From Finland to Folly Cove, 1903

A one-per-decade series of glimpses, 1860-1960

The Seppala family of Cape Ann raised twelve children on the one-acre Sunnyside Farm at Folly Cove. Father had come over from Finland first; then Mother and their two youngsters, one of whom, Hilma, wrote down her recollections years later as a married woman. Family photos are contributed by Zenas and Merry Seppala, and Sandra Seppala Jamieson. Additional photos from the Hale/Clements  legacy of the Sandy Bay Historical Association.

Hilma Seppala Sauter's Story

In the summer of 1902 my father Samuel Seppala came to Folly Cove to visit his sister Ulriika, wife of Matti Williams, intending to stay for only a short time. He left my mother Alexandra, my brother Heino and me with a housekeeper at his five-room home in Teuva, Finland.  He also left his saw mill and grist mill business in the care of his partner.



Alexandra's parents Herman and Maria Varsamaki

Matti Williams had arrived on foot from Boston twenty years earlier to take a job in the quarries. When Company officials couldn't understand his Finnish name Maenpaa they called him Williams, after his father's first name. Matti became one of the first Finnish home owners of that period.  He eventually operated a dairy and sauna business on his one-acre site at the head of Folly Cove.
 
Father  slept in an attic bedroom with seven other men during his stay. Opposite in another large room lived a couple with five children.  There were as many as forty children on the property at one time!  Practically all the men worked for the Rockport Granite Company. 

As Father’s visit to Folly Cove continued, more and more he wanted to stay in this country.  Mother  was anxious to join him. On July 2, 1903 at age twenty-two, with Heino and me she left the Seppala home for Kristiina, a seaport on the west coast of Finland.  Her own mother was driving the horse-drawn wagon. She must have had a heavy heart seeing her loved ones leave for a strange land, perhaps never to see them again.

Ellis Island immigrants
National Park Service photo

We arrived in Hull, England after five days at sea and crossed to Liverpool by train. There we were put on the steamship "Campania" for New York though our booking was for the "Lucania" to Boston. After nine days we  landed at Ellis Island. We boarded a train to Boston, transferred to North Station, and continued to either Gloucester or Rockport where we found the electric street car to Folly Cove. Father was waiting to greet us. I wish I had been older to experience the happiness of their reunion!

Postcard courtesy of Elana Pistenmaa Brink

It is amazing now to think that mother, who did not know a word of English, could make such a trip with two young children and arrive safely at her destination of 1236 Washington Street, Folly Cove, Gloucester, Massachusetts, U. S. A. One can only say it speaks well for the know-how of the authorities involved in that great immigration era in our nation's history.

After Mother's arrival at Folly Cove with its humming activity, she was at first overwhelmed by it all. However, after a quiet period (and a good cry) one day by herself sitting on the rocks at Folly Cove beach at the foot of the Williams' land, she looked at the beautiful nature around her, the ocean, the sky, the cliffs of Folly Point, and realizing the soothing beauty all around her she suddenly said to herself "This is it." And she never cried again!

Samuel and Alexandra Seppala, 1927
Hilma (back row, center) was born in Finland,
the others at home in Folly Cove

She made many new friends and entered into the busy life of the immigrant settlement. Coffee pots were always brewing, and everyone helped one another with a mutual understanding of each other's problems.

Folly Cove c. 1925
W. D. Hoyt Sr. photo

There were so many Finnish children to play with that most of us older children knew no English (myself included) when we entered school. When I, many years later, asked my first grade teacher how she ever coped with so many of us, she said, "I knew you all came from good families, and you learned fast."

Seppala horse team moving stones from beach

Father worked in the quarries up to 1919, when he bought the Williams property from Ulriika, after her husband's death. He gradually went from stone work into a dairy and sauna business as did Matti Williams before him. As time went on the nineteen-room house was occupied more and more by the Seppalas, with eleven children in the family, and became even more of a Seppala homestead when Mother had the other fourteen room house demolished in 1945. After father's death in 1943, the dairy business was sold to Dr. Babson Farm in Riverdale.

Samuel Seppala and son driving cows to pasture,
Gloucester/Rockport Town Line

Postscript
Sandra Seppala Jamieson
2014 interview

My father Lauri grew up at Sunnyside Farm, delivering milk before school. They used to take the cows to graze in the adjacent meadow owned by the Taylors across a little bridge over the brook that flows into the Cove.  They cut hay in the big fields out on Folly Point. Eventually they had to add a milk room to the barn when pasteurization became required.

