Episode 21 is packed! It is the week of the launch of my 6th book Iconic Hotels and Motels of Cape Cod through Arcadia Publishing/History Press! I go over some of what went into the creation of this book, how Covid delayed it, and where to get it! Also join in the Book Launch Livestream Monday May 24th at 7:30pm on Instagram.
In 1984 a nearly 500-foot freighter named Eldia was pushed ashore at Nauset Beach during a heavy gale. Relive the story of a maritime disaster that became a huge attraction during Cape Cod's offseason.
A right of passage for many children on Cape Cod in the past was spending a week at the Cape Cod National Seashore in 5th Grade. I share my memories of my time there way Back In the Day, and a little more about the educational program that allowed such fond memories for so many to happen.
This Week In History contains one of the most infamous Cape Cod murders, and also some lighter stories like the release of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book. There is also a new Time Capsule.
Also be sure to check out my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode
Listen to Episode 20 here.
Episode 21 is packed! It is the week of the launch of my 6th book Iconic Hotels and Motels of Cape Cod through Arcadia Publishing/History Press! I go over some of what went into the creation of this book, how Covid delayed it, and where to get it! Also join in the Book Launch Livestream Monday May 24th at 7:30pm on Instagram.
In 1984 a nearly 500-foot freighter named Eldia was pushed ashore at Nauset Beach during a heavy gale. Relive the story of a maritime disaster that became a huge attraction during Cape Cod's offseason.
A right of passage for many children on Cape Cod in the past was spending a week at the Cape Cod National Seashore in 5th Grade. I share my memories of my time there way Back In the Day, and a little more about the educational program that allowed such fond memories for so many to happen.
This Week In History contains one of the most infamous Cape Cod murders, and also some lighter stories like the release of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book. There is also a new Time Capsule.
Also be sure to check out my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode
Listen to Episode 20 here.
Intro
Hello, world. Welcome to Episode 21 of the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, your host coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but representing all of the states of the New England region, a place I am so happy to call my home. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Thank you all so much for tuning in to my grandfather's bonus episode, Episode 20. It premiered on the 15th of May. And it was just something that I had wanted to do for a while a special dedication to my hero and my role model. If you haven't listened to it yet, go and check it out. And let me know what you think. Because overall, this idea, well let me jump back. So every month, I'm allowed a certain amount of minutes for my podcast through Buzzsprout, where it's hosted and doing three weeks on and one week off, I noticed that I was starting to have minutes left over because the episodes are 45-50-ish minutes. And these minutes don't roll over, I started to get this idea. You know, if I've got 20 to 25 minutes leftover, why not create a shorter bonus episode featuring like one topic, if they don't roll over why waste them and it goes to the whole creating as much content as possible. That being said, I have topics picked out. So as long as I have three extra minutes each month I will probably be doing bonus episodes of the podcast that are shorter. So be on the lookout for those. In other news, this is the big week. This is coming up the book, launch the book release iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod through the history press. My sixth book is coming out May 24. I will be doing a book launch live stream Monday, May 24 at 7:30pm on Instagram, if you want to tune in, and I plan on going into some more detail about this book. Later on in the podcast. I want to give a special shout-out to my oldest nephew Liam, whose birthday is this week he's going to be turning 15 which really makes me feel old. I hope this birthday is as good as it can be with the world. Still not quite back to regular yet. It's closer. But hopefully, the family can have a big get-together at some point this summer. We can do all kinds of celebrations. We've got a lot of great stuff to get to this week on the podcast. So let's just dive right in. Like I said, I'm going to tell you all about my new book, iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod coming out on the 24th. We're going to take a look back at the grounding of the freighter eldia on Nauset beach in 1984. We'll go way way back in the day to the rite of passage for fifth graders on Cape Cod that was staying a week at the Cape Cod National Seashore. And of course we've got this week in history, which includes one of Cape Cod's most famous or infamous murders, a new time capsule and so much more. So thank you all for tuning in. I am Christopher Setterlund. This is episode 21. Let's go take a walk.
