Category Archives: Uncategorized

One of the useful things about blogging is the ability to add more information when I find it. Here are further notes on five topics: South Wellfleet Schools Valerie Scheel was kind enough to send me a copy of notes … Continue reading →

There was no “Prospect Hill” until George Washington Barker had the land surveyed and cottage lots drawn in 1892. He entitled his plan, shown here, “Plan of Prospect Hill.” Mr. Barker and his father, Isaiah Barker, purchased the land in … Continue reading →

My family had tales of Prohibition-era rum-running in Wellfleet; my mother and aunt spoke of “watching the lights over at the Old Wharf from the attic window” during the 1920s and 1930s. Another person recently interviewed laughingly spoke of the … Continue reading →

Robert Howard and his partner in the Cape Cod Bay Land Company, Edward Reed, began developing new cottage neighborhoods in Wellfleet in the late 1880s. The mackerel fishing had fallen to new lows, many Wellfleetians were moving elsewhere and had … Continue reading →

The Fire Tower in South Wellfleet on Route Six near Pilgrim Spring Road was erected in 1927. Cape Cod had been regularly threatened with damaging woodland fires, some reaching many hundreds of acres. A report in the Barnstable Patriot in … Continue reading →

My earliest childhood days in South Wellfleet were without electricity or telephone service, so I’ve been curious about when these modern devices reached Wellfleet, and how they were assimilated into the lives of the town’s citizens. There were just two … Continue reading →

When I was very young, our Prospect Hill cottage did not have electricity. Mr. Rose, the iceman, brought blocks of ice for the ice box. We had a kerosene stove. We used an outhouse. When darkness fell, the oil lamp … Continue reading →

Military operations were nothing new in South Wellfleet. In April 1917 the U.S. Navy took possession of the Marconi Station in South Wellfleet, creating the U.S. Navy Radio Station — until 1926, when the Navy de-accessioned the operation. The Navy … Continue reading →

Late in 1929 and early in 1930, a surgeon from Westchester County, New York, Dr. Oliver L. Austin, purchased a number of acres in South Wellfleet, just north of the Eastham border that is marked by Hatches Creek.  The Macpherson … Continue reading →

Wellfleet’s rich lode of shellfish is a theme constant with its fishing industry. David Wright has covered the history of shellfishing in Wellfleet in his book The Famous Beds of Wellfleet, A Shellfishing History (Wellfleet Historical Society, 2008). Shellfish became … Continue reading →