Lauri Seppala 1923

 Finnish was the primary language at home. The house was heated by stoves in the kitchen and parlor. There were chamber pots in the house and an eight-holer outhouse over the brook that ran down to the Cove. Pastor Ronka, the Finnish minister, was a tenant in the early days.

Uno Seppala, Richard Seppala, Marjorie Wheeler, Martha Koski,
Vera Seppala, Hilda Ross, c. 1933

After Grandfather died Grandmother - Mummu - stayed on. My father was in the Coast Guard. My unmarried uncles still lived there like a tenement house, working at the Tool Company. Mummu ran a sauna every Saturday. George Demetrios and others patronized it. There would be great philosophical discussions in this run-down little building in Folly Cove.

Alexandra at Vera's wedding August 24, 1947

Everyone went to visit Mummu on Sundays. Soon after this photo was taken health problems necessitated a leg amputation. She carried on at home for many years with the help of Hilma and Henry. Eventually she lost a second leg. She went into Den Mar Nursing Home in 1966 and passed away very quickly.

"I'll be darned" - Folly Cove, June 15, 1893

A one-per-decade series of glimpses, 1860-1960

After dragging their dories on log rollers up past the high tide line, stowing their gear and checking tomorrow's bait, three Folly Cove fishermen enjoy a fraternal smoke before dinner.*

TW  Theosophilis Woodbury

HP  Howard Poland

HB  Howard Bates

Folly Cove fish houses¹

TW  "Both of you fellows being Howards is the most aggravating thing I can think of. Howard Bates and Howard Poland in one small cove next to one big ocean. Now admittedly there's about a dozen of us Woodburys fishing around here but at least we give each other middle names."
 

HP  "Don't think I ever heard yours, Theosophilis." 

TW  "Don't think I need one. What about you, Howard Bates?"

 

HB  "Don't think I have one."



Howard Bates, Folly Cove²

 HP  "There's a story in here about that Clam Boil last night. It's the first time I ever saw Lanesville on the front page of the Gloucester Daily Times."

TW  "That's 'cause half of Gloucester was in the Rink for free clams and fixings, and giving speeches about linking Lanesville to the rest of world with the electric railway. Must be an election year."

HB  "Everybody was watching to see whether that new bridge at Bay View would hold up when the train cars went over it on the maiden run with all the civic people on board. Guess it did. And the Plum Cove trestle held up, too."

HP  "They're talking about bringing the railway right through here from Rockport. All the way around the Cape."
 

Electric street car, Rockport³

TW  "I'll be darned. I don't understand how they get power through wires to operate those things."
 

HP  "I can't figure it either, but those trolleys scare the hell out of the horses. I rode the trolley once. It knocked the wheel right off a milk wagon over in Riverdale."
 

HB  "That fellow shouldn't of left his wagon parked on the tracks."  
 

HP  "That kind of thing didn't happen in the horse-drawn days."
 

Horse-drawn trolley, Riverdale⁴

HB  "Sidney Harvey says it's going to be the end of his stage coach line.”

Stage coach 'Annisquam'⁵

HP  "I don't know. He might make out all right. I hear he's after the contract for a Lanesville lockup. Wants to have it built right into his stables down at Lane's Cove. Look at this here in the paper. It is reported that Lanesville is to have a lockup--and that the project depends on the granting of licenses for the sale of liquor. Lockup and Liquor. The more liquor the more need of a lockup."
 

TW  "I'll be darned. The next thing you know they'll be wanting to give Officer Walker a telephone."
 

Lane's Cove, fish shacks and stone boats⁶

HB  "Maybe he could use a telephone to direct traffic down at the Cove. You have to squeeze around the granite boats and Harvey's coal operations to get in there. And once you do you have to listen to Jacob Gronblad getting his picture taken."

Jacob Gronblad and cod, Lane's Cove⁷

TW  "Jacob brought that picture up to the sauna last week. It's like that Mark Twain fellow says, pictures of dead fish start to smell after three days."

HP  "Well, sometimes we've got to dodge in to Lane's Cove before the nor'easters make splinters out of us here in Folly. It's crazy not to run down there when the weather comes up." 

TW  "George Woodbury had it right. He went berrying."

Dip net and dories, Folly Cove⁸

HP  "Paper says Nellie Bly arrived at New York from her trip 'round the world."  

TW  "That was three years ago that she went 'round the world in 80 days. You must be looking at one of the old issues. I bet I've baited trawls enough to go 'round the world." 

