TRURO — Few took notice of the unimposing whitewashed cottage with a red roof and green shutters when it was completed in May 1930. The one-room structure, built on land […]
History
THAT WAS THEN
Launching of Steamer Provincetown
From the June 24, 1920 issue of the Provincetown Advocate, selected and edited by Kaimi Rose Lum Groton, Conn, June 19 — With water from the famous Pilgrim Spring, one […]
HISTORY
Noogaahz Wixon Wants You to Know Who the Nauset Are
A collection of artifacts is becoming a museum and community space in Brewster
BREWSTER — Researching the history of the Nauset people for his 2024 history-memoir, After Aspinet, made Noogaahz Wixon feel like he was walking through a ghost town. Learning about colonial […]
THE BURREN NOTEBOOK
Isn’t That Interesting?
Storytelling in a place where the natural, human, and divine worlds co-exist
I believe in the fairies. I do. It doesn’t hurt that science these days is talking about parallel universes and worm holes, and that particles are neither here nor there […]
HISTORY
How 2013 Closing of Provincetown High School Still Echoes Today
Tipping point came fast for the ‘heart of the community’
PROVINCETOWN — The four towns of the Nauset Regional School District — Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster — are embarking this year on a state-supported study of whether two or […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Icebound, in Stereoscope
The Arctic freeze of 1875 and G.H. Nickerson’s ‘views’
The oldest of Cape Cod’s old-timers could not remember when it had been colder or when more ice had piled up in the harbors. January 1875 had begun seasonably enough. […]
HISTORY REDUX
Unpacking the Past at the Provincetown Museum
A curator works to uncover the stories behind the stuff
For weeks, Samuel Tager and a small team have been unwrapping, sorting, and cataloguing a vast collection of Provincetown memorabilia donated to the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum by Sal […]
WASHASHORES
The Last of Sam Bellamy’s Pirate Crew
Nine pirates survived the wrecks of the Whydah and Mary Anne; six were executed
It was “The End of Piracy,” wrote Cotton Mather, the Puritan minister, owner of enslaved people, revolutionary, and witch-hunter who is often called the “grandfather of Evangelicalism,” in a 1717 […]
HAWKWATCH
Irma Penniman, Keeper of the Gate
How a sea captain’s granddaughter who grew up in Eastham saved America’s hawks
In the early 1900s, a slaughter took place every fall in the mountains above Drehersville, Pa. at the foot of Blue Mountain, a ridge of the Appalachians in the eastern […]
1902
Charles Ayling Recalls Taking a Drive
Steaming across the Outer Cape in one of ‘those funny horseless things’
Charles Ayling, whose wealthy family owned homes in Chestnut Hill and Centerville, was 27 when he decided he would “experiment with something that had been talked about and seen occasionally: […]
1936
How the Sea Turned a Bountiful Fishing Colony Into a Shoal
Watching 100 years of erosion at Billingsgate Island
WELLFLEET — “Ocean Conquers Once Prosperous Island,” blared the headline in the New Bedford Standard-Times on Feb. 16, 1936. “High Tide Now Covers Island.” It was news, but it had […]
REFUGE
Sea Rescues, Spy Glasses, and Skinny-Dipping
Navigating the history of the Wellfleet Beachcomber
The Cape Cod Oracle of Thursday, March 17, 1988 included a letter to the editor from Lawrence H. Gallagher, the younger brother of Russell Gallagher. In 1953, Russell had purchased […]
1951
The Washashore Fabulist
Peter Hunt was an evangelist for the decorative arts. He was also a delightful liar.
One of Provincetown’s most sought-after mid-century tastemakers, Peter Hunt seemed to leave town as mysteriously as he had appeared. At least that’s what the Oct. 18, 1951 installment of the […]
QUIRKS AND CRACKS
That’ll Be ‘Mrs. Jazz Garters’ to You
A collection of nicknames is its own kind of history
Lisa King, a local Provincetown historian who describes herself as a “West-End girl,” grew up hearing stories full of townspeople remembered by their nicknames. Some were straightforward references to people’s […]
1986
In Search of The Rushes
A gay travel time capsule from the pre-internet era
Is it possible to feel nostalgia for a place you’ve never been? Last year, my husband found a poster for a long-shuttered Provincetown guesthouse called The Rushes in an online […]
