Writing and publication
Having spent considerable time on the Cape after completing a magazine assignment called "The Wardens of Cape Cod", about the Coast Guard officers of the Outer Cape, Beston drew up floor plans for a house on the dunes two miles south of the Nauset Coast Guard station in Eastham, Massachusetts. Carpenter Harvey Moore and his crew were the builders.
Beston intended to use the cottage as a retreat to visit whenever he could, but soon found he did not want to leave. "[A]s the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go," he wrote in The Outermost House. [1]
For the next couple of years, Beston would come and go from his dune refuge, keeping extensive notes on his observations of life on the beach. His meditation on surf ("The Headlong Wave"), experiences on the winter beach, and his view of life after his beach stay were molded together into one "Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod."
His observation, "We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals," [2] is frequently quoted by wildlife and animal enthusiasts everywhere. [3]
Beston finally left the "Fo'castle" in September 1927. He returned to his native hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts, and proposed marriage to writer Elizabeth Coatsworth. The couple had a long courtship period, but when Coatsworth saw that he had many notes but no manuscript from his stay on the beach, she said, "No book, no marriage." [4] The manuscript was completed by April 1928, and The Outermost House was published in October 1928. Beston and Coatsworth were married in June 1929 and honeymooned at the Fo'castle for two weeks, but the couple seldom returned to the beach cottage after that.
Later events
A winter storm in 1933 nearly claimed the Fo'castle, and the house had to be moved back on the dune. In 1944, the dune that the house sat on began to hollow out, forcing another move. After replacing the original fireplace with a wood stove and making a few other changes, Beston had the house moved back behind the dune, next to Nauset Marsh. The house remained there until February 1978, when the storm known as "The Blizzard of '78" sent high tides over the barrier beach and swept the Fo'castle away. The original locations of the house have since been covered by the waves of the Atlantic.
Beston donated the Fo'castle to the Massachusetts Audubon Society in 1959, shortly before the establishment of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Massachusetts Audubon rented out Beston's house to its members, as Beston had requested that it be used as "a refuge and observation station for all good naturalists." One of those members was a woman named Nan Turner Waldron (1922-2000), who stayed in the house for parts of 17 years. Waldron went on to document her experiences in the book Journey to Outermost House.
In 1964, less than four years before Beston's death, Massachusetts First Lady Toni Peabody and Ivan Sandrof of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette put together a special dedication ceremony at Coast Guard Beach, where the "Fo'castle" was dedicated as a National Literary Landmark. Hundreds were on hand to watch Beston, now in ill health, receive recognition for his work. "Your book is one of the reasons that the Cape Cod National Seashore exists today," Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody declared. It was also revealed during this ceremony that the National Park Service (part of the U.S. Department of the Interior) referred to The Outermost House on several occasions in its reports that were filed when making its evaluation of the Outer Cape land for National Park status in the 1950s.
Today, there are still "Outermost House" types of structures on the Outer Beach, where occupants live in the same fashion that Beston did in the 1920s. Although Beston's original house was claimed by the elements, the Henry Beston Society of Cape Cod has begun a campaign to rebuild the house and is now seeking a suitable location for the new "Fo'castle."
Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The name Cape Cod, coined in 1602 by Bartholomew Gosnold, is the ninth oldest English place-name in the U.S.
The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS) encompasses 43,607 acres on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. CCNS was created on August 7, 1961, by President John F. Kennedy, when he signed a bill enacting the legislation he first co-sponsored as a Senator a few years prior. It includes ponds, woods and beachfront of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion. The CCNS includes nearly 40 miles (64 km) of seashore along the Atlantic-facing eastern shore of Cape Cod, in the towns of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham. It is administered by the National Park Service.
Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Provincetown has a summer population as high as 60,000. Often called "P-town" or "Ptown", the locale is known as a vacation destination for its beaches, harbor, artists and tourist industry.
Eastham is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, Barnstable County being coextensive with Cape Cod. The population was 5,752 at the 2020 census.
Truro is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, comprising two villages: Truro and North Truro. Located slightly more than 100 miles (160 km) by road from Boston, it is a summer vacation community just south of the northern tip of Cape Cod, in an area known as the "Outer Cape". English colonists named it after Truro in Cornwall, United Kingdom.
The Nauset people, sometimes referred to as the Cape Cod Indians, were a Native American tribe who lived in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They lived east of Bass River and lands occupied by their closely related neighbors, the Wampanoag.
Henry Beston was an American writer and naturalist, best known as the author of The Outermost House, written in 1928.
