Manners were at their finest and best, and the expression of them often bears a charming simplicity of thought if not of word. Such is Mr. Freeman’s memory of an old lady who had been kind to him. In a footnote of his history he corrects a deplorable error in the text: “We were led, by intelligence communicated in good faith by one whose relations to the person gave to his announcement the assurance of authority, to state that a venerable and most estimable lady was deceased. We are grateful that it is an error. Long may that excellent woman survive, the admiration of her friends. We have remembered her with respect ever since the day she loaned to us, then a little boy, a beautifully illustrated Natural History, kindly proffered with commendations and other encouraging words; and had we the skill of a limner, we could now portray those features marked with intellectuality and benevolence when, with attaching manners, she made her little friend so happy.” Freeman says elsewhere: “If the manners of the age were simple, they were not rough; nor was the rusticity of the less influential devoid of that polish which the few who gave tone to society, unassuming and unenvied, diffused among the masses.” All through the clipper-ship era, the importance of the Cape steadily grew. She built ships at her own wharves and docked them there, and in the eighteen-forties she even had her own custom-house at Barnstable, although it cleared but one ship, and the building was turned into a town hall. Wharves, harbor improvements, lighthouses were built where they were most needed. In 1830 the Union Wharf was built at Pamet Harbor by the toil of the shareholders in the enterprise, each of whom held but one share and each of whom must wheel his proportion of sand to fill the bulkheads. A committee was appointed to supervise the work and see that there was no shirking; and Rich tells us that some of the younger members of the company were “willing to work harder than wheeling sand” to invite the charge of shirking and fasten that charge upon some man “who felt that neglecting his duty was nearly a crime.” At any price they must have their fun, and lampooned certain bumptious members of the company in doggerel that followed them to their grave. In 1825 a flint-glass factory that became famous for its beautiful output was founded at Sandwich—“glass-works to improve its sand,” is Thoreau’s gibe. The salt-works flourished, there were several cotton and woollen mills, banks and insurance companies and newspapers were established. But the Civil War put an end to this expansion: vessels that were destroyed then or had rotted at the wharves through disuse were never replaced; and in any event the war had but given the _coup de grâce_ to trade by sailing ships that the development of steam and rails was sure to weaken. Cape Cod soldiers who had followed the sea returned from the war to find their business gone, and many energetic men had to look elsewhere for careers.