Plymouth to Nantucket Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride

the railroads of North America

with my faithful Appleton's guide.

Published in the late 19th century,

it will lead me to all that is magnificent,

charming...

confusing, invigorating,

and awesome in the United States and Canada.

As I journey through this vast continent,

I'll encounter revolutionaries.

And feminists, pilgrims, and witches.

And ride some of the oldest and most breathtaking

railroads in the world.

My rail journey continues in Massachusetts.

It was here in 1620 that Puritan Pilgrims from England landed,

seeking freedom to practice their religion.

More than two centuries later,

Methodists demonstrated a similar

independence of spirit.

Immigrants from Europe enjoyed new liberties in America,

but eventually a heavy price would be paid by the indigenous population

and by the creatures of the sea.

My travels through the north east of the United States

and Canada began in Boston.

I'll move down the coast exploring the New England states,

then head north to Lake Placid.

From there, I'll across the Canadian border

to Montreal in French-speaking Quebec.

I'll visit the capital, Ottawa,

and the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence River,

before finishing in Canada's largest city, Toronto.

On this trip I'll start in Plymouth, Massachusetts,

where the Pilgrim fathers settled.

I'll travel south to Hyannis,

and catch a ferry to the wealthy holiday destination

of Martha's Vineyard.

I'll end my journey on the neighbouring island of Nantucket,

once the whaling capital of the world.

Along the way, I'll travel back in time

on the Cape Cod heritage railway...

Hi, there.

How are you doing?

Great to be on board.

..uncover the brutality of whale hunting...

A good haul would mean that they would kill

anywhere from 50 to 60 whales.

50 or 60?

..and marvel at those still at large in these waters.

Yes, and up comes a tail!

Such a breathtaking sight.

I'm beginning in the pretty seaside community

of Plymouth on Cape Cod Bay.

When my guide was published in the 1870s,

it was a flourishing manufacturing community.

Today it's known as America's Hometown

for the special place that it holds

in the nation's history.

Plymouth, says the guidebook,

will be forever famous as the landing place

of the Pilgrim Fathers on December the 22nd, 1620,

and the site of the first settlement in New England.

Plymouth Rock, on which the pilgrims first landed,

is covered by a handsome,

granite canopy,

and surrounded by an iron fence,

almost as though they thought it was going to escape.

The Pilgrims had had a grim Atlantic crossing.

They did not know how to live off this land.

They were not prepared for the New England winter.

But help was at hand.

The English Pilgrims arrived here on the merchant ship, the Mayflower,

from Plymouth in Devon, and set about building a new life.

Here at the Plimoth Plantation,

their 17th-century farming village has been recreated,

and a cast of actors helps to bring it to life.

The museum's deputy director is Richard Pickering.

Richard, describe to me the trials and tribulations

faced by the Pilgrims when they land here in 1620.

Coming into an unfamiliar land,

and then the first winter was particularly difficult,

and there was already almost a foot of snow on the ground.

Half of the town died within two and a half months.

We don't know what the cause of it was.

It has sometimes been thought to be hunger,

but actually when you lose that many that quickly,

your supplies get stronger,

so it was probably communicable infection.

With their community reduced to just 52 people,

and with little knowledge of their new home,

the Pilgrims luckily encountered the Native American Wampanoag people,

and their leader Massasoit.

When they make contact with the indigenous people,

is there a helpful relationship between the two?

There is. Massasoit comes to the English that first March

because he needs their military assistance.

The plague that has swept through

and destroyed so many of his people has left him weak in comparison

to the nearby Narragansett nation,

and so by going to the strangers along the shore

and getting their technology,

he strengthens himself.

Alongside the Pilgrim's village

is a recreation of a Wampanoag community.

-Great to see you.

-Good to see you.

I'm meeting Native American expert Darius Coombs.

Darius, what was the extent of the Wampanoag nation,

at the time of the arrival of English in 1620?

Well, before the English arrived here in 1620,

we numbered probably over 100,000 people.