HP  "I'm going to name my dory Nellie Bly.

HB  "Here comes Ezra. He says lobsters are bringing eleven cents a pound. They're packing 'em  in barrels and shipping 'em live to Boston."

 

Ezra Harraden⁹

TW  "I'll be darned. I don't suppose you're going to be shipping lobsters to town on that railway."

HB  "That's about as likely as flying 'em.”

__________________________

*  These citizens of Folly Cove did experience these events, although exactly what they thought and said about them I have taken liberty to imagine. The accounts stem from reports of the time, listed below. Special thanks to the Gloucester Archives Committee; Mary Ray and Sarah Dunlap, Gloucester Massachusetts Historical Time-Line 1000-1999;  and Paul Harling for his unpublished monograph on Cape Ann Trolleys.

Minutes of the Board of Aldermen

City Documents, Gloucester, 1893

Newspapers

Cape Ann Advertiser

Cape Ann Evening Breeze

Gloucester Daily Times

Photographs

1  NOAA, "Historical Ecology Slideshow"

2  Sandy Bay Historical Society

3  Paul Harling

4 , 5, 8  Cape Ann Museum

6, 7, 9  "Old Lanesville,” Lanesville Community Center

Lanesville, July 4, 1888

A one-per-decade series of glimpses, 1860-1960

On the western flank of Halibut Point, Lanesville makes up the northernmost portion of Gloucester. While the national frontier moved west, Lanesville's nineteenth-century frontier moved down into the earth. Granite ledges close to shoreline coves could be exploited for shipping stone products to a growing America.

Moving quarried granite by ox cart¹

Large numbers of immigrant workers especially from northern Italy and Scandinavia began flooding into the village in the 1880s. Some of them arrived with skills in stone cutting or carving. Most of the newcomers just came looking for a better life, initially at low wages. It was grueling and dangerous work.

The Statue of Liberty had been dedicated in New York two years earlier but Emma Lazarus's poem of welcome to the world's "huddled masses yearning to be free" would not be affixed to Lady Liberty until 1903.

Woodbury Hill paving cutters
John Hill, Salman Hautamaki, Nestor Niemi,
Matt Ray, John Mylly, Mike Aho

As the great national holiday rolled around in 1888, villagers planned a Fourth of July Parade. Ethnic tensions colored the marchers' themes with biting humor. The Gloucester Daily Times, founded only a month earlier, reported on the parade in delicious detail, as you will see reprinted below.

The Parade originated in Lanesville, marched to Annisquam, back to Folly Cove, then returned to the village. Along the route you would have encountered people and scenes like these.

Annie Farson and Baby Helen Cheves

Granite train crossing Washington Street
Hodgkins Cove, Bay View

William R. Cheves in carriage

Helen and Robert Cheves, with Sprague's dog



Bay View Fire Station steamer



Boys on Norseman Avenue

Butman's Pit, Washington Street
Congregational Church in the distance



Dr. Saunders and family
1103 Washington Street

Photo credits

1 - The Rodgers Collection, in "Pictures from the Past, Volume 1," Lanesville Community Center, 2009.

All other photographs are from Cape Ann Museum collections.

Further reading

Barbara Erkkila, Hammers on Stone, 1980, and Village at Lane's Cove, 1989

Martin Ray, "Immigration in the Growth of Gloucester," 1977 (Sawyer Free Library)

Antiques and Horribles

The Gloucester Daily Times, July 5, 1888  

As usual, the racket attending the celebration of the 4th commenced at midnight. Early in the morning the Antiques and Horribles began to gather in the vicinity of the Catholic church. The procession started at half-past 4 o'clock, marching to Annisquam, countermarching to Folly Cove and returned to Lanesville and disbanded.

        The procession was headed by Chief Marshal N. F. Cook and his aides. Then came the chief of police with a squad of policemen in costume, each one wearing a badge as large as a stove cover. The Mozart Band of Rockport furnished the music. The first team was a wagon with four occupants representing old women, with the motto, "City Appropriation for the 4th in Wards 6 and 7, $000000." Just as the team started the horse balked and the wagon was upset and the old women were thrown out, and the procession moved on. In the procession we noticed the following turnout--

        A large wagon filled with boys tastily dressed with the motto, "The Future Defenders of our Country." A young lady dressed in white represented "The Goddess of Liberty."

        One team with several youngsters, motto "Battery B" and "Dynamite Gun."