New Book Release
Monday, May 24 is the official launch date the official release date of my new book, my sixth book overall, and the title of iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod through the history press. So that's only a few days after this podcast goes live. And it's been a long journey to get this book out. And I'm really excited and I hope you all like it. Anyone who has checked out any of my previous books. If you haven't heard of them or read any of them. It's don't worry this isn't a series where you need to have read the other books to understand this one. iconic hotels and motels is the finish of my trilogy as far as Cape Cod history goes. So I've done three books now through the History Press, Historic Restaurants of Cape Cod, Cape Cod Nights, and now iconic hotels and motels. This trilogy is basically where you went to eat on Cape Cod, where you went to drink and party on Cape Cod and then where you went to sleep it off. And I kid you Now that was the marketing idea behind it. When I pitched this book to the publisher, I said, I want to do this book, I said, this is what I'm thinking, and they loved it. As far as the process of getting this book written and submitted and edited, it has been kind of a slog, because right before my manuscript was due, COVID broke out. So basically, things in the publishing world got set back for sure. I submitted this manuscript the first week of April of last year. And I didn't hear anything back from the publisher about the status of the book, until I believe it was October. So we're talking six months at least. And during that time, with the pandemic, just raging, I was figuring this book was dead in the water. And I was going to eventually here, sorry, we can't do it. But they reached out to me. And it was one of those like, oh, my god, I forgot I had a book that I had written. And we did all the editing and all the deciding on photos and such to create the finished product. And it's got the best cover, I think of any of my books. Personally, I did hours and hours, tons of hours of research for this book, because when you're doing history, I do it for the podcast to your main thing is you need to be accurate to the very best of your ability. Because the last thing you want is someone coming up that has intimate knowledge of a place and saying no your stuff is wrong. Because then immediately your book is seen as a fraud. That's why in these books, there's always a disclaimer saying that all the information in here is accurate to the best of the author's ability. Because they always want to leave that wiggle room like look, I tried my best to get the info. This is all from newspaper, magazine articles, and interviews, never do I just make something up the editor for Cape Cod Life magazine a couple of years ago, I did a series of articles called the shape of the cape. And the editor man named Matt Gill, he helped me become a better writer because he would come back at me with questions about the articles, and they will be these minute details that would drive me nuts. If I was talking about the erosion of an area, I had to find out the exact details of how many feet per year average, if I was talking about the population of a town, I had to know the number. So I kind of started writing and researching like that, thinking that I was writing for Matt Gill still. So if he ever hears that, I want you to know you helped make me a better writer by getting on me with those questions. The book in general is close to 40,000 words, which is a lot but it isn't a lot if that makes sense. And when choosing iconic hotels and motels, the main gist, so the History Press Arcadia Publishing, they gave me carte blanche with this book and the previous two the thing is with the restaurants book, every spot I put in there was closed, it was now a part of history. So if you got that book, there was no place you could read about and then go to it to have a meal with Cape Cod Nights, the historic nightlife of Cape Cod, some of the bars and nightclubs were still open like a handful, so there were places you could still go. So the main gist with this book is they wanted the majority to still be open as far as hotels and motels. That was literally the only condition they put on this book. I could choose any place that I thought was worthy. And I did. I mean everyone's list of iconic hotels and motels, restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, it's all going to be subjective. I've had people come at me and asked me Oh, is this going to be in there? Is that going to be in there? Because those are there places that they see is iconic. So I have some of the most well-known and most popular resorts hotels in here. When I think of the most iconic resorts on Cape Cod. My mind goes right to Wequasset, Chatham Bars Inn, and Ocean Edge. And those are with literally no thinking. I just close my eyes. I'm like, Yep, those are the best. But then you dig a little deeper, you do a little research and that's when you find other ones that are just as good that you didn't know about like the lands end inn, lighthouse inn, but then you dig deeper. And you've got places that were resorts, but also were as well known for their restaurants like East Bay Lodge, Daniel Webster in and old Yarmouth inn and then you dig a little deeper and you go back and you find the most historic spots of yesteryear, the history that I really enjoy. That's when