We had around 70 Wampanoag communities.

-How did the people live?

-During the spring and summer, we would come out

near the ocean, that's when we'd do our planting and fishing.

And as you see here, we have our corn, beans, and squash planted.

What corn does - corn takes nitrogen out of the ground.

And what beans do - beans add it right back into the ground.

So, then, the squash, they have a large leaf

and that will shade the ground and keep the ground soft.

So it's all companion planting which they help each other out.

-So it's sustainable.

-Yeah.

-Hello, Melissa.

-Hello.

Melissa, I'm Michael.

Hi. What kind of tea do we have?

It's actually a blueberry tea.

-Is that good for you?

-It is. It's full of vitamins and antioxidants.

Thank very much.

Darius, the English wouldn't know how to live off this land.

No, this is a new world to them.

There is a native man, a very famous Wampanoag man named Squanto,

known as Squanto today.

And the spring of 1621 he came out

and taught the colonists how to plant corn.

He did that by digging a hole in the ground,

putting a fish as fertiliser, and then planting corn seed.

So the first contact between the two is peaceful?

Yeah, in a way that both sides needed each other.

Massasoit being the Wampanoag leader,

he came out and formed a peace treaty with English,

March of 1621, which lasted over 50 years between the two people.

That episode of harmonious coexistence

would eventually give birth to perhaps the biggest celebration

in the American calendar.

In the autumn of 1621 when the colonists first planted,

they had a very large harvest that year.

The English invited Massasoit to a three-day feast.

During this time he sent his men out hunting,

and they came back with five dear.

We're not even sure turkey was at that feast.

They do mention fowl, and fowl could have been duck, goose, partridge,

and it could've been turkey, but we're not really sure.

That feast became known as the first Thanksgiving dinner.

By the time of my guide book in the 1870s,

it was widely celebrated across the United States,

with roast turkey and cranberry sauce.

But not until 1942 did Thanksgiving Day become an official holiday

on the fourth Thursday in November.

But as it turned out, the white man behaved appallingly

to the indigenous population, the Native Americans.

So don't some people feel that the day is a celebration of oppression?

It varies a lot. It depends on who you talk to.

Some people consider it to be a day of mourning.

We have to remember the ones we've lost in the past.

Myself personally, it's a day we spend a lot of time with our family,

and give thanks for being here.

So you try to be positive?

You've got to be. That's the way you've got to go through life.

Following the arrival on the American continent of the Europeans,

the native American Indian population

was rapidly reduced to a small fraction of itself.

I'm picking up my journey 20 miles south-east of Plymouth in Sandwich,

where I'm thrilled to discover that there's a heritage rail service.

Appleton's tells me that,

"The Cape Cod division of the Old Colony railroad runs round down to

"Hyannis on the south shore of Cape Cod,

"which is becoming a popular summer resort."

And, luckily, the trains still run.

-Hi, there!

-How are you doing?

-Ha-ha!

Great to be on board!

The first trains arrived in Sandwich in 1848.

The Old Colony railroad from Boston

brought sand to a glass company on the Cape.

Six years later, a passenger service was launched,

and it was extended almost 15 miles down to Hyannis,

where I'm heading today.

-Andrew!

-Hi, Michael.

It's nice to meet you.

Andrew Eldredge is a railway historian and

maintains the signals on the line.

Lemon tart with raspberry sauce.

-Enjoy.

-Thank you, Debbie.

You're welcome.

Ah!

Andrew, when was this line at its peak as a passenger railroad?

I would say from about the 1870s to 1880s.

14 out of the 15 towns all had rail service at their peak.

And I imagine it bringing hordes of tourists down from Boston.

As time went on, absolutely.

When did it decline for passenger traffic?

The railroad started to decline in this area,

as it did in much of the country, probably in the 1920s,

1930s as the automobile became more popular.

Passenger trains actually stopped finally in the 1960s.

The new Cape Cod Central Railroad was launched in 1999.