        A carpenter and his wife in a two-wheel chaise, motto, "Carpenters wanted. Finns need not apply."

        Four men on a paving team, mottos, "The Height of our Ambition, Cheap Labor, Finns and Napes $1.50 per bbl. A Cordial Welcome is extended to the Heathen Chinese." "Americans and Irishmen Must Go, we have no Use for Them." "You Must Work Smart, we Cannot Afford to Pay You Much." "Plenty of Men, no Work in the Market." "Last Year Dividend very Small." " We Will Take a few Green Paving Cutters."

        A "box" of Finns marked "Cape Ann," motto "Here we are, now for the Granite Quarries." "Wanted 10,000 Foreign Quarrymen, no Yankees need Apply. None but Finlanders are wanted." "Tallow and fish cheap at the stores."

        Two men rode in an open buggy with a banner representing a poorly fed horse, with the motto "Selling off at Cost."

        An old carryall with four men, motto "The Head of our Country."

        A paving team, with an old man with a load of children, motto "Frozen out, we cannot digest tallow and stale fish on 80 cents a day. Rats, Rats."

        An ancient couple in an old carriage covered with mosquito netting, motto "No Flies on Us."

        A large wagon filled with masked young ladies, motto, "Tremont Temple Convention, For President Belva Lockwood of Cal., Vice President Lucy Stone of Mass."

        A tally-ho coach filled with masked young gents, mottos "Blubber Hollow and 'Squam Flats." A box on the rack marked "1-2 gross Finlanders for Peavy's Granite Quarries and Bay State Works."

        A team with a man and blacksmith bellows, motto, "The Fraud Blacksmith." "Bush Hammers."

        An old dilapidated chaise with musician playing the violin, motto, "Bay View is Good Enough for Me to Play in." This get up was awarded the first prize.

        An old wagon with three riders, motto, "This Day has 'cooked' poor Chief Cook."

        A large wagon carried a load of Italians with musical instruments of various kinds, motto, "imported band."

         A chemical engine was represented by several youngsters, and was a good get up, the lettering being "Ward 7 Left," "No Free Show from Gloucester, but we Pay for it all the Same." A nursing bottle filled with milk with the words, "Suggestion to the Committee on Fire Department," "This is the proposed Chemical for Lanesville, Come Down Insurance, Go Up Gloucester Fire Department." "Lanesville," "We like Pork, but dam a Hog," "Ward 7 gets there just the same."

        A large wagon represented a milk farm, an old pump being in use throwing water. There were several mottos, one being, "Condensed milk is not good for Children."

        A large wagon was filled with musicians with brass instruments, the piece representing the bass drum, being lettered "Bay View Brass Band;" a drummer from New York played the kettledrum. The following motto was displayed, "Lanesville for Money, Gloucester for Glory, Annisquam for Thanks."

        A fellow on horseback burlesqued the Chief Marshal, and rode up and down the line offering his orders in a pompous manner. There was also an Indian Chief on horseback.

        A man in fancy costume followed in the rear with a wheelbarrow handsomely decorated with flowers representing a large wreath, and in the center was seated a pretty little girl neatly dressed.

        In the evening there was a large gathering near the Lanesville engine house to hear the concert given by the Bay View Band. The selections were well performed and reflected much credit to the band and their leader Wm. M. Williams.

        The picnics at Mount Locust and at Langsford's grove were well patronized, and the day passed off without any serious accident. There was good order and but very little drunkenness.

            Two Continentals appeared on horseback, and were awarded the second prize. 

 

The Avenues, 1878

A one-per-decade series of glimpses, 1860-1960



Pigeon Cove House, 1870s

From a Rogers stereograph, CAM*

"You've enjoyed another successful season, Mrs. Robinson. The Pigeon Cove House seems to have been well patronized as usual." 

"Yes, Mr. Babson, thanks in no small part to your Ocean View improvements. You and Mr. Phillips have made the Avenues so much more pleasant over the last ten years. Our guests enjoy outings along the coast to Andrews Point and beyond. I believe your brochure mentions constructing two miles of new roads in the neighborhood."

"Departures, Pigeon Cove House"

From a Moulton stereograph, CAM

"That's right. The lots are selling quite well. I see you have one of our original maps on the wall."

Ocean View subdivision, c. late 1860s

Archives of Rockport Town Clerk

"We've come a long way since those days. If you look closely at the map you can see where the Pigeon Cove House was located on what was still called Main Street back then. We moved the building around the corner to the shoreline just seven years ago, right on the bend of your Phillips Avenue. Our side street Cathedral Avenue is named for the coastal cliff formations. Did you know that?"

