Cold Spring Harbor, Day Two

With the exception of the noise of an occasional jet heading to or from JFK or La Guardia, the only sounds are chirping crickets and the slurping of gentle waves lapping against the side of the boat, just like yesterday evening.  It will probably remain peaceful tonight, but last night we could see flashes of light behind the clouds from distant storms to the north which made their way south to us just as we were going to bed.  Rain started to pitter-patter on the deck above us and quickly turned into cascades of water which sounded as if a tap had been fully opened directly above us, as thunder grumbled and the lighting flashes became brighter.  The wind clocked to the north with the storm and came howling through the mouth of the bay all night, but our anchor held and we slept peacefully.

Cold Spring Harbor

The skies cleared in the morning, revealing an azure dome punctuated with a few puffs of white.  After puttering around and having brunch, we got the dinghy in the water and set off for the hamlet of Cold Spring Harbor.  The land was purchased from the Matinecock Indians in 1650 by English colonists, but it was only used for farming, milling and fishing until the 1820's. Then, it became a prominent whaling port, and nine ships sailed from this harbor to hunt for whales in the Atlantic, the Arctic and the Pacific.  The town thrived until the profitability of whaling was abruptly curtailed with the discovery of oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859.  Main street, now a tree-lined, quiet street lined with homes and small shops, was much more lively in the whaling era, when it was nicknamed "Bedlam Street" and boasted several brothels and bars.

House in Cold Spring Harbor

Our first stop was the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, a small place full of a great deal of information and exhibited items.  There is an original 19th century whaleboat equipped with original gear, scrimshaw, models, harpoons, whale bones and two narwhal tusks, and impressive exhibition about the role of women in the whaling era.  In the Long Island-New England whaling era, the first woman went to sea with her captain husband in the 1820's.  Women had to choose between remaining at home waiting for their husbands' return for three to five years or go to sea with the captains. (No other men were allowed to take their wives and families.)  If they stayed home, they were often dependent on monetary advances against their husbands' income from the voyage, and many of them became entrepreneurs, opening boarding houses, restaurants and stores and taking in work in their homes.  Some became teachers or other professional women, something that was rare at that time.  By the 1850's, one out of five of the whalers from the area setting off to sea left with wives and sometimes children of the captains aboard.  At the museum, there were many excerpts from letters and diaries detailing their experiences and impressions.

Next, we visited the Dolan DNA Learning Center on Main Street, which contains, among other things, a replica of the model built in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson at the Cavendish Labortory at the Univeristy of Cambridge.  After their collaboration, James Watson returned to the United States, where he was a professor at Harvard.  He had first visited the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a respected institution even then, in 1948, when he was studying genetics with Salvador Luria.  In 1968, he became professionally associated with the laboratory here and worked here until 2007.  He was instrumental in developing the mission of the laboratory, to diagnose and treat cancer, neurological diseases and other illnesses through the study of molecular biology and genetics.

After our brief visit there, we stopped at Sweetie Pies, where we shared a delicious apple pie.  Then we took a short walk through the woods of Cold Harbor State Park and stopped in the gorgeous new library, stately on the outside and elegant and welcoming on the inside.

Reading room at the Cold Spring Harbor Library

Now, my computer is almost out of battery, so I will end this here.