The Changing Face Of Stage Harbor
AT THE ATWOOD HOUSE
by spencer grey
As early as the end of the 17th century what is now Stage Harbor Road was known as “the cartway” leading to the stage, or wharf at the end, known
as steamboat wharf. During the 19th century another wharf was built a few hundred yards to the west and called Union Wharf. Later they became
known respectively as Crowell’s Wharf and Parker’s Wharf, named for the owners at that time.
Along the shore between these two wharves for many years there was a variety of buildings, most of which are no longer there. One of the earliest was
the blacksmith shop of David Mayo that in the 19th century was adjacent to Parker’s Wharf. This shop was engaged in repairing the iron work on the
many vessels that either were moored in the harbor or visited it. In about 1912 the property was acquired by the Cape Cod Cranberry Company,
which built the large brick freezer building. Just to the east of Mayo’s blacksmith ship was the Bates sail loft and next to that were several scallop
shanties that remained there until they were destroyed by the hurricane in 1944.
The Bates sail loft, like so many other buildings in Chatham, is believed to have been moved here from Nantucket and was the first sail loft in town. For
many years Henry Bates and his son made and repaired sails for the vessels in the harbor, at times as many as a hundred. In 1871 Charles Andrew
Howes, who had worked for his father, Collins Howes, in the salt fish business before going to Boston to learn the sail making business, joined them,
changing the name to Bates and Howes. After working for Henry Bates for a few years, Howes bought him out and carried it on by himself.
Prior to the 20th century, the harbor was usually full of boats, including schooners, Grand Bankers, sloops, and clipper ships. In the fall it was
customary to take the sails off the boats and store them in the sail loft to be repaired. But often the vessels needed new sets of sails that could require as
many as a thousand yards of canvas. Howes usually had up to 10 men working for him throughout the winter to repair and make sails. To
accommodate the size of most of the sails, the loft had to be about 70 feet long and 50 feet wide. In 1892 this sail loft burned down, destroying the sails
and the canvas stored there.
After the destruction of his loft, Howes returned to Boston for a few years to work in another line of business, but in 1895 he returned to Chatham and
bought from Walter Eldredge the building on Bridge Street where Eldredge had been operating the Crystal Springs Laundry using water from a nearby
spring. It is there that Howes re-established his sail making business and gave the building the name that it still retains.
On the south side of the harbor opposite the wharves was the island that Morris Farris had bought in the early 18th century. Extending out from that
was Monomoy which was either an island or a point, depending on the existence of the connecting strip that was at the mercy of the more violent
storms. About a mile down Monomoy was Wreck Cove, named for the frequent tragedies that occurred there. In the early years Hugh Stewart had a
tavern there that served as a refuge for any sailors who might land there, either voluntarily or because their ship was wrecked on the shore.
The easterly end of the harbor bordered Tom’s Neck, the area that was home to the twin lights and still is the location of Chatham Light. No one knows
why it was known by that name, but most likely it was the name of one of the more important people who were living there when William Nickerson
acquired the rest of Monomoyick. The southern and western shores of the harbor bordered Stage Neck, which at that time was the entire section of
land west of what is now Stage Harbor Road. Prior to the nineteenth century, the only way to get from Stage Neck to Tom’s Neck was either to go
around the Mill Pond or to go by boat across the narrow body of water that connects the harbor with the Mill Pond. In 1854 the town decided that it
would be more convenient to have a bridge between the two necks, and because William Mitchell had a farm that covered most of the land from the
cartway to the Mill Pond, the strip of water connecting Stage Harbor to the Mill Pond was known as Mitchell River, which in turn gave its name to the
bridge.
In the early years of the settlement of Chatham the land surrounding Stage Harbor on both the north and the south was owned by Joseph Harding,
whose house still stands on top of the hill at the western end. He had three sons for whom he built houses on the edge of the water to the east of his
house, all of which remain as they were when first erected at the beginning of the 19th century. All of the beach on the south side of the harbor
bordering Nantucket Sound also belonged to him and consequently is known as Harding’s Beach.
Stage Harbor always has been known by those who sail along the coast from Maine to New York because it is a convenient place to stop on a voyage
south or north. It also has always been designated as a harbor of refuge, and it is for that reason that it has its own lighthouse. While fishing boats still
work out of the harbor, most of them work the weirs in Nantucket Sound because those going to the Grand Banks now find it more convenient to go
from the Chatham Fish Pier, which was built in 1946. Until the middle of the 20th century, those who fished out of Stage Harbor dried their nets in the
meadow on the hill above the freezer wharf.
Before houses were built on Stage Island, the only structures on it were the Coast Guard barracks on the bluff where the National Seashore
Headquarters now are located and the Coast Guard boat house mid-way between it and the northern end of the island. This boat house had a marine
railway extending into the harbor beyond the low water mark.
Today most of the boats in Stage Harbor are small pleasure boats, primarily sail boats, and the signs of when it was a working harbor are mostly gone,
but the Eldredge Trap Fishing wharf continues to operate and remind us of the days when commerce dominated the shores.
Materials from the Chatham Historical Society’s Atwood House Museum archives were used in preparation of this article.
24.09.2015 Pag.25
Copyright © 2015 Cape Cod Chronicle, Inc. 9/24/2015