Detail of Ocean View map

"I sure did. Take a look at these new stereographs we're producing. You see this shows the intersection at Babson and Ocean Avenues just three blocks from here. We've made the roads fifty feet wide."

"Intersection of Babson and Ocean Avenues"

Phillips & Babson stereograph, CAM

"Very nice. Have you seen Mr. Moulton's new stereographs? He gave me this lovely print from one of them, entitled 'Cathedral Rocks.'  You can see how popular that spot is. Your nearby wharf and boat landing made it so much more convenient."

"Cathedral Rocks"

From a Moulton stereograph, CAM

"If all goes well we may be able to deepen the channel to allow the approach of large steamers from the city, to bring excursionists directly to the Avenue premises."

"You certainly are forward-thinking."

"It is proprietors such as yourself, Mrs. Robinson, that make our area comfortable and attractive."

 

"Parlor of the Pigeon Cove House"

From Erkkila Collection stereograph, CAM

"We prosper together, Mr. Babson. Perhaps our greatest debt is to Mr. Phillips."
 

"Undoubtedly. He witnessed how the coming of the railroads to Swampscott transformed his home town. He foresaw the value of coastal property up here once the railroad was extended to Rockport. When the line reaches Pigeon Cove we'll be able to commute door-to-door to Boston in a bit over an hour."
 

"I should think you'd have quite an obstacle with the granite companies."
 

"Mr. Phillips has achieved remarkable things in his day. A man of very few words until he's made up his mind. As you've noticed with his schooner 'Fearless,' he never loses a race."
 

"Yes, I remember the scuttlebutt after he bested the heavyweight yachtsmen off the Isle of Shoals a few years ago. They couldn't understand whether it was the way he modified his boat, or his seamanship, or both. And he always wins first prize in the Boston regattas."
 

"Well, he comes from a fishing family. Then he got into business supplying fish oil to tanneries around Lynn, and dealing in medicinal cod livers. Let me tell you an illustrative story. Back about 1850 an elderly lady by the name of Bartlett, from Blue Hill Maine, came into his Boston store with a sample of oil she had skimmed from a kettle while boiling menhaden to make chicken meal. Those menhaden are very oily and abundant all summer around Blue Hill. He offered her $11 a barrel for all she could produce. Her husband and sons made 13 barrels that first summer and 100 the next. Mr. Phillips has since built factories to do the processing. Now he's known internationally as 'The Oil King.'"
 

"A man of vision."

"Yes. An original thinker. Remember the excursion train he arranged to promote Ocean View? Half-price fare, leave Boston at 8:15, carriages to meet the train and get folks here by 10:00, free chowder collation at the Big Tent at 1:00. We had 300 people come and sold 30 lots on the spot." 

"Yes, some of the inquirers stayed overnight here at the Pigeon Cove House with considerable excitement.  You know, I've been wondering about the Penobscot Indians encamped this summer on the Avenue, trading baskets. Is that one of his promotional ideas?" 

"Let's just say that they're from Old Town, Maine, which is not so far from Blue Hill." 

"What else is he thinking about, if you don't mind my asking?" 

"One of these days you may be seeing a hot air balloon overhead. We need an up-to-date picture of Ocean View. An aerial perspective would really interest people." 

Pigeon Cove, 1886

Ocean View makes up the lower right quadrant.

Halibut Point is the lower right peninsula.

George Walker lithograph

___________________________________________________________

Sources:

• * CAM Cape Ann Museum stereographs, Fred and Stephanie Buck, archivists
• Sandy Bay Historical Society; special thanks to Leslie Bartlett, who pointed the way to Eben Phillips
• "Pigeon Cove" lithograph from The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library
• The Town on Sandy Bay, Marshall Swan
• "Eben Phillips," in History of Essex County, Duane H. Hurd, 1888
• Swampscott: Historical Sketches of the Town, Waldo Thompson, 1885
• Gleanings from the Sea: Showing the Pleasure, Pains, and Penalties of Life Afloat with Contingencies, Joseph Warren Smith, 1887
• "Statement of Eben Phillips, January 21 1874" in Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1877
• Cape Ann Advertiser, May 7, 1869; May 22 and 29, 1874; July 23 and Oct 22, 1878; January 23   and July 15 1879
• Gloucester Daily Times, September 1, 1891