Its six engines painted cranberry red after the local crop,

breathed new life into the service along a 27-mile route.

These vacation areas must get very congested with traffic.

Do you ever feel it would be a good idea to revive the railroads?

Absolutely. The past four years or so we have a train in the summertime

which comes down from the city of Boston on the weekends

to bring tourists down without their cars.

-Popular?

-It is. It's very popular.

Well, you offer delicious food on board.

Bon appetit!

When I think of Cape Cod, I remember President John F Kennedy,

who holidayed here and whose life is celebrated in nearby Hyannis Port.

At the harbour, I'm continuing my journey by ferry.

One ticket to Martha's Vineyard.

-Thank you so much.

-You're welcome.

-Bye-bye.

-Have a good day.

This part of the trip around New England

is just kind of one pretty place after another.

Appleton's tells me, "Martha's Vineyard is an island 20 miles long,

"separated from the mainland by the Vineyard Sound.

"It suffered much from the British during the Revolutionary War.

"It has become noted for its annual camp meetings at the great Methodist

"camp meeting ground every August.

"The grounds include a tabernacle capable of seating 5,000 persons."

I had no idea that Methodism was such a broad tent.

Today, the island is famous as the summer destination of presidents -

both the Clinton and Obama families vacationed here.

But in the 1800s, it offered a very different kind of retreat.

On the north shore at Oak Bluffs lies the Methodist Camp Ground,

with over 300 cottages on 34 acres,

with a church and a tabernacle designed for large services.

Still in use for worship, it's the largest venue on the island.

It really is a most impressive structure.

This beautiful wrought ironwork and then the stained-glass windows which

give it that ecclesiastical feel,

and I have to imagine this place filled with thousands of people,

singing and praying and their prayers going up to

the very tip of the enormous cross above, and then beyond to God.

In the early 19th century, a Protestant religious revival,

which began in Kentucky, spread across America.

As new members flocked to join the Baptist and Methodist churches,

the camp meeting movement was born,

and it was taken up enthusiastically here in New England.

Sally Dagnall, whose family has been coming here since the early 1900s,

has written a history of this camp.

Sally, this is a strikingly beautiful place,

and my Appleton's devotes a whole paragraph to the Methodist meetings.

That makes me think they must been pretty big and they must have been

-pretty well known.

-They were huge.

It was in 1869 that it was reported that over 30,000 people,

if you can imagine in this spot, came here during the week.

And I have to tell you that Methodism

was a very little-known religion,

or not highly practiced, and with these camp meetings, they grew huge,

as far as membership.

Methodism began in Britain in the 18th century,

led by Pastor John Wesley,

and lay preachers travelled to the United States

to attract new followers.

Here in Martha's Vineyard,

recent convert Jeremiah Pease decided to set up a camp in 1835.

We don't know how many people attended that first meeting,

but we do know that 69 people were converted,

and six souls were reclaimed.

You call them camps.

Were they literally living in tents?

Absolutely. There were nine tents originally with, I have to tell you,

a curtain down the middle - men on one side, women on the other.

The family tents started emerging

when the children started to come about 1840, 1841.

What was their routine while they were here?

It was very serious business.

Religion morning, noon and night.

Services three times a day and in between hymn sings,

bible studies, and smaller prayer groups.

So they are living under makeshift tents and they've got this fierce,

if I may say so, religious regime all day long.

What do you think conditions were like?

Very, very primitive.

We didn't have running water.

They had to bring their bedding, their food.

It was in the middle of nowhere. It was a sheep pasture.

As ever more worshippers flocked to the camp,

it became one of the largest in the United States.

A church was built in 1878,

and the following year the camp association

added the tabernacle to cope with the growing numbers.

Although the camp continues its religious purpose to this day,

it had also become a popular break for families,

and cottages began to replace the tents.

What was the origin of these cottages?

Most of these cottages were built between 1859 and 1880.