you get into places like the pines in Cotuit, Chequessett Inn in Wellfleet, which is one of my favorites, Aberdeen Hall out on Great Island and Yarmouth in my opinion, what makes a spot iconic to be in this book. Part of it, the main part of it is longevity. If you were around for 70-80 90 years, or if you're still around and you've been going strong, that means something, hotels, restaurants, bars, many of them just come and go and close down and change hands. So if you've been able to stay true to your vision for that long, you deserve to be in there, a place like East Bay Lodge and Osterville was open for over 100 years. So regardless of what's there, now, it's condos, I believe, but that spot deserves to be in there for a hotel and as a restaurant. Another factor, if you didn't get to that kind of longevity is how bright your star shone in the time that it was open. I look at a place like Chequessett Inn in Wellfleet. They were open less than 50 years 50 It's still a long time. But they were on this Wharf, near Mayo beach in Wellfleet. It's what I'll be going way over that in a future podcast episode, because I just find it fascinating. But if you look at photos of it, it looks like something that never could have existed on Cape Cod, it looks at a place that makes it fascinating. Or you look at something like hotel Chatham, which was in existence for less than 20 years. And it was literally on one of the fairways of what is now the eastward hole golf course in Chatham, it was essentially the first big summer resort on Cape Cod. So that makes a historic impact. That's another factor is the kind of impact it had on the future. So even though it lasted less than 20 years, it deserves to be in the book for the impact it had. Same with the Santuit house in Cotuit was the first real Cape Cod hotel, so not a summer resort, like hotel Chatham, but it was in existence for 65 years. And that's the OG of hotels on Cape Cod. So that's how I chose my places. I'm sure that you who read the book in the future, you're going to have your own opinions. Why wasn't this in there? Why wasn't that in there. And it's nothing against those places. It's just I had my choices, and they're all subjective. Normally, when a book gets released, I do a book launch party, a bunch of people come, we have food and drinks, and I do a whole PowerPoint presentation and talk about the book. But obviously, with COVID, still not over, you can't really have these big indoor gatherings so that's not going to happen. So Monday, May 24. I'm going to do a book launch live stream on Instagram at 7:30pm. Any of you that are listening to this, if you want to hop over to my Instagram channel, Christopher Setterlund easy to find me. I'll be going live to go way more in depth on the book. This is meant to be kind of a general overview. And depending on when you're listening to this podcast, the book is either available for preorder through the history press and Amazon or it is available everywhere in stores if it's after May 24. I hope you'll give it a try. And let me know what you think of it. This is my sixth book. So I'm pretty proud to have a full six-pack of actual books in stores. This one is dedicated to my nieces and nephews, Kaleigh, Emma, Liam, Landon, Lucas and Sylvie, six of them six books. So it's kind of a nice fitting thing. The irony is I have a seventh book I'm starting to work on. So I don't know if there's going to be a seventh niece or nephew come in who knows we need that symmetry. Join me for that live stream Monday, May 24. And as we go along and summer hopefully there'll be a chance to do some actual book events in front of people. But until then, keep your eyes open iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod by me available through the history press starting May 24. And I hope you enjoy all the hard work I put into it. I hope you enjoy it.
Sponsor: Wear Your Wish
Summer is right around the corner. What better way to celebrate the oncoming of summer than by adding something great to your wardrobe like going to wear your wishes.com since launch back at the end of February products have been flying off the shelves on the website, but it's so much more than hoodies and joggers and sweatpants. There's new stuff coming so you've always got to make sure to go back and check the website. shoot an email to Katie Marks the owner find out about what's coming up. I can share with you some new things coming including towels, pillows and throws and new apparel. There's a new logo coming that I've seen that is amazing. But the big thing is coming near the end of June right in time for the launch summer is the mermaid collection a jewelry line. Sterling Silver with necklaces, bracelets, and rings for mermaid wishes and starfish kisses there. is a cube necklace and anklet, paper airplane bracelet. These are all coming soon to the website. So get ready. And like I said, if you go to the website and you see something you like it is not there. It's sold out. It will be back on the shelves, where your wish has been doing some great work. It's a sign of success and we're all very proud of the work that Katie has done. She's a 12th-generation Cape Codder so a lot of that stuff you locals wear your wishes as local as it gets. So get ready for summer. Check out the clothing and apparel and accessories that were your wishes.com Where your wish, check it out. It's got everything you need for summer coming up.
