PROVINCETOWN — In 1959, a Provincetown teenager named George Van Dereck Haunstrup, more commonly known in town as Moe Van Dereck, breathed life into a storied sailboat on its last […]
History
MEMORIAL DAY 2021
The Civil War Memorial Reminds Us of Our Racist Past
We cannot change history, but we can face it to build ‘a more perfect union’
I strolled through the Gifford section of the Provincetown Cemetery recently, reading the inscriptions on headstones I found intriguing. Many of the people named on those stones are not in […]
RE-USE
Modern Business Can Co-Exist With History
‘These buildings have a story to tell’
WELLFLEET — Mac Hay was standing at the sushi bar in his restaurant, Mac’s Shack, on Duck Creek. In the quiet of a preseason day, he paused to run his […]
GALLERY
House to House on Bound Brook Island
Exploring the past on a walk in the woods
Following the roads and paths of Wellfleet’s Bound Brook Island, you’ll find hillsides covered with bearberry and stands of winterberry along the now-still tidal brook below. There are houses, too […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The Brothers Dyer: A Provincetown Family of Captains
Lives lived and lost by the sea
PROVINCETOWN — In January 1868, during the heyday of Provincetown’s whaling era, the Barnstable Patriot noted in a small item, halfway down column two on page two, that four whaling […]
LOCAL ICONS
The Town Seals of the Outer Cape
A look at our municipal iconography
This article is the first in a series on town seals. Massachusetts is finally close to changing its state flag and state seal, with its problematic image of a sword […]
HAPPENED UPON
Document Signed by Sam Adams Found
The paper also shows the 1789 tally of the county’s votes for Washington: 44
EASTHAM — The Eastham Historical Society made a rare find last month while dusting and sorting items at the 1869 Schoolhouse Museum: a document signed by Samuel Adams. “Joe [Mistretta, […]
MAYFLOWER HISTORY, PART III
The Duality of Being a Mayflower Descendant
‘Descendants feel joy and sadness about history’
PROVINCETOWN — Two things Provincetown’s Cheryl Andrews disliked as a child: history and Thanksgiving. History, she said, was “boring as dust” — with its rote memorization of dates, wars, and […]
MAYFLOWER HISTORY, PART II
For Some, It Wasn’t a Pilgrimage but Pure Hustle
John Howland’s unlikely rise from servant to patriarch
On Nov. 11, 1620, the Mayflower arrived in Provincetown Harbor. Four hundred years later, we — most of us, anyway, on the Outer Cape and all across the nation — […]
MAYFLOWER HISTORY, PART 1
For Indigenous People, a Different Kind of Mayflower Story
‘You can’t create a colony without creating people who are colonized’
PROVINCETOWN — On Nov. 11, 1620, 130-odd sea-weary Brits stepped off the Mayflower and onto Provincetown’s sandy shores — into a new world, barely inhabited and ripe with possibility. Then […]
EASTHAM 400
Indigenous Artifacts Found at 1869 Schoolhouse Museum
Rediscovered objects reveal land was ‘intensely’ inhabited 3,500 years ago
EASTHAM — While working to create a display as part of this year’s 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival on Cape Cod, volunteers at Eastham’s 1869 Schoolhouse Museum unearthed a […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Turnip Time in Eastham
The lowly crucifer and its legendary local growers
EASTHAM — As the nights chill, the leaves fall, and the holidays approach, our thoughts turn to, yes, the turnip — that ancient crucifer that has, for too long, been […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
A Gathering of Riches
The Rich Family Association, with Truro origins, numbers in the tens of thousands
TRURO — In June 1872, John Fairfield Rich, a journalist living in Ware, in central Mass., realized the fulfillment of a dream he had had a decade earlier, when he […]
OLD BUSINESS
A Campground for Camaraderie
After 71 years, Maurice’s is still a family tradition in Wellfleet
WELLFLEET — Back in 1949, Maurice and Ann Gauthier of New Bedford were in search of a better lifestyle for their growing family. They eventually found it in the woods […]
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
John Y. Newcomb, Wellfleet’s Most Famous Oysterman
Thoreau’s visit with the Rabelaisian resident of Williams Pond
Even before there was a written Wellfleet history, there were Wellfleet oysters. We know that indigenous peoples savored them raw, smoked, roasted, steamed, and dried, because of the massive shell […]