People built platforms for their tents,

and then sides were built and,

eventually, the roof and what emerged

was what we refer to as the Martha's Vineyard campground cottage.

You actually stay here in the summer.

-Absolutely.

-What's it like to do that?

It's wonderful. This community is like America was 100 years ago.

I love it and I've been doing it for over 70 years, so...

Gosh, you really are a fan.

And old fan!

-Nantucket?

-Yeah.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

This morning I'm bound for an island that is inextricably linked with one

of the planet's most wonderful creatures.

"Nantucket is about 30 miles from Martha's Vineyard,

"from which it is reached by a daily steamer."

This is the modern-day equivalent.

"The town of Nantucket was at one time

"the chief whaling port of the world,

"and increased rapidly until 1846.

"After that, the whale fishery, and with it the prosperity of the town,

"rapidly declined."

I feel sorry for those redundant hunters,

but even more so for those poor cetaceans.

Whales were hunted for their oil, which was highly prized.

It was used for lighting and as a lubricant in machinery.

Once the rough-and-tumble centre of the whaling industry,

Nantucket is today one of America's most exclusive holiday destinations.

The museum in the town centre traces the history

of whaling from its early 18th century beginnings.

I'm meeting Peggy Godwin.

Ha! Peggy, that is absolutely spectacular,

this enormous skeleton of a...?

-Sperm whale.

-A sperm whale.

-Right.

-Now, tell me, how did the whaling industry start in Nantucket?

It first began with just drift whaling,

which was when a whale would just wash ashore here,

but eventually whalers started going out in small boats

and pursuing North Atlantic right whales,

which happened to migrate close by our shores.

Then they discovered sperm whales.

The sperm whale has wonderful oil in its blubber,

but it's the only whale that has oil in its head.

Sperm whales found only in deep water

were the most dangerous to hunt.

But Nantucket whalers travelled as far as the Pacific and the Arctic

Circle in pursuit of the highly lucrative mammals,

with trips sometimes lasting two or three years.

Their adventures inspired Herman Melvin's classic novel Moby Dick.

-How did they hunt the whale?

-Well, the whale ship would

carry four or five whale boats, like this.

-Mmm.

-And in each boat, there would be a harpooner in the bow,

four men in the centre who handled the oars,

and if they got close enough to the whale, they would harpoon it.

And the harpoon looked like this.

And each one is attached to about 1,500 feet of line, and then the

whale would run out on what was called, "the Nantucket sleighride."

But eventually the whale gets tired and now they use a lance.

-Obviously we feel very sorry for the whale...

-Right.

..but a very risky business for the men as well.

Absolutely. Very easy for one of the men to get pulled overboard.

The whale could decide to dive.

Nantucket must have had its fair share of widows.

There were quite a few widows in town,

and a lot of fatherless children.

It was a really dangerous business.

How many whales might there be per voyage?

A good haul would mean that they would kill anywhere

-from 50 to 60 whales.

-50 or 60?!

Mm-hmm. They were processing the blubber at sea.

They'd bring the head right up onto the deck of the ship,

make a hole in the top of the head,

and then they would bail out all the valuable oil.

And the youngest member of the crew, who was usually a teenage boy,

would be stripped down and lowered into the head of the whale

to get every last drop.

Ships could return with as many as 2,000 barrels of oil, which were

brought ashore and processed in factories like this.

It was great for lubricating machinery and it provided a bright,

clean light in people's homes,

so it was really used all over the world.

You're making me realise that whale oil was really a fundamental part of

the global economy in the middle 19th century.

Absolutely. It was really America's first global industry.

Business boomed,

and as home port to 70 whaling ships,

Nantucket was the whaling capital of the world.

But it wasn't to last.

My Appleton's guide tells me of an enormous fire in Nantucket in 1846,

and the decline in whaling thereafter. Are the two connected?

They are. Certainly the fire was so destructive that a lot of people

lost their way of making a living in that one night.

But it was only one of the reasons for the decline.

