8 N= 0 Sige 
SS HO Stone ta 
@ OOS OOOSOOOOOESS 0000004 20600008 
00002000 Coos DEDCCCCS 
Old Ocean not only gives to the 
Gloucester master mariners and their 
erews the wherewithal to keep life’s 
lamp filled and burning but the up- 
right figures of their trim and 
staunch craft. 
The pebble beaches of Cape Ann 
have been, and are, the sources for 
ballast for the Gloucester fishing ves- 
sels. The foreign salt ships from 
Trapani, Italy or Cadiz, Spain, which 
unload in the harbor must have this 
essential equipment as well as the 
fishing craft setting sail for the fish- 
ing banks, whether it be Georges, 
Quero, LaHave, Brown, Cashes or 
Bay of Islands, N. F. 
The older folk of Gloucester re- 
member well the primitive meth- 
ods of procuring ballast. In their 
youth it meant the privilege of a 
ride on an ox-cart from the farm to 
the beach, or in later years the un- 
speakable joy of driving a horse at- 
tached to a dump eart from the farm 
to the beach, then a walk back over 
the same distance and farther to the 
wharves for the privilege of driving 
back for the next load. 
It was money well earned to bal- 
last a eraft in those days, but old 
Neptune rolled up snug fortunes for 
the ballast operator of the olden 
days when Gloucester was in her zen- 
ith as a fishing port. 
This branch of the industry then 
meant hours of weary shovelling and 
loading, weary hours of walking and 
jolting over hill paths and beaches, 
crossing creeks, travelling over 
rough country and seashore roads in 
all their wild and natural beauty 
satisfying to the full the aesthetic 
tastes of many who in those days 
followed that occupation. 
Those localities were then un- 
touched by the hand of progress or 
by, the sudden discovery of their 
charms by the migrating ‘‘summer 
boarder,’’ who has come and chang- 
ed radically these localities through 
their demands for modern roads, 
ocean boulevards, big hotels, cot- 
BREEZE 
OO0O6OO6 000000008088 0O88 CO008808 ptt I OOOO OOOO SOOSOOOS OOOOH OOS OOOO OOOS OO88OO8S OOOOOHOSSOOOOOOS OOSSHOOS OOOOH OSS OHOOHOOS OOOOOOOS O0008000S00SOOSS 00000006 00800008 00000008 
zjodern and Primitive Methods of Ballast- 
ing the Gloucester Fleet 
Grapevine Cove & Cape Hedge Scenes of this Essential Occupation 
By MARY TAYLOR FALT 
tages, golf links, trolley cars and the 
like. 
Today like all else, ballast must be 
handled with much despatch. Ri- 
valry of skippers and firms to the 
extent of racing for fur coats or 
the appellation of high liner de- 
mands that with ‘‘fitting out’’ or 
‘‘shifting of voyages’’ things must 
be done with celerity. 
An order for ballast must be filled 
with promptness for there is al. 
ways something doing on the Glou- 
cester water front with the ‘‘high 
liners’’ in the running, which to the 
Gloucester captain’s thinking is a 
reputation worth gaining. Indeed 
it is no dump eart era! 
The steam lighter dominates to- 
day, the steam engine, the track and 
the ballast car are all pre-eminent. 
With their advent has disappeared 
another picturesque feature of Glou- 
cester. Old Ocean alone is left and 
unfailingly does its duty rolling and 
piling from its depths its seemingly 
inexhaustible store of smooth, round, 
grey pebbles or ‘‘popples’’ as the 
name has come down in Gloucester 
folk lore. In fact one ballast beach 
still retains its traditional name 
‘‘High Popples’’ or Pebbles. This is 
at Grapevine Cove, the former Patch 
estate property, now the property of 
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph O- Procter of 
Gloucester, who purchased it during 
the past year. This pebble beach 
was where the late Isaac Patch con- 
ducted his ballast operation which 
aided in the establishment of the 
Patch fortune. 
Facing ‘‘High Popple’’ Beach to- 
day are costly summer homes, above 
it a finely laid out ocean boulevard 
drive and in the hill country be- 
yond, where trundled the dump and 
ox-carts of yore, stately mansions, 
summer cottages, big hotels and pic- 
turesque golf links. 
The pebble beach at Cape Hedge: 
Rockport, lying between Lands End 
and Long Beach, is in the midst of 
two thriving summer colonies. 
Today on one of its rocky promon- 
POSSHOOSS OCOSSLOSSS SESSOEES OOOSOOS 
tories is erected a building with a 
capacity of 100 tons and below it a 
wharf. From the top of the build- 
ing’s roof to the beach is constucted 
a trestle upon which is a track. Over 
this track propelled by a steam en- 
gine are run cars with a capacity of 
214 tons. A man stationed on the 
roof of the building meets the ear 
and empties its contents into the 
scuttle of the building which is kept 
filled for constant use. 
The steam lighters come around 
to Cape Hedge from Gloucester 
threading their way to the rocky 
coast, a run of an hour and a half 
in fine weather. They tie up to the 
wharf, then the numerous shoots of 
the building are opened and the peb- 
bles thunder down into huge boxes 
on the lighter’s deck. These boxes 
are specially made to hold ballast. 
The lighters, when their cargo is 
completed, steam back to Gloucester 
and the ballast lightered into the ves- 
sel’s holds as demanded. 
It is not all clear sailing with the 
modern ballast handler. Much de- 
pends upon whether conditions as 
the approach is so dangerous. It is 
the locality of many a wrecked craft 
in the past. 
It does not seem possible that men 
would consent to shovel ballast in 
dreary, cold winter weather, nor 
traverse two iceclogged, wind-swept 
beaches and fight snow banks, yet it 
‘is done at Cape Hedge in winter 
when there is an urgent demand for 
ballast. Usually the Gloucester docks 
of ballast dealers are kept well 
stocked for all emergencies. 
Robert Reece left a few days ago 
for an extensive canoeing trip into 
the northern part of New Hamp- 
shire. He planned to go by train 
to Wells River and start from. there 
with a guide for a canoe trip up the 
Connecticut to Connecticut Lake. 
This takes him through an unin- 
habited part of New Hampshire, 
but through a delightful country, 
abounding in game. He _ will be 
away several weeks, 
