The articles about keeping horses by Jack Styler and Katherine Rossmoore in the May 2 edition of the Independent brought back so many pleasant memories of a simpler time in Wellfleet.
At the time I was growing up here, we had 55 horses in town. My dad, Woody Clark, bought us a large Welsh pony, thinking it would be a good starter horse for me and my brothers. It turned out that Jo-Jo was “stubborn as a mule-y bull,” as my father was fond of saying.
It seemed like every family I knew in town had horses. Schuster’s Trailer Park (now Harborside Village) had a large stable and gave lessons, and many of the people living there had horses. The Burgesses boarded horses, and all the kids had their own — the Paines, Francises, Pickards, Julia Thomas, Shane Howland, Steve Rose, George Pierce, my husband, Rich Murphy, my classmate Kim White, and many more I’m probably forgetting.
Kim was quite the horsewoman. She traveled as far away as Florida to compete in barrel racing events. She often competed in the horse show at the Barnstable County Fair. Her bedroom wall was full of trophies.
I have an out-of-focus photo taken in 1969 of Rich at about age 15 mounted on Rusty, a beautiful horse with a “Tennessee Walker gait” that he bought from Joe Burgess. Rich’s dad, Malcolm Murphy, made him work for the horse. The first thing he had to do as a 13-year-old was dig a three-foot-deep trench at least 40 feet long for the water line from the pump house to the barn his dad had built for the horse. Rich says it took him an entire summer, but he finished it himself and got the horse.
Many residents belonged to the Cape Cod Roughriders, and horse shows happened all up and down the Cape. Wellfleet’s own annual horse show was held where the town recreation field is now. Back in the day, many of us would get together for trail rides along High Toss Bridge Road and the surrounding area, all the way out to Jeremy Point at the tip of Great Island, from pond to pond on the back roads, and into the woods of “North Wellfleet.”
One of my fondest memories was the Fourth of July parade, when Charlie Schuster would ride with the other horsemen on his gorgeous palomino, Golden Boy. Goldie was a dancer. Charlie would stop at the intersection of Holbrook and Chequessett Neck roads and put Goldie through his paces. He was a very talented horse. Locals and visitors alike looked forward every year to Goldie’s appearance.
And who can forget two Wellfleet characters: Davey Curran’s dapple gray and, in later years, Michelle LaValle’s Ajax, who was all white and loved to get in mud puddles? Both of them were escape artists. They would saunter down Main Street and side streets, in and out of yards, evading capture but always headed back to the barn at feeding time.
As I was writing this, I was wracking my brain trying to remember the name of Davey’s horse. I must have asked 15 of his and my relatives. No one could remember. But finally Suzanne Thomas texted me to say that she had brought up the question at a church supper, and Paul Dinsmore said Curran’s horse was named Gypsy.
Thanks for triggering the memories.
Karen C. Murphy lives in Wellfleet.
