Readers may recall this post card image of camping in Popponesset Beach, Mashpee, and recognize the area where my wife’s paternal grandparents started coming to Cape Cod in the 1930s. As shown they camped in tents and family history said they had wooden platforms for their tents.

I recently found another copy of this post card, which is significant for adding a bit of additional information to the story of early times in Popponesset. Norma Armstrong was the person who ran the campground where the East family went in the earliest days of their trips to the Cape. Here is the excerpt from “History of the Popponesset Beach Area” from The Popponesset Beach Association website:

From 1934 until 1939, Norma Armstrong, a nurse, leased the Popponesset shores and operated a tourist camp and small store. Each summer, the area filled with tents and trailers on sites rented for 50 cents a night, or $25 for the season. Old-time vacationers of the 1930’s remember the lines waiting to play the One-arm Bandit for 5 cents in the Armstrong store, as well as the wood-planked roller-skating rink north of the store, close to the present Popponesset Marketplace.

In 1941, Popponesset Beach, Inc., built 50 small cottages for rent at $100 per season or $3 per day per person (children free) as well as 14 cottages for short-term rental, along with a cafeteria capable of serving 2,000 meals daily. Several of Mrs. Armstrong’s tent campers purchased very small plots of land on a strip of property from Roy Wilson, known today as Wilson’s Grove.

This newly acquired card is post marked in 1938 and is from Mrs. Armstrong to one of her renters, a Mrs. Lewis:

It appears that these postcards may have been created and used by Mrs. Armstrong to advertise her campground. The card also confirms the use of wooden floors for the tents, a practice that continued later on Wilson’s grove. Mrs. Armstrong writes “Your floor is built in the place I think you want it to be. We can move it when you get here if it isn’t right.” It is also interesting that the card is dated June 30th, showing that the season was somewhat later than today, perhaps due to the weather being colder on the Cape in the 1930s than it is today, as recounted previously in the saga of “four wool blankets.”

I was at the counter of a cape Cod antique mall, getting ready to check out with a few purchases, mainly as you would expect, material on the Cape for my wife’s great collection. I happened to glance up, and hanging on the wall above the counter was a small, framed item, in Spanish:

It seemed to be from 1833 and had a picture of a stagecoach. Very promising for a western americana enthusiast. Although I suspected it could be a modern reprint, I decided to take a chance. As someone once said, if you never make any mistakes, you are not taking enough chances.

Luckily, when I got it out of the frame at home it was indeed a letter press handbill on laid (hand made) paper of the period. A very unusual and unrecorded stagecoach handbill, full of legalese that would not be out of place today! Anything can be anywhere, even Nineteenth Century Mexican stagecoach handbills on Cape Cod.

Here is my write-up:

1). [Stagecoach Line] [Mexico] Jacob Rinewalt y Compaňia. Avoso. Posats De Diligencias. Puebla: Imprenta del C. José Maria Campos. January 5, 1833. 17.5 x 26.5 cm. Handbill printed on laid paper with decorative border. Illustrated with small image of a stagecoach and horses.  Written on verso: “Advertisement which we gave to the public.” Has been folded. Stains and small holes at folds. Good.            

OCLC shows no holdings. A very interesting and unusual handbill with a lot of warnings to the customers about the limits of the company’s responsibility, including for not buying a ticket in advance or for missing the scheduled stagecoach. Also information for pricing and luggage allowance – one arroba or 25 pounds – on the routes, which include to Mexico City; Jalapa and Jalapa to Veracruz. This stagecoach company states they operate under the name Linea Union Mexicana. I find one reference to that stage line as having a contract to carry the mail in 1835. See, Carmen Blázquez Domínguez. “Veracruz-Perote, Contrata de Postas (1800-1840).” La Palabra y El Hombre. Oct-Dec. 1984. Nineteenth Century primary source materials on Mexican stagecoach lines are uncommon. An early, ephemeral, and therefore rare survivor, giving a first-hand look at this important transportation business.   

Book dealers appreciate Larry McMurtry’s novel Cadillac Jack, in which his character, antique and book scout Zack Jenks, notes that “anything can be anywhere,” meaning that good things are often found in surprising places by those who know to look for them. Here is an example of a very nice item that was in an unusual place.For the last decade or so my wife and I have been lucky enough to spend most of the summer in her old stomping grounds, Cape Cod. As she collects all things related to the Cape, we make a number of forays to search for books, maps, souvenir china and other items. As you would expect these items turn up in the Cape shops.

What I did not expect to see was this gem, an 1886 Independence Day broadside from Bottineau, Dakota Territory.

Bottineau, Dakota was founded in 1883 as Oak Creek. It was a customs station, and an overnight stagecoach stop. The town name was changed to Bottineau in 1884 in honor of Pierre Bottineau, probably the first white child born in Dakota around 1812. The. St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway in 1886-1887 extended a line to Bottineau. To accommodate the railroad crossing Oak Creek, the town moved its location. – McPhillips, Bottineau Illustrated. 1901-2. Two of the organizers of the festivities were early pioneers. In 1884 John W. G. Simrall was appointed register of deeds of Bottineau County and J. B. Sinclair was appointed surveyor. – Lounsberry, Early History of North Dakota. 1919. The program for the day included prayers, reading of the Declaration of Independence, a Base-ball match, Horse Racing, Foot Races, Hurdle rides, Vaulting, Jumping and other athletic event, dinner on the grounds, music by the Roberts String Band and Dancing in the afternoon and evening. July 4th fell on Sunday in 1886, so the festivities were held on Saturday.

Under any circumstance this would be a rare survivor. It is unrecorded on World Catalog (the library data base) and I can find only one holding of a similar item from this period in Dakota Territory. How it ended up in a shop on Cape Cod is anyone’s guess. But it shows McMurtry’s aphorism is always to be kept in mind.