BREWSTER——
Thanks to Pioneering Here,
Millions of American Soldiers
Wear Good Shoes
Quiet little Brewster, Cape Cod, offers a rich tapestry of Americana.
Many a U. S. soldier slogging over the world battlefronts is wearing brogans turned out by patented machines of the great United Shoe Machinery—which started from a one-man cobbling business in oldtime Brewster.
West Brewster, dubbed “Factory Village” by the old timers, was a bustling scene, with spinning, fulling and grist mills, tannery and iron works, and the still-present Flax Pond, where flax gathered in surrounding fields was put to soak in the water-retting process of making linen.
The sheep growers would trek here, over the fields and ragged roads, with their bags of wool. The going was hard on their footwear, it was noted by the Winslow brothers, one of whom operated a fulling mill and the other, a grist mill. So, to maintain good will, the fulling mill Winslow verged into a sideline of cobbling the shoes of his wool producers.
But, a teen-age son—who gave the lie to common gossip of that day, that the younger generation was swiftly going to the dogs—was actually the one who transformed the humble cobbler’s tapping into a nationwide whirr and, incidentally, founded the Great Winslow fortune of today.
A CROSS-ROADS GENIUS
The lad was uncommonly ingenious and tenacious. Recruited by the fulling mill operator to assist in the cobbling work, the boy grew impatient at the tediousness of the task. He conceived a time-saving and labor-saving machine. Then he dreamed up another and another. He wrote to Washington and obtained a patent on each new invention as fast as it took shape.
These same patents are in use today in the big shoe plants of America, and the earnings from them continue to flow handsomely to the present Winslow heirs. Thus, the mighty United Shoe Machinery Company got its first breath of life on old Cape Cod.
Brewster is named for Elder William Brewster, a crusader for religious freedom, who sailed to Cape Cod on the Mayflower and acted as pastor to the church at Plymouth. He is described as having been “tender harted, and compassionate of such as were in miserie.” Further, “none did more offend him and displease him than such as would haughtily and proudly carry and lift up themselves, being rise from nothing, and haveing little els in them to comend them but a few fine cloaths, or a little riches more than others.” On his death, we are told, Elder Brewster’s complete estate consisted of 275 books, of which 64 were “in the learned languages.”
Quaint names are associated with Cape Cod lore. Fear Brewster was one of Elder Brewster’s daughters and he had sons named Love Brewster and Wrestling Brewster.
SEA ADVENTURES OF OLD
When Brewster town history is recounted there is always talk of the colorful seafaring oldsters and their great sailing craft. Outstanding is the Pitcairn Island story. Captain William Freeman of Brewster landed at the bleak hiding place of the Bounty mutineers in 1883, and brought his daughter Clara along with him. Clara cultivated the friendship with Rosa Young, daughter of Edward Young, who survived the hardships and bloody conflict among the mutineers after they found refuge on the island in 1790. Later, they corresponded. Today, in the Brewster Public Library, there is the original manuscript of Rosa Young’s letters, extending over a period of six months.
In one of these letters, Rosa tells of her meeting with the chaplain of the man-of-war Constance, who landed at Pitcairn. All descendents of the mutineers, including Rosa, were intensely religious. Thus, she described the visiting chaplain to her Brewster friend: “Whether he experienced the same feeling that I did I cannot tell, but I certainly thought that a more un-chaplain-looking man was hard to find, and if words and manner are an index to a man’s character, he certainly did not seem rightly fitted for a sacred office.” And then, as though to show how shocked she was, Rosa Young concluded, “as we were about to leave ship he said, ‘Now, we will have to sing, The Girl I Left Behind Me.’”
The house in Brewster where Joseph C. Lincoln, writer of Cape Cod character stories, was born still bears a For Sale sign. Conrad Aiken, noted American poet, has a Summer place in a tranquil spot in the hill country. Chester Slack, an artist of reputation, lives there year-round and takes a sympathetic interest in local affairs. In recent times a Brewster craftsman, with a resourceful spirit reminiscent of the Factory Village pioneers, has been weaving fine tweeds to fill individual orders.
Brewster today reflects mostly upon her memory-book, for there is no longer any of the teeming industry of the Winslow founders. The exciting spring herring run annually draws attention to the town. Brewster has one vestige of the hallowed past that is distinctive: It is the site of the only water-power grist mill on Cape Cod where countless modern summer visitors have watched the ancient process of grinding corn—and captured a bit of stirring reality of the vigorous Founding Days of our nation.