The Wreck of the Eldia
Living on Cape Cod, you're never far from the beach. And growing up on the cape. Obviously I spent lots of time at the beaches, just looking out staring out of over the waves and watching the boats pass by only when I got older. Like in college did I learn about how many shipwrecks have been all around the Cape especially on the Outer Cape, the great beach, the Atlantic Ocean facing beaches. And in my lifetime, especially in the last few years I've seen a few boats get washed up on jetties and have to be towed out, like the Ruth and Gail at Sesuit harbor and 2010 or most recently, the Artemis on the Provincetown breakwater in 2018. Even the steamship authority ferry has run aground on a jetty recently, but in my lifetime, going back, you know, I was born in 1977. I don't think there's been any more of a famed well-known ship grounding than that of the Eldia out on Nauset beach. And I wanted to talk about this on this week's podcast because it was 37 years ago this week that it was floated off the beach. For those of you that are around my age, and definitely older. I'm sure that if you grew up on the Cape, you remember this event. But in order to get a fuller scope of this story, we got to start at the beginning and that was a huge storm on March 29 1984. An early spring Blizzard roared across New England with winds that touched hurricane force and were steady between 35 and 65 miles an hour. This storm is also known for destroying great Point Lighthouse out on Nantucket, and even making great point into an island for a little while because of the high tides. Those tides and the winds also had an effect on Cape Cod. For those of you that don't know Nauset beach, it's one of the most well known beaches on Cape Cod. I think all the ones out on the Outer Cape are the most popular Nauset, Coast Guard, Marconi. Anyway, if you've gone there the last several years you've seen the effect that erosion has taken over they're destroying the famous dunes, but the erosion of the dunes the sand doesn't just go away. In many cases, it creates shoals right off shore. And they're like booby traps that grab a ship as it goes by. It doesn't matter how big the ship is. And that leads us to the 473-foot 9,000-ton freighter named the Eldia It was bound for Norfolk, Virginia. The ship had dropped off its cargo of sugar in St. John New Brunswick the previous day, the dropping off of the cargo ended up kind of being its undoing. Because the ship was lighter than normal. So the wind and the shoals off the coast of NASA beach came together and the ship was pushed to the shore. Luckily, the entire crew was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. The funny thing is about this ship grounding is that the Orleans Police Department received numerous calls of a nearly 500 foot freighter on shore at Nauset beach, and they had received numerous false calls. So they kind of were like I don't know if this is true or not. But after enough of these calls came in they braved the storm and went out and there it was 473 feet. its exact location back then was about half a mile south of the main parking lot. And it was a huge attraction. More than 100,000 people went to see the ship during the roughly seven weeks that it was on shore, including me. And it's one of those memories that you know, I was six years old, and I still can remember because the ship it's bigger than anything I've ever seen. And my mother and stepfather brought me my oldest sister, and then my brother who was only a few months old, my twin sisters were my mother was pregnant with them. And we all went down and we hiked our way across the dunes to see this ship and there were people everywhere. You think Cape Cod beaches are crowded in this summer. Just imagine in April with a 500-foot ship offshore, they were everywhere pictures were being taken news crews were there. If you go on YouTube and just type in Eldia, you will find news footage. I've watched it to see if I could see myself there. I haven't seen myself. The best footage though is this 22-minute video of the salvage of the Eldia. I'll put a link in the description of the podcast so you can watch it that it's unbelievable. So luckily, very little of the 140,000 gallons of fuel of the ship had leaked out of the Eldia before it was drained. So there wasn't any fuel spill. The task of removing the Eldia from Nauset Beach was given to Macalester towing and salvage of Montreal and Donjon Marine Company of New Jersey. They had worked on removing the tugboat, the Morton s Bouchard Jr. That had sunk in the Cape Cod canal in April 1983. But it took a while obviously, and by that time, more than 100,000 people had come to see that ship. You know, it was amazing. Every day, the parking lot was full. So Orleans was smart, they charged people for parking, and they made money hand over fist for people to just come and see this monstrous ship that was just stuck. There are obviously photos, postcards. As I said, there's videos, it almost doesn't do it justice. Like if you weren't there to see it, you can imagine. It's like being in a shipyard and being next to one of those huge ones. And they're just floated there at the dock. Except this was on the beach, you could walk pretty close to it. Granted, I didn't get that close because, you know with small children, my mother and stepfather weren't going to bring us way out a half mile and have a standing next to this huge ship because we likely wouldn't have wanted to walk back to the car so they hedge their bets. A series of high tides beginning on the evening of May 13 1984 provided the perfect opportunity to slowly pull the Eldia off the sand and out to sea. I mean it was the tide was so low and the ship was so big that its propeller was basically off the ground it needed to be floated out so that it's propeller could be in the water to move it. The process was slow, but by May 17. The Eldia was safely away from the beach and was towed to a Staten Island boatyard. By the time it left more than $80,000 had been raised from parking for people coming to see the Eldia it spent 49 days on Nauset beach and ended up being too damaged to ever be used again. So it was dismantled in a Rhode Island shipyard afterward, it's sometimes it's hard to believe that was 37 years ago. I can remember that's one of my vivid memories of my early childhood is going to the beach, but just how big the ship was from far away a half mile away. It looked like it was right on top of you. It's like when you talk about famous storms from Cape Cod history. You know, the blizzard of 78, Hurricane Bob, the great New England hurricane of 1938. And the perfect storm of 1991. This great storm of March 29, 1984 gets overlooked a lot. And it's amazing because not only did it wash the Eldia up on shore, but it knocked down Great Point Lighthouse on Nantucket. In addition to god knows what else damage it did that wasn't as publicized. But such as life living on Cape Cod, a peninsula that sticks out into the ocean were just ripe for storms. Do you remember the Eldia? Did you go visit it? I'd love to see other people's photos of it. I don't have any of my own but there are photos and postcards in the videos. Definitely go check those out if you're not familiar with it. But that's a great slice of Cape Cod history from 37 years ago this week, the wreck of the Eldia.
