The late Joseph C. Lincoln was a widely known Chatham resident. The
writer of many fiction-novels about Cape Cod folk contributed more
than any other person to make this peninsula known to the nation at
large. Arthur Wilson Tarbell of Chatham, a modern historian, wrote
an outstanding book, “Cape Cod Ahoy!” Sinclair Lewis did some of his
early writing here. Alice Stallknecht Wight got on the Associated Press
wires as a result of the excitement caused by her mural painting in
the Chatham Congregational Church. “Christ Preaching to the Multitude”
is its title. The multitude consists of well known Chatham faces and
Christ, depicted as a fisherman, is shown addressing them from a boat.
For a companion piece Mrs. Wight later painted “The Last Supper”,
showing Coast Guards, sea captains and other Chathamites as the
disciples.
And in a pleasing, secluded spot the late Supreme Court Justice Louis
D. Brandeis had his summer home for many years.
The tiptop spire of the Congregational Church is fashioned from a
spar on the bark R. A. Allen, wrecked on the Chatham shore in 1887.
Lightning damaged the church in the same storm. And the Cape’s toy
windmill industry, that has waxed fat from the summer trade, started
in Chatham. The humble carver of the first shop is romanticized in
Lincoln’s novel “Shavings”. But a Coast Guard station skipper is given
credit for making the first toy windmill. The art spread to other
stations and business got so brisk the Government issued an order,
forbidding the guardians of the deep from engaging further in the
profitable sideline.