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It's a year of celebration
for Provincetown and the magic number is
100.
For a
century ago this August, the community began
building the 252-foot tall Pilgrim Monument,
its proclamation that the Mayflower
actually launched the nation here, docking
in Provincetown Harbor on Nov. 21, 1620,
weeks before arriving in Plymouth.
A special Centennial
Celebration is scheduled for Aug. 20, 100
years to the day of the structure’s
cornerstone laying ceremony.
“Everyone
is very excited about it,” said James R.
Bakker, executive director of the Pilgrim
Monument and Provincetown Museum. “In 1907,
President (Theodore) Roosevelt arrived in
his presidential yacht, the Mayflower.
This is not quite as grand, but we do have a
number of state legislators and visitors
coming here specifically for this event.
It’s definitely got people here stirred up
locally, if not nationally.”
The Pilgrim
Monument wasn’t Provincetown’s only major
happening in 1907. That same summer,
Provincetown Capt. Marion Perry brought home
the famous Lipton Cup, when his schooner,
the Rose Dorothea,
won the first Fisherman’s Race during
Boston’s Old Home Week celebration. Perry
had wanted to stay home and fish, but his
wife, the boat’s namesake, insisted he go
win the silver trophy and the $650 prize
offered by Thomas Lipton of the Lipton Tea
empire.
Under the
sail of Capt. John Watson, the Rose
Dorothea
raced with a broken foremast but still
battled to victory, coming in less than a
minute ahead of another Provincetown
schooner, the James Costa.
The Lipton Cup trophy remains in
Provincetown because Lipton never sponsored
another race, despite his initial plans to
make it an annual event.
Once proudly showcased in
Provincetown Town Hall, the Lipton Cup
trophy spent recent years in storage in the
town clerk’s safe. It was unveiled last June
14 in the entrance of the Provincetown
Public Library, with a ceremony
observing the town’s incorporation on
the same day in 1727.
“Everybody stops,” Library
Director Debra DeJonker-Berry said. “It’s
magnificent.”
Most
residents saw the library as the ideal place
for the trophy. The library had just moved
in 2005 to its new home at 356 Commercial
St., the former Provincetown Heritage
Museum. Erected in 1860 as the Center
Methodist Episcopal Church, the building had
undergone some $4 million in interior and
structural repairs around the town’s other
tribute to the 1907 boat race win: the
66-foot half-size Rose Dorothea
replica on the second floor.
“There’s a lot in this
building,” DeJonker-Berry said. “It’s
unbelievable, more than a library. The
library is here, too.”
The
Rose Dorothea
replica has been the building’s focal point
since 1977, when local boater Francis
“Flyer” Santos led a small team of
volunteers and built it for the Heritage
Museum.
While Aug. 1 marks the 100th
anniversary of the Lipton Cup win,
DeJonker-Berry said the library will honor
the event again on the town’s birthday June
14.
Ceremony attendees will find
the library’s exterior and landscaping work
continues, with the schedule dependant on
available funding, but one major component
will be nearly complete, DeJonker-Berry
said. Badly damaged in the 1898 Portland
Gale, the building’s belfry was removed
several years ago and has been undergoing
repairs on the library’s front lawn over the
past few months. Campbell Construction of
Beverly, Mass. is expected to re-attach it
to the library’s roof by the end of June,
DeJonker-Berry said.
The timeline puts the belfry
in place by Aug. 20, when the town
celebrates the centennial anniversary of the
start of the Pilgrim Monument’s
construction. The vision of the Cape Cod
Pilgrim Memorial Association, the $90,000
monument was finished in 1910 and sits atop
High Pole Hill Road with the Provincetown
Museum at its base. From the top of the
monument, visitors can take in views of the
town’s beaches from all sides, the Town Hall
and Provincetown High School, home of the
Fishermen sports teams.
Festivities will begin with a
parade starting at MacMillan Pier and ending
at the monument. Guests can tour the
museum’s “Centennial Treasures,” exhibit and
stamp collectors can send letters with a
postal stamp cancellation commemorating the
day, Bakker said.
The museum is also asking
visitors to sign a petition seeking approval
for a special monument postal stamp.
“We’re hoping to have a stamp by 2010,” Bakker said.
The Pilgrim Monument and
Pilgrim Museum is open daily now through
Oct. 31, 2007. Admission is $7 for adults.
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