Back In the Day: Field Trip to Cape Cod National Seashore
Alright, so this is a subject that I've been excited to cover for a while on the podcast because we go way, way back in the day. Field trips are always fun in school. But what about a field trip that lasted a week? Well, if you were a fifth grader on Cape Cod in most of the towns, you got this sort of rite of passage. That was a week-long field trip staying at a hostel on the National Seashore, and I waited because I believe this is the time of year that I went. So for all of you Cape Cod, former Cape Cod students that are my age around my age. Here's a nice trip down memory lane. This week-long trip to the National Seashore was part of an educational program called the National Environmental educational development or need the actual staying the seashore part of this began in 1970. And one of the reasons why the Dennis Yarmouth school district was the first to start it off was because a man named Skip Croft, who was the principal of the John Simpkins Elementary School in South Yarmouth was the coordinator of this program. As the years went on, more school districts got in on it including Falmouth and Harwich, and it like I said, it's a rite of passage. You get to go your fifth grade. I mean, I was 11 years old. You get to go by yourself for a week, no parents and explore these five-day intervals that you went to the National Seashore. They were between March and June. The Dennis Yarmouth district being the main member of the program, they acted as the fiscal agent with other towns like Falmouth and Harwich contributing to a fund figuring out the cost per child. And there was essentially a lottery where it would be drawn which classes would go when and what time of the month the year. I mean, I didn't know any of this. I just got the word. You know, if the parents said it was all right, you could go I didn't know anything about why and when and how much effort it went in to set this up. I just knew it was a chance to be out on my own, really, for the first time ever at age 11. The home base for the need program was an old Coast Guard station in Truro right near Ballston beach for those that are from Cape Cod, if you're not from Cape Cod, Touro. And that area is one of the only spots on Cape Cod still, that has that old Cape Cod feeling where if you're driving out there walking out there on the beach out there, it feels like it probably did 100 years ago, there's not a lot of people out there even now, this Coast Guard station in Truro then, and now still functions as a youth hostel in the summer. If you go on to hihostels.com. And look up tomorrow, you'll see pictures of the Coast Guard station, although it's been temporarily closed because of COVID. They keep saying they're going to reopen for the 2021 summer. So my fifth-grade class, when you pull up on a bus, you've got your bag, you step off, and there's this big white building this two stories, and it's not in the middle of nowhere, but you're pretty far removed. The building is at the end of North Pamet road. And within the surrounding several 100 yards. At least there are only a handful of houses. And those are pretty far away. You had kind of the run of the area. I can remember there was a few people there that kind of acted as the director, and assistant director, I think there was a full time cook also. And the boys and girls got separated naturally. There's dorms there. So it's bunk beds, and concrete. It's in the basement being that it was 32 years ago, I don't remember if our teacher came with us. Like I honestly I can't remember I just remember getting dropped off and having my stuff and picking out a bunk in the basement. The whole point of this trip was to study the ecology, geology and history of Cape Cod and that area, you got prepped for it the two weeks leading up to the trip, there was a lot of going over what we were going to be doing and kind of what was expected of us, especially for the boys. I mean, that didn't really help. But you know, being 11 years old, we were told to behave. I think for the most part we did but that's up to the teachers and directors that were there, whether we did or not. And we were off the grid there. If you go out there. Now there's bearBerry Hill, which is about 100 feet above sea level that has awesome sunrises and sunsets. But there's no cell phone reception really out there. So imagine 32 years ago, it might as well have in the 1850s the major part of this trip out there was walking along the beach and just studying the beach's ecology. So we were on the great beach of Cape Cod that Thoreau walked on, intro that I guess Ballston beach would be the main one. As luck would have it for me. Unfortunately, I ended up that first day. The weather wasn't great. And I've suffered from migraine headaches since I was two years old. So I got one and I literally had to stay sleeping in my bunk while everyone else went out for a hike. I always wonder how that looked. If all of us got together and it's like the first activity we do. I'm like, I can't go My head hurts. When in reality, that's the truth. I probably looked like I wasn't a team player. We got three meals a day there was the kitchen dining area that looked kind of like a cafeteria there were a couple of round tables with a bunch of wooden chairs where we would eat. I just remember it looked like a cross between a regular house and a cafeteria. In the evening after dinner, we would have Have singalongs. So one of the directors there would I mean, they all had musical instruments. I think it was basically a guitar acoustic guitar, almost like a hippie commune around the fire. But we'd sing songs like what are you going to do with the drunken sailor, and black socks and other random children's songs or campfire songs? In doing research for this segment of the podcast and learning about that need program and staying at the hostel, I saw an article from 1980 that talked about it wasn't uncommon to go out on a fishing boat for these excursions. And I said, Wait a minute, we didn't get any fishing boat when we were there. So I wonder if classes before mine ruined it for everyone else. Kind of like how growing up our eighth-grade field trip was always going to