WELLFLEET — Above Marconi Beach, passersby may come across a strange concrete object nudged into the umber dunes, entirely out of place against its pristine natural backdrop. Every morning at […]
History
SEAFARING FREEDOM
In Whaling, Blacks Had Power, at Least When at Sea
Stevenson and Shorey, who sailed out of Provincetown, became whaling captains
PROVINCETOWN — Whaling was a difficult and dangerous way to make a living and generally not a very profitable one for members of the crews, who had to face typhoons […]
SEAFARING FREEDOM
In Whaling, Blacks Had Power, at Least When at Sea
Stevenson and Shorey, who sailed out of Provincetown, became whaling captains
PROVINCETOWN — Whaling was a difficult and dangerous way to make a living and generally not a very profitable one for members of the crews, who had to face typhoons […]
OBJECT LESSONS
A Faking Box Full of Seafaring History
The tool that toed the line for rescues
Some objects at the Eastham Historical Society’s Schoolhouse Museum are oddly familiar — antique versions of things we use now. Others, like the faking box, are illegible to contemporary eyes, […]
ICONS
Remembering the Willow on West Main Street
A tree that ‘was bigger than all of us’ was lost in the December storm
WELLFLEET — The weeping willow on the corner of West Main Street, which rose above adjacent white clapboard houses, dangled its green catkins over the road’s sharp turn, and endured […]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Here’s Looking at You
“Yesterday,” sang the young Paul McCartney, “all my troubles seemed so far away.” According to most sources, the Beatles’ song is the most covered in history, with more than 2,000 […]
1961
The Province Lands’ Narrow Escape
Beech Forest, Herring Cove, and the West End Moors were slated for development
The leasing contest for eight dune shacks in the Cape Cod National Seashore — and the National Park Service’s eviction of Sal Del Deo, 95, and Janet Armstrong, 71, from […]
1927
Provincetown Never Forgets the S-4
When the town became the center of the world
“The news ran like fire through the town. The sinking of the S-4 blotted out all other interests. There was no one who could think of anything else. It was […]
1620
From ‘Of Patuxet’
From a hilltop overlooking the harbor the open ocean stretched across the horizon beyond two long arms of land reaching out, grabbing the sound from opposite directions. The north arm […]
1859
The Butcher of Eastham
Gustavus Swift, meat magnate
On Route 6 in Eastham, across the road from Buddha Bob’s, sits a plain shingle-sided house. It’s a classic Cape house in many respects: its door faces east, it has […]
1835
Passions on the Provincetown Sidewalk
A history of kerfuffles and kibitzing
To the casual observer, Provincetown may seem an oasis of acceptance and peace, a place where one can escape the stresses of daily life. But those who live here know […]
1726
The Deed for Hector
Tucked away beside Highland Links, Truro’s golf course on the bluffs, sits the former turn-of-the-century hotel that’s now the Highland House Museum. There, a repository of local history documenting developments […]
1964
The UFO in Truro
An artist’s vision shapes a movement
If you’ve driven down Route 6 from Truro to Provincetown, you’ve experienced that breathtaking moment when Cape Cod Bay emerges all at once and the dunes raise their sandy heads […]
1903
The Marconi Mythology
On a blustery morning in late November, filmmaker and artist Tinja Ruusuvuori climbed over a fence at the ruins of the Marconi wireless station in South Wellfleet to fly a […]
1990
The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: The ’90s
The photographs, thousands of them, all make the same assertion: It was better back then. The young were younger, happiness was happier, beauty more beautiful. The best of times. “If […]