Nauset Light, officially Nauset Beach Light, is a restored lighthouse on the Cape Cod National Seashore near Eastham, Massachusetts, erected in 1923 using the 1877 tower that was moved here from the Chatham Light. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The tower is a cast-iron plate shell lined with brick and stands 48 feet (15 m) high. The adjacent oil house is made of brick and has also been restored. Fully automated, the beacon is a private aid to navigation. Tours of the tower and oil house are available in summer from the Nauset Light Preservation Society which operates, maintains and interprets the site. The tower is located adjacent to Nauset Light Beach.
The Cape Cod Rail Trail (CCRT) is a 25.5-mile (41.0 km) paved rail trail located on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The trail route passes through the towns of Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet. It connects to the 6-plus mile (10 km) Old Colony Rail Trail leading to Chatham, the 2 mile Yarmouth multi-use trail, and 8 miles (13 km) of trails within Nickerson State Park. Short side trips on roads lead to national seashore beaches including Coast Guard Beach at the end of the Nauset Bike Trail in Cape Cod National Seashore. The trail is part of the Claire Saltonstall Bikeway.
Race Point Light is a historic lighthouse on Cape Cod, in Provincetown, Massachusetts; it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The original tower, first illuminated in 1816, was replaced in 1876 with the current 45-foot tall iron-plated tower and a new keeper's dwelling. The American Lighthouse Foundation operates the property and rents out two buildings for overnight stays. The actual light is maintained by the Coast Guard. The site is reached by walking about 45 minutes over sand; with a National Park Service Oversand Permit, a four-wheel-drive vehicle can be used.
Pleasant Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean just north of the "elbow" of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It is bounded on the east by a long peninsula and a barrier island, and harbors 7,825 acres (31.67 km2) of saltwater when the tide is in.
The Nauset Archaeological District is a National Historic Landmark District in Eastham, Massachusetts. Located within the southern portion of the Cape Cod National Seashore, this area was the location of substantial ancient settlements since at least 4,000 BC.
The French Cable Hut is a historic building in Cape Cod National Seashore, near the Nauset Beach Light in Eastham, Massachusetts. Built in 1891, the hut formed a linkage point in the transatlantic telegraph cable of the French Cable Company connecting the cable, where it came ashore near the present site to its main station in Orleans. After the cable was abandoned in 1932, the hut was adapted for residential use. It has since been restored to its turn-of-the-century appearance by the National Park Service. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station is a historic maritime rescue station and museum, located at Race Point Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Built in 1897, it was originally located at Nauset Beach near the entrance to Chatham Harbor in Chatham, Massachusetts. It was used by the United States Life-Saving Service (USLSS), and then by its successor, the United States Coast Guard (USCG), as the Old Harbor Coast Guard Station. The station was decommissioned in 1944, abandoned and sold as surplus in 1947, and was used as a private residence for the next twenty-six years.
The Three Sisters of Nauset are a trio of historic lighthouses off Cable Road in Eastham, Massachusetts. The original three brick towers fell into the sea due to erosion in 1890 and were replaced with wooden towers on brick foundations in 1892. The Sisters were decommissioned in 1911 but one of them, the Beacon, was moved back from the shoreline and attached to the keeper's house. It continued to operate but was replaced by a new steel tower, the Nauset Light, in 1923.
The Dune Shacks of Peaked Hill Bars Historic District includes dune shacks that were home to American artists and writers from the 1920s to present day. The historic district, located in the Outer Cape towns of Provincetown and Truro, comprises 1,950 acres of the Cape Cod National Seashore. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. The name is derived from a Life-Saving Station known as Peaked Hill Bars that was established in 1882 on the lower cape.
Chimney Farm is a historic farm property at 617 East Neck Road in Nobleboro, Maine. The heart of the farm is an early 19th-century farmhouse, which was from 1931 to their respective deaths home to the writers Henry Beston (1888–1968) and Elizabeth Coatsworth (1893–1986). Both were prominent regional award-winning writers, and the farm property played a prominent role on some of their writings. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Coast Guard Beach is part of the Cape Cod National Seashore in Eastham, Massachusetts. From mid-June to Labor Day, the parking area at this location is closed to all but park staff and visitors who are disabled, and access is provided by shuttle bus from the Little Creek parking area. Although the parking lot at Coast Guard Beach is open the remainder of the year, parking is limited. There are seasonal restrooms and a wheelchair-accessible rampway to the beach.
Wyman Richardson was an American physician, professor, amateur naturalist, and author. He is best known for his 1947 book The House on Nauset Marsh', originally published as essays in The Atlantic Monthly during the 1940s.
Nauset Light Beach is a one-mile-long beach on the east coast of outer Cape Cod in Eastham, Massachusetts. It is part of Cape Cod National Seashore. Historic Nauset Light, which visitors can tour, is just inland from the beach. It is one mile north from Coast Guard Beach.