The biggest blow, certainly, was the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania -

oil in the ground - and that produced kerosene. Kerosene was a

cheaper lighting fluid, and it began to replace whale oil.

But commercial whaling continued around the world,

and by the middle of the 20th century,

some species were near extinction.

In 1986, a moratorium on commercial whale hunting was introduced,

and many populations have shown substantial recovery.

On my whale-watching tour, I'm hoping to see humpbacks,

which I'm told swim here, off the Cape.

You can feel the anticipation on the boat. Everybody is quite silent.

And the boat is actually crowded, and the boat is silent.

Ahead, there seems to be a small pod of whales.

I'm seeing lots of plumes of water rising,

and now the great shape of the back of one of the whales.

Oh, beautiful, beautiful sight!

There she blows!

Whoa! HE LAUGHS

Such a beautiful shape as they dive back under the water.

Now we are incredibly close.

I can see the blowhole here, so clearly. I can see the nose of the

whales through the water.

Oh! They're coming straight for the boat at this moment.

You can see them head-on. This is so exciting!

Three of them alongside. It's as though they're going under our boat.

Oh, and the tail coming through the water!

And again! And again!

Such a breathtaking sight!

On board with us today is Regina Asmutis-Silvia,

executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation North America.

Regina, given the moratorium observed by most countries, what is

the biggest danger now presented by mankind towards the whales?

So, whaling still does occur in some parts of the world,

but the other two biggest human-caused threats are vessel

strikes, particularly for large ships,

and also what we call by-catch, which is unintentional entanglements

in fishing gear. There's estimates that over 300,000 whales and

dolphins are dying a year as a result of by-catch, and in the past

couple of years we've had over 40 humpback whales wash up

along the East Coast, and the animals that were examined were

largely from ship strikes.

What role do the whales play in the balance of the planet?

Most of our oxygen that we breathe is actually produced by a tiny

little plant-like organism in the ocean called phytoplankton,

but because it has to live near the ocean surface, it doesn't...

It can't go to the bottom for its

nutrients, and that's where whales come in.

And so whales will feed at depth, but they come up to the surface, and

when they defecate at the surface it provides phosphorus and iron,

so that that provides all the

phytoplankton with the nutrients they need.

So, like, these whales are doing this amazing,

amazing job of really helping to keep our planet healthy.

Well, how have you enjoyed today?

Very much. Yeah. It's wonderful to see.

So many whales, it's amazing. Yeah. So big.

-Made me feel small.

-I think it's amazing.

-Worth the 50 bucks.

-It's one of the coolest things I have ever done.

-Absolutely.

-One of the coolest things you've ever done, really?

-Yeah, it's amazing.

-When they flip

-their tails, that's quite something, isn't it?

-It really is, yeah.

-It's really pretty.

-Does it make you feel emotional?

-Yes.

-She almost cried.

-LAUGHTER

-I could have cried, yeah.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Why do you think that is?

I don't know. I'm like that with animals, any kind of animals.

If I see them in the wild, especially.

-No, I am too. I get emotional.

-Yeah.

We have had a wonderful day.

They're so enormous, they're so elegant, they're so dignified.

I'm privileged to see them.

Whoa!

The Wampanoag Nation, in common with many other Native Americans,

venerated the bounty of the earth and practice what we now call

sustainable fishing and farming.

The Plymouth Pilgrims gave thanks for their good harvests, and the

Methodists drew themselves closer to nature,

meeting amongst the oak groves of Martha's Vineyards.

But the European immigrants brought with them technologies on an

industrial scale which had a much greater impact on the environment,

and applied them even to whaling.

The populations of the oceans are still struggling to recover from

centuries of rapacious hunting.

Next time, I'll help to prepare a traditional New England clambake...

Whoa! That looks good!

..uncover the story behind one of America's greatest plays...

People are taken aback,

because it's sad, it's harrowing,

and the locals were really shocked.

..and drill with cadets of the US Coast Guard.

Right shoulder, arm!

Forward, march!