Freeman Davis Chase Jr. (1839 - 1936)

Born 24 Aug 1839 in Dennis, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States

Ancestors

Died 6 Jul 1936 at age 96 in Dennis, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

Freeman Davis was born in Dennis on August 24, 1839. * His parents were Freeman Davis ChaseChase-11710 and Deborah Covill daughter of John Covill He married 1st Amanda Stowell Robbins in 1858. she died in 1887. He married 2nd Estella F. (Treffrey) Blachford on January 7, 1899 at the age of 59. **He died on July 6, 1936. ***

Sources

• Birth and Death: Dennis Vital Records, Volume I, p. 282, [p. 287]

• • 2nd Marriage: Marriages Registered in the town of Dennis for the year 1899, p. 11, Line 2

They were married on July 7, 1899 in the West Harwich Baptist Church. Freeman was age 59 and listed as a merchant. /www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/12192207:2511?tid=&pid=&queryId=35bb90f9-f672-4e73-af3b-e787588ef1ee&_phsrc=wCG1779&_phstart=successSource

• • • Death: Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/45790267/freeman-davis-chase: accessed 17 January 2024), memorial page for Freeman Davis Chase Jr. (24 Aug 1839–6 Jul 1936), Find a Grave Memorial ID 45790267, citing Swan Lake Cemetery, Dennis Port, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA; Maintained by Walley Francis (contributor 47215751).

Research Notes

DEACON FREEMAN DAVIS CHASE

(From The Yarmouth Register, Yarmouthport, Mass., Feb. 14, 1931) (By Neva O'Neil, in New Bedford Standard) ____

"Deacon Freeman Davis Chase in his 92d year is distinguished as the oldest native son of the town of Dennis. He lives at Dennisport, his birth place. The house in which he was born now is the home of Mrs. Mertis Taylor.

For 75 years he has been an active member of the West Harwich Baptist Church. In 1898 he was made senior deacon. He has served this church as ministerial committeeman, clerk, trustee and in various other ways, at one time was superintendent of the Sunday School and taught adult Bible class.

In his earlier years Deacon Chase was a seafaring man. His first voyage was at the age of seven and he remembers that he spent his eighth birthday on Nantucket shoals, returning ashore at the age of eight. Four years after that he was an experienced sailor employed as cook and hand on a fishing boat owned by Captain Nemiah Smith, West Harwich. That was in 1851, the year of the great gale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, when so many Dennis sailors perished and boats were lost.

The date was Oct. 1 and early on that morning Captain Smith, whose ship with a crew of Dennisport boys, was in the gulf, sailed for Cape Breton. They were among the few to escape the fury of the gale which commenced that afternoon. Among those lost were four sons of the late Captain James Wixon, Dennisport. The four bodies floated ashore and Captain Wixon arranged for them to be shipped to Boston on a freighter. This freighter was never heard from after it left Nova Scotia.

When 14, Deacon Chase shipped as cook on a vessel carrying lumber down the Penobscot River to Bangor, thence to New York City. At 16 he went before the mast with Captain Jonathan Kelley of Dennisport on the schooner Keren-happuch (a Biblical name after the youngest and fairest of Job's three daughters.) It was owned by Barnstable people. After the Keren-happuch, Deacon Chase bought in on a vessel called Bay State, and was later master of schooners Wild Rose, Daniel McPhee, Charlie Kelley, all in the fishing business and well known on the coast. At 24 he was master of the Anna H. Frye, a schooner engaged in mackerel fishing out of Provincetown.

For several years he was master of the Dictator and other boats carrying seed oysters out of James River, Chesapeake Bay, to Providence. This was before the Providence and Seekonk Rivers became polluted . He planted many loads of seed oysters there. During his career he was mate with Captain Bazilla Chase, West Dennis, on the famous three master Fishawk. This boat carried coal from Baltimore to Boston and other northern points, also carried ice down the Penobscot. At 40 he was injured while on a sailing packet from Salem to New York which carried a general cargo and then he stopped ashore.

Deacon Chase had very little schooling but never ceased studying. Mathematics and navigation have been his favorite subjects and he has always been eager to tackle any new problems. After leaving the sea he taught school for two years in Dennisport, one year at North Harwich and one year at South Dennis Academy. These schools are long since forgotten. The building in which he taught in Dennisport is now a part of the home of Charles Ellis. The Dennisport school which burned last spring eliminated the small district schools of Dennisport.

About the church Deacon Chase has to say, "when I was 17 I became a member of the West Harwich Baptist Church. For 75 years I have been on the Lord's side and I am proud of it. My mother was a church going woman, a Methodist, and she taught me to appreciate the church. I grew up liking to go to church and still like it. My granddaughter drives me over to West Harwich nearly every Sunday morning but we did not ride in the old days - we walked."

The deacon is vitally interested in the affairs of the day. He reads the newspapers, often walking a mile to the post office to get his papers and mail. About prohibition he thinks that if the mothers and fathers hold fast to what is right and remember that the good taught their children, today means their happiness in the future, that this matter of prohibition will take care of itself. "Liquor is all right in its place," he says, but no mother wants to see her son and her husband drunk or spending his time in a saloon.

Looking back 90 years is a long way, but Deacon Chase recalls clearly much of the history of Dennisport that is interesting. The change in roads and transportation is a marvel to him. The Cape Cod roads first in his memory were very sandy and dusty, some later were of clay composite and later became macadam. From the coach-and-four to the present day travel is a long story.

Sixty years ago much of the trading of the village was done at Dennisport beach. There were three wharves there, each with a good sized store. This was the home port of three big fishing fleets and to use the deacon's words, "there was something doing there then."

These stores kept almost anything a family needed and from them the ships were stocked before starting on a voyage. One of the fitting out houses was owned by Union Wharf Company, and there were the Eastern Wharf and the Western Wharf. When the steam ships came into use, these old fleets gradually disappeared. Subsequently the fishing business dwindled and the wharves finally were abandoned, parts of them were broken up by the ice and floated away. Business moved up onto the main street and the old trading port was a thing of the past. Deacon Chase purchased one of the wharf stores and it is a part of his present home.

According to Deacon Chase a 150-ton vessel was built at Herring River and that was a big one for those days. He witnessed the launching of it when a boy. When he was six the first fireworks for Fourth of July celebration were brought to Dennis. With his brother, Elias then three he stole away and walked three miles to the old grist mill at car bridge, South Dennis, to see this wonder.

He remembers when Swan Lake actually was graced by swans, also beautiful white perch, and all the ponds and lakes hereabouts had ducks in them. At Kill Pond Bar were clams. The mother life has been killed out, he says, and this has robbed the locality of the old time beauty.

Deacon Chase with Mrs. Chase, the former Mrs. Estella Chase, lives on Depot Street, a well populated street which he was the first to build. For his first wife he married Miss Amanda Stowell Robbins of North Harwich. She died many years ago, leaving one son, Herbert Chase, Dennisport, and one daughter, Mrs. Ada D. Francis, Dennisport. His grandchildren are Mrs. Rena Nickerson, Dennisport, And Henry Russell Francis, professor of Forest Recreation, University of Syracuse.

His parents were Lot and Esther Bassett Chase. He has a brother, Elias W. Chase, aged 88, now living in Dennisport. Mr. Chase is of the "William" line of descent. He was the son of Chase Chase. He passed away in 1936.