Shipwrecks on Cape Cod

On the first day of January, 1927, one of those fierce easterly gales which frequently sweep the North Atlantic coast and the outside of Cape Cod from Chatham to Boston Light, caught the fishing schooner Roger Dicky in a dense fog and drove her hard and fast on the outside beach a short distance beyond the Cahoon’s Hollow Coast Guard Station, within the boundaries of Wellfleet.

She was coming in from the fishing grounds bound to Boston with 20,000 pounds of cod and haddock. The Coast Guardsmen from Cahoon’s Hollow Station were promptly on hand and brought the entire ship’s crew of fifteen men safely to shore.

The Dicky was a staunch craft, only a year old, but the terrific seas soon made a complete wreck of her. She was a very modern boat and quite up to date in equipment of electric lights, hot and cold water, and the most valuable piece of her expensive furnishings was a $12,000 electric engine.

When it was seen that the vessel must speedily break up, preparations were made to strip from the hull everything of value that could be moved.

This craft stranded directly in front of a hundred feet high cliff, and the nearest place at which teams could approach the wreck was more than two miles at Pamet River Coast Guard Station.

The rigging and sails were quickly taken off, but the great problem which confronted them was how to land that engine.

At that time Mr. Hayes Small, of the Highland House Hotel, owned eight powerful horses, and Capt. Pine, of Boston, who had been sent down by the owners of the craft to take charge, made a contract with Mr. Small to truck the engine along the beach up through the Pamet River valley and on to Provincetown.

By lively work on the part of a gang of men the engine was removed from the vessel to the waiting trucks and four horses pulled it quickly up the beach and on to destination.

Three days later the Roger Dicky was only a mass of broken timbers and twisted chains.

Fortunately no lives were lost in this disaster.