To my Great-Great-Grandfather, Samuel McDowell who emigrated from Scotland to Dennis, Massachusetts where most of my paternal family live today. Born in 1803, he spent much of his life on the sea, raising a hardy family on the shores of Cape Cod Bay. The 1860 Census in the Town of Dennis identifies Samuel succinctly as “Mariner” and it’s his salty blood that I carry in my veins today.
His Grandson Walter, my Grandfather, purchased a special plot of high ground in north Dennis that spanned from Scargo Lake to Cape Cod Bay, upon which many generations of strong-minded McDowells were spawned. That land was within a quarter mile of Samuel’s initial plot. Walter walked the Bay shore each day, remembering Samuel on the same clam flats 100 years before.
I died of total cardiac arrest in February 2007 while ice-skating on the same Scargo Lake with my daughter and cousin. She and Dennis firemen ‘worked me hard’ for nearly 30 minutes until the ambulance arrived and used a defibrillator to finally get a pulse. Thank you all for not giving up on me as I lay lifeless on the ice that cold day.
During my recovery, my uncle Peter graciously took me into his home (previously Walter’s) situated on a sand dune overlooking the shore where Samuel and Walter walked. I walked the same flats during my convalescence, thinking of Samuel being the first. His footprints were long since washed away, as will mine.
My entire family fueled my recovery and we remain very close today. I am now living in “My Heaven” with my loving wife Susan aboard my yacht. Samuel’s love of the sea continues, in me and within my children too. Six generations of McDowells from the shores of Cape Cod Bay.
