When the Cape Captains came home from the sea it was their realization of a dream of security and of normal family life for which they had fought the elements and endured countless hardships. Behind them stretched limitless miles of open ocean, the sea which had claimed so many friends and relatives. In the great days of the Clippers, between 1840 and 1870, the white stones in the cemeteries with the notation “Lost at Sea”, had multiplied so greatly that to a stranger today it would seem that Cape Codders hardly ever lived long enough to die of natural causes. In the year 1840 it was estimated that there were over one thousand “sea-widows” residing in the County. Those who had come home to stay ashore at last did so with humility and thanksgiving in their hearts. It is sometimes difficult to remember that the life of a deep-water Captain was a business, and a grim and lonesome business at that, in which the Captains were engaged in order to make a living for their families. They chose such a way because the sea was at their doorstep, and in their blood, and in the direction in which their talents lay. Of course there was something in it of the strong call of adventure, and they were equal to it, for they were intelligent and brave, and true pioneers. No port in the world was beyond their reach and in the clipper ships with the wonderful names (Red Jacket, Flying Cloud, Wild Hunter and the rest) they reached them and returned, not once, but a score of times, girdling the globe and reducing its size to the glory of their country. But for most it was the vision of a final haven in some Cape village, with wife and family, and enough money for security, that kept the Captains going through all the lonely years at sea. It is in the ship’s papers and correspondence of the Captains that the inherent homesickness shines through and in ways that, in their subtlety, make it all the more poignant. Thus a river across the world “looks a little like our own Bass River”, and a distant shoreline “makes me think of the highlands at home”. Perhaps the Captain practices penmanship on a spare page of his log. Then you will see that the names he has written over and over again are those of wife and children, or of his home village on the Cape. Many would use their spare time to dream of the home they would one day build ashore and in the notebooks are frequent drawings of dream mansions, many of which became reality in a Cape village.