On Friday morning, Aug. 28, 1874, the cars of the Old Colony Railroad, which had extended service to the tip of Cape Cod the previous July, began an excursion down […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Of Gifts and Promise Gone, and What We Should Know by Now
A memorial in the dunes, surrounded by wild roses, for Charles Darby
Towns have myriad ways of honoring their war dead. Grand monuments, parks, and plazas are built for contemplation and reflection. Street corners named in a soldier’s honor are adorned with […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The Original Washashores of Provincetown and Eastham
Being marooned is one sure way to become an Outer Cape character
Swashbuckling pirates and mooncussing scoundrels, real or fictional, have long been characters in the Cape Cod story. So, too, have castaways, washed ashore after a shipwreck, or put ashore, as […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Behind the Bill of Rights, a Woman’s Advocacy
Mercy Otis Warren’s role in defining the course of American patriotism
Mercy Otis Warren was born in West Barnstable in 1728 to a family of patriots. Their names are perhaps not as familiar today as John Hancock’s and Sam Adams’s. But […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The Two Lives (at Least) of Eastham’s Ancient Pear Tree
In a 1937 WPA guidebook, fruit from a scion of Gov. Thomas Prence’s 1640s pear tree
As the Great Depression spread its pall, President Franklin Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, a series of programs aimed at restoring American prosperity. Among the initiatives were Works Progress Administration […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
David Conwell Stull, the Ambergris King
In Provincetown, fame for finding melon oil and floating gold
It would be unthinkable today for the community to cheer on the chasing, corralling, and driving of frightened blackfish to their slaughter. But a little over a century ago, people […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The Wreck of the Ardent
Though news reports were made, a Provincetown survivor never told his story
When Philip Smith Rich died in Provincetown in 1879, he took details of surviving a harrowing shipwreck to his grave. Writer Herman Jennings, in his classic Provincetown Or, Odds and […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Sarah Cleverly Atwood, Keeper of the Light
After tragic losses, a Wellfleet family’s new beginnings
With the April 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter — the Union garrison in Charleston Harbor — civil war became a certainty. Appeals were made in the Northern states for troops, […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Remembering the Rachel, Lost in the Long Storm of 1798
A marble tablet in a Truro cemetery names the crew ‘and one more’
What came to be known as the Long Storm of 1798 arrived on the New England coast on Nov. 17. One Portsmouth, N.H. newspaper, under the headline “Violent Snow Storm,” […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
When Cranberry Fever Came to Provincetown
Thomas Lothrop was ridiculed — until his Shank Painter bogs became wildly successful
Like a favorite fishing hole or blueberry patch, one’s preferred swath of wild cranberries becomes a closely held secret. Most folks will be adding a bag or two of commercially […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
‘The Original Libby’ and His Oyster Saloon
A master of shucking and pickling who brought Wellfleets to New York
Old-time New Yorkers called him “the Original Libby.” For his 90th birthday, a 1904 newspaper profile noted that he was “the pioneer dispenser of Boston imported lobsters, a master in […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The Enduring Mystery of Capt. Bush and the Harriet Neal
A sensational case that divided Provincetown
In November 1857, word reached Provincetown that the schooner E. Nickerson was missing and presumed lost with all on board. Built at Essex in 1850 and previously enrolled at Barnstable, […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The Freemans of San Francisco and Provincetown
Simple markers belie the dramatic tale of a seafaring family’s adventures, misfortunes, and resilience
The name Freeman looms large in the annals of Cape Cod history. In 1637, Edmund Freeman (1596-1682) was a founder of Sandwich, the Cape’s first town, and later became prominent […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Remembering the Wreck of the Jason
The awful night in December 1893 when 26 mariners died on Truro’s back shore
The story of the wreck of the British ship Jason in December 1893 is one that serves as a dramatic reminder that the history of Cape Cod is inextricably linked […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Finding His Marbles: The Art of Oliver H. Linnell
Only a few of his distinctive headstones have been inventoried
Even on an overcast day in Truro’s Pine Grove Cemetery, a small marble headstone glows with an other-worldly presence. A beautifully rendered hand clutching a simple flower points downward to […]
