in the bushes, in response to inquiries they said that the liquor was brought from the Point. A gentleman acquainted with that quiet village replied so much whiskey could not have been found there. They promised to leave at once in the boat that brought them. After the police had photographed them in their memories they were permitted to depart. They confessed that it came from the rum hole on the Horseneck. It is a disgrace to the town that such a place of temptation and vileness is permitted within its limits. Your correspondent cannot learn of any effort has been made to suppress it.”(Republican Standard August 7 1879)

Another incident suggests that the youthful urge to create disorder from order, specifically to overturn structures, is perennial:

“Some lads tenting were a little frisky last night. Near the dead hours they sailed forth and advanced on a wooden structure in the rear of one of the tents used for a kitchen with a concerted purpose of tipping it over. Arousing the occupants of the tent, they were frustrated in their plans, the patrol men descended on them and in the darkness took the one that giggled who proved to be one the most innocent of the larks and he was shut up in the stand.”(Republican Standard)

Next time you drive by the road leading to Cadman’s Neck, take a minute to explore the small peninsula and ponder its origins as Westport’s 19th century “tented city.”

Jenny O’Neill