One event one night, almost two centuries ago, created generations of havoc for people trying to buy and sell land on Cape Cod.
The night? October 22, 1827. The event? A raging fire that burned the county house down.
In ashes lay all but one of 93 volumes that recorded land ownership since 1686, all reduced to cinders.
From that night forward, the term “owners unknown” would hover over every Cape town, doom many a transaction, but also become a golden opportunity for those savvy enough to work the system.
The county house sat along Route 6A in Barnstable village, close to contemporary Sturgis library, a handsome two-story brick building with a wooden roof and big windows.
On the left side was the probate office, above that the clerk of courts. On the right, the Registry of Deeds above a storage area for firewood.
Given strong winds that night, people assumed a flying cinder caught the stored wood.
The Rev. Henry Hersey, pastor of a neighboring church, first realized what was happening. He ran to Crocker’s Hotel, a tavern still standing. A group of men were doing what men do at a tavern -- playing cards. Josiah Hinckley wrote recollections years later:
“The wind was northeasterly, blowing almost a gale. In two minutes or less Captain Joseph Bursley and myself were up the steps to the County House, together… We soon forced our way into the Probate Office, and opened the two windows on the westerly side of the room and passed the record books out to the Rev. Mr. Hersey and Mr. Isaac Chipman.”
All but three of the Probate Court’s records were saved. But Hinckley wasn’t done yet:
“I made my way out to the easterly side of the building … Captain Bursley joined me in less than two minutes. The smoke was so dense in the hallway that he had had to beat a retreat. We then went to the barn on the opposite side of the road and returned with a ladder which was placed up to the north windows of the Registry of Deeds office, where I soon found myself…
“I made a breach in it with my foot… The hole made in the window made a strong draft, and the fire looked me full in the face and seemed to say, as I construed it, ‘You had better stand back and make room for me.’ There was a record book on the desk within my reach which I laid violent hands on.”
This explains why only one book from the Registry survived.
To recover, every town deputized someone to go door to door to convince people to produce records proving ownership. The county established a bounty; 12 and a half cents for each deed less than 40 years old.
But once you re-recorded your deed, you’d be liable for taxes. The 12 and a half cents didn’t look so enticing.
Two years later, only 13 new volumes had been created to replace 93. Chains of title across the Cape were broken. The phrase “owners unknown” became stamped on a huge amount of property.
That eventually led to great opportunity. By the 1960s, surveyors, lawyers, builders, old-timers, began panning the Registry for their version of gold. Some paid petty back taxes to lay a claim. Some convinced a distant descendant to hand over any hint of ownership. Some pieced together parcels like jigsaw puzzles and made a case in Land Court.
It would have happened anyway, but without the fire of 1827, Cape Cod’s 20th century development boom would have happened a lot differently, and many of today’s biggest subdivisions wouldn’t have been possible.