Washington DC. And then the class before mine screwed around and my class got shafted out of it. And we had to go to old Sturbridge village instead of Washington, DC. But I wanted to save my best memory for last from my time at the National Seashore. So as I said, all the students we all slept in dorms, bunk beds, and there was one night the one of the directors there, he was this guy with a beard. I can kind of see him, but that's about it. He had a beard, he would come in and sit in the metal folding chair and tell us stories like ghost stories before we went to bed. And this one night, he's telling us this story. And there's one of the kids in there. He was in a top bunk and he's just laughing. This kid he's laughing like that, like through the whole thing, just nonstop laughing. And the rest of us are just like, man, he should really shut up. And the director the guy telling us a story asked him, you know, you please stop. And he didn't. He kept laughing and laughing and finally this guy, he must have had enough and he snapped. He grabs this kid from the top bunk as he's laughing like that grabs him by his sleeping bag, pulls him out of the bed, drags him out into the hallway and leaves him out there. So by the time story-time was over, and he left and all we can hear it was silent. And after a few moments, you just hear that laughter echoing out in the hallway is he just he kept laughing? Oh, I can still see that in my head. him getting pulled out of the top bunk by the sleeping bag just dragged out in the hallway. That's something you weren't expecting. In the brochure for the seashore trip. You might get pulled out of your bunk and thrown in the hallway. That was my experience. Those were my main memories of my time at the seashore. Did you go? If you're from Cape Cod, did you go to the seashore and fifth grade, or better? Have you stayed at that hostel since it's still there? You can drive out to it. Now you can't go inside it looks like it's seen better days. So I don't know if it's in need of a new coat of paint or something. But if you're there I went there a few months ago for sunset at Burberry Hill. And by the time I got back down to my car, I parked at the hostel. And by the time I got back to my car, it was almost dark and that hostel definitely looks like it could be haunted. For all you Cape Cod students that are my age around my age. Definitely go look up hihostels.com and have your mind blown with a nice flashback to our trip out to the National Seashore and fifth grade.
Sponsor: Laura and Tony’s Kitchen
There's nothing better first thing in the morning than a good breakfast. Maybe a good breakfast with a new release of my podcast which drops at 5am. But I digress. Cape Cod is home to many good breakfasts and some great breakfasts. And if you want the best of breakfast, there's only one place you can go and that's Laura and Tony's kitchen in northeast ham located on Route six, right before the Wellfleet drive in this spot has been providing the best breakfast buffet small batch cooking. It's incredible. I've been there so many times. And I love it every time. It's awesome. But COVID has unfortunately forced them to pivot some. So what's happening is they're going to be introducing Laura and Tony's kitchen and gourmet market cafe. They're reopening in mid June and they're going to be better than ever the best of both worlds. They're going to be serving everything from their homemade bagels with buttery smoked salmon. Tony's legendary Mexican noodles, crisp salads, organic grilled chicken sandwiches are made all day. If you haven't been there, you need to get there when they reopen. If you have been there, you already know all about it. I would say they're a hidden gem but if you've ever been there during the busiest parts of the days, you know everybody knows about Laura and Tony's before they reopen in June. You can go to Laura and Tony's kitchen.com Play some online orders see what they've got. Also go to Laura and Tony's kitchen@etsy.com They offer free local delivery. Any questions give a call to Laura at 508-221-7151 and Be there when they reopened in mid-June. I'll definitely keep you updated. But I wanted to get the word out ahead of time, Laura and Tony's kitchen and gourmet market cafe, the best breakfast on Cape Cod bar none be there
This Week In History
This week in history runs the gamut of emotions from one of the most horrifying things I've shared to some of the most fun things I've shared. So let's dive right in. This week in history 142 years ago, May 21 1879, Charles Freeman of Pocasset his end of the world prediction doesn't happen. For many of you that are unfamiliar with who Charles Freeman was, this may sound like something like Oh, someone predicted the end of the world in 1879, and whatever, but the backstory is way more dark. So a few weeks earlier on May 1 1879, Charles Freeman, who was the self-appointed leader of a religious movement, known as the Adventists, murdered his daughter, Edith, who was four years old, the act was committed because Charles Freeman would claim the Lord appeared to me and informed me that the victim of the sacrifice was to be my pet, my idol, my baby Edith. So basically, he was a leader of this religious cult in Pocasset and claimed that God came to him and told him to kill his daughter, which he did in the presence of his wife. Although his wife begged him not to do it. Charles Freeman still murdered his daughter, because he believed that she would rise from the dead in three days. So basically, he killed her and then kept her in her bed dead waiting for her to come back to life and even had parishioners of this religious group come and see her and none of them thought a crime had been committed, because they all believe the same thing that she was going to come back to life. But Surprise, surprise, she did not. Little Edith Freeman was buried on May 4, and Charles was arrested. On May 6, Charles Freeman gave an interview to the Boston Globe, and this is where he made his predictions about the end of the world. He still felt morally right and what he did that God was going to come and it was going to be the end of the world and he and his family and his religious sect, were going to be saved. He was