12 iti 100 V'EARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 



a few tourists and summer visitors had arrived yet by 1888. It was not until 

 after the pungent guano works closed and was torn down after 1889 that 

 Woods Hole really began to attract a significant population of tourists and 

 otliers seeking refuge ft-om the cities in seaside resorts. 



In those days, one generally arrived by the train that first chugged into 

 Woods Hole in 1872, though by mid-century one could have arrived after a 

 pleasant overnight trip from New York by paddle-wheel steamer. Isabel 

 Morgan Mountain, daughter of Columbia biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan, 

 recalls that the family set out from New York for the summer in Woods Hole 

 in great style. They took baskets of plants to grow in their Woods Hole 

 garden, perhaps some mice to study, their English Setter, a pair of love birds, 

 and the usual assortment of baggage and children. By train, whether the 

 more local or the fancier "Dude" train, the trip took a little more than two 

 hours from Boston, straight into Woods Hole along a track that brushes right 

 up against the sand dunes and overlooks the water in a few places. When 

 autos first bumped their way down the Cape, the trip was considerably 

 longer; now it takes maybe one and a half hours, except on a Friday or 

 Sunday in the summer tourist season. Now that the train is gone, bicycles, 

 baby buggies, and pedestrians frequent the paved pathway where the tracks 

 once lay. 



Taking the train to Woods Hole made an impression on many new- 

 comers, for there they often met other scientists and their families on their 

 way to tlie summer haven. Second MBL director Frank Rattray Lillie 

 reminisced in his unpublished autobiography that it was during the train trip 

 that he first learned what the MBL was really about. Lillie had signed up to 

 work as a graduate stvident at Clark University under Whitman. Whitman 

 had suggested that he get himself to Woods Hole for the summer to begin 

 work. As Lillie made his way from his home in Toronto to Woods Hole, he 

 learned from fellow passengers that he would be expected to enter into the 

 cell lineage research of the day. This work was dedicated to tracing, in a 

 variety of organisms, what happens to each cell as it undergoes a series of 

 divisions. The only real choice for a student the others explained to Lillie, 

 was which "beast" he would choose to study, and not which questions he 

 would ask or which techniques he would employ. Those were set. For tlie 

 sort of comparative enterprise tliat Whitmiin wanted, everyone had to 

 standai^dize as many factors as possible. 



By the time Lillie arrived in 1892, the MBL community all found housing 

 in local boarding houses. The very first year, however, no one had made any 

 housing arrangements for the students, and tlie choices were slim. Nor was 

 there anywhere obvious to eat. In fact, when investigator Cornelia Clapp 

 first arrived tlierc really was no MBL. The carpenters were still working 

 frantically on the one building and the director had not yet arrived. Even- 

 tually, the small group of students and instructors made arrangements for 



