A gift from William Colby of Dennis, Massachusetts, who provides a shory history of how he came to have the Town Hall Dedication Booklet: We came across it in an old chest that was our Grandmother's. She was born in 1880 and her name was Miriam Howes Crowell Westwood, ninth generation of the original settlers from the town of Dennis, (formally Old Yarmouth). Dennis, just as Provincetown was, was a busy seaport in those times. Many sons, fathers and husbands were lost at sea. One such memorable instance was THE GREAT OCTOBER GALE of 1841. Sixty vessels were sunk or ruined and two hunderd lives lost. Of these, half were Cape vessels and seamen. Twenty-six vessels piled up on the beach at Race Point including the Schooner Bride which was captained by Dennis resident Capt. Noah Crowell. Of its eight-man crew, only one survived. Dennis lost nineteen men in that storm, three of whom were named Crowell and three named Howes.