looking for his vindication. May 21 1879 came and passed. Obviously, the world did not end, Freeman ended up being found not guilty by reason of insanity, and on May 5 1880, he was ordered committed to the Denver State Hospital for the insane. Two years later, Dr. Charles Folsom from the Denver State Hospital wrote that Freeman was led into an overwhelmed and religious excitement. And he also had mild sunstroke, which he believes made it where he would not have been insane if not for his religious sect, the Adventists in May 1883, not too long after Dr. Folsom his findings, the Barnstable district court ordered Freeman brought back from Danvers for trial. It was there he was decided that he was not insane just a religious fanatic. During this trial, the government had its case, while the Adventist group still felt that Freeman had been right in his action of murdering his daughter, Freeman's wife took the stand on her husband's behalf and confessed sympathy for him and his deep religious beliefs, but saying that she never thought for a moment he would ever injure their daughter Edith. The jury again brought back a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, and Charles Freeman was returned to the Danvers hospital. Eventually, he was discharged March 17 1887. And it is believed that Freeman took off and left and went west to escape the stigma of being a child murderer. And this is one of Cape Cod's most famous murders and famous murder trials. And 142 years ago, this week in history, Charles Freeman's big proclamation of the end of the world didn't happen. And that's just one of many, many bricks that built the foundation of this wild story. On a lighter note, 137 years ago this week, May 19 1884, the Ringling Brothers Circus is formed. The brothers Charles Albert Otto, Alfred, and John in 1882, formed a song and dance group called the classic and comic concert company, and they went on the road with that first before they began adding circus acts to their show, and the first small circus show opened on May 19, in their hometown of Baraboo, Wisconsin, and from there they toured the United States Midwest. The progress of growth of the circus was slow until the acquired their first elephant in 1888. Then the circus expanded rapidly. brother Charles was the guiding managerial force behind the circus. And in 1890, the Ringling Brothers first began loading their circus wagons on railway cars, enabling them to take their circus much further away from Wisconsin. The funny thing is by 1900, the Ringling Brothers were actively competing with Barnum and Bailey Circus. And after James A Bailey's death in 1906, they bought Barnum and Bailey Circus, thus becoming the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. In 1929, the company bought the American circus Corporation, and at that point, they had 11 major circuses all under one tent. So they became a major circus conglomerate if that makes sense. And by this time, they were having 10,000 People come to their shows under the main tent. The Ringling Brothers Circus conglomerate remained in the Ringling family until 1967, when it was purchased by the Feld family. But what would become the biggest circus ever in the world? The Circus conglomerate was first formed 137 years ago this week. 121 years ago this week, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book was published. The book was written by L. Frank Baum, but the irony is that the movie The Wizard of Oz in 1939, became one of the most famous movies ever made, and really overshadowed the book once it came out. It's the story of a young girl named Dorothy who lives in a farmhouse in Kansas with her Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, and her dog Toto, and the tornado comes and picks her up and sends her to AWS, where she meets all these wild characters like the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion. Everyone knows this story this movie, after the success of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book bomb would write 13 More Oz books, and the series was even continued by another writer after his death. It was adapted to the stage in Chicago in 1902, and moved to Broadway the following year. The final oz book in the series was Glinda of Oz in 1920. And ironically, the Wizard of Oz movie was the seventh film adaptation of the Oz books, with four of the films actually being produced by Frank Baum himself. The books went on in total to sell more than 3 million copies before falling into public domain in 1956. But 121 years ago, this week, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz made its debut, and let's wrap it up with another new time capsule. We're gonna go back 50 years ago this week, May 22 1971. The number one song was joy to the world by three dog night, the song was actually written by American folk singer and guitarist Hoyt Axton. It was made famous by three dog night and it was on their album naturally, and it was one of three number-one songs by three dog night including mama told me not to come and black and white. The number one movie was sweet, Sweetback's badass song. It was a blaxploitation film starring Melvin van Peebles, father of Mario, it made over $15 million on a budget of $150,000 and currently is 71% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The number one TV show was all in the family, starring Carol O'Connor, Jean stabled and Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers. It's one of the most famous TV shows ever about American bigot Archie Bunker who has become you know, his chair is in the Smithsonian, the show was ranked number one from 1971 to 1976, and ran and total for nine seasons and 205 episodes. And to jump back on a previous this week in history story here. If you wanted to go to the Ringling Brothers Circus, May 22 1971 A ticket for an adult cost $4.50. And for a child was $2.50. And that puts a bow on another time capsule ends another week of this week in history. I hope that you've enjoyed these and I make history tolerable. It's sort of like adding cheese sauce to broccoli. For some of you that don't like history. It just makes it go down easier. But I'll be back next week for another this week in history and another time capsule.
Closing
And that's going to wrap up episode 21 of the podcast. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you so much for all your support through all of the last six-plus months now that I've been doing this, it's wild too, seems like yesterday, I did episode one with Deacon John Doane and Nintendo and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And here we are now rolling into June. I've already plotted out episode 22. It'll be coming next Thursday. So I'm going to be doing a shorter bonus episode 22. And we're going to cover one topic, and it's going to be mental health. It's connected with Chris Cornell, the former singer from Soundgarden, Audioslave, solo work. This was a topic that I actually wanted to cover on this week's podcast, because it was the week of his death by suicide four years ago in 2017. And it's one of those deaths, music deaths, just it's something that stuck with me because in my own life, I've dealt with bouts of depression. I mean, I don't really include this current COVID time because I think everyone's dealing with just the overall garbage that the world has been in the last year or so. So that's going to be the bonus episode, it's going to be good to talk about mental health I always talk about at the end of podcast to take care of yourself and your mental health. So this shorter episode, I'm going to dive deeper into that. That's coming Thursday, next week, and I hope you'll tune in, thank you to everyone that tunes in to the live streams Friday nights at 8pm on Instagram. Don't forget Monday, the 24th 7:30pm iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod book launch live stream. I have only a vague idea how it's going to be but it's gonna be fun regardless, you can preorder the book through Amazon through the history press, unless you hear this after May 24. And you can get it in stores everywhere. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can always send me an email, Christopher setterlund@gmail.com Find me all over social media, Twitter, and Instagram, I've mentioned every week, I just wanted to take a minute to just say how blessed and grateful I am to have such a loving, supportive family that believes in me and believes in my work. I have found that when your family believes in you and thinks that you're doing some good stuff that can really propel you if you're having a crisis of confidence as long as the core of your life believes in you, who cares what anyone else thinks. Go check out my in my footsteps podcast blog. The most recent article I posted up there was about the creation of the causeway to Mashnee island off of bourne, Mashnee used to be an island now it's not an island, I tell a little story there. Plus, I am resurrecting my child of the 80s blog attaching that in there too. So there's always a lot of good stuff. Go over to YouTube and become a subscriber. I've noticed I've gained some subscribers since the podcast. That's great. I appreciate each and every one of you. And with the weather looking good. Now as summer approaches, I'll be out there more to shoot some more 4k New England video to add those up on YouTube. So as I said next week will be a shorter episode using up my remaining minutes because they don't roll over like I said, and in two weeks I'll be back with a full length episode. That'll include a look back at the iconic Mildred’s Chowder House, a road trip to Narragansett Rhode Island. And we go back in the day so I can embarrass myself and talk about my first crushes not by name, but just how stupid I acted. Which I guess never changes even when you get older. Special shout out to anyone listening on lemonade do thank you always to Stephanie Viva for giving me that platform. And thank you to all of you listening near and wide in the United States anywhere outside of the US shoot me an email, let me know where you're from. It's fascinating. And I'm humbled that I've got people listening from off Cape Cod, and like I always say, Take care of yourself your own mental health. That's what's most important. Without your mental health life really sucks. So always take the time to do something that makes you happy every day. And remember, don't ever walk in anyone else's footsteps create your own path in this journey we call life and enjoy every moment because you never know what tomorrow brings. You really don't tune in next week for my bonus episode on mental health. And in two weeks, I'll be back for a full one. Thank you so much. And I'll talk to you again soon.