Salt works once were a common sight along Cape Cod shores. Today, a replica of a salt works sits on the grounds of the Aptucxet Trading Post in Bourne. Salt was in constant demand for colonists who came to the new world from England in the 1600s. It was mainly used to preserve food, and the colonists got much of their supply of salt from England. But they wanted to figure out how to make it themselves. Initially, they tried filling cast-iron kettles with water. “They’d build a fire under it, and it really was the beginnings of providing salt for the colonists,” said Marth Beth Ellis, a volunteer at Aptucxet. “It would take a great deal of time for the water to evaporate, and it would leave crystals of salt all along the inside of that kettle. And they would have to scrape it off, and the result was not a lot of salt.” The process also used up a lot of valuable lumber. By the 1770s, the colonists were fighting for their independence from the Crown. They also wanted to break their

Cape Cod Salt Works: Harnessing Renewable Energy in the 19th Century

Nowadays, the shoreline along Pleasant Bay in Orleans features is dotted with large private homes, many on stately bluffs overlooking the water. But years ago those shores were home to numerous summer camps for boys and girls – some of the first of their kind in the country. One in particular – Camp Quanset – was started in 1905 by a local woman named Mary Hammatt. “She did it as a way to create a playgroup for her daughter,” said Jill Klein, who attended Camp Quanset from age 8 to 16 and later became a camp counselor. Klein is a college professor and Interim Dean at American University in Washington, and spends time during the summer at her home in East Orleans. “The property that the Hammatts owned was vast and right on the Bay, and over the years they built the cabins and created a rigorous sailing program,” said Klein. The cabins had names like Windward, Bunker Hill, and Chin-Chin. There was riding, archery, tennis, and singing. And everybody participated, regardless of their

Remembering One Of The Country's Oldest Summer Camps 

In the 1830s, silk was all the rage in fashion. And Nantucket decided to get in on the action.

Nantucket Tries Its Hand at Silk Production

Say the phrase “Cape Cod house,” and most people picture a quaint, grey-shingled cottage. But deep in the woods of Wellfleet, a group of outliers defy that stereotype. These are modern homes built by a group of bohemian designers who gravitated to the area in the 1930s and 40s and pioneered the school of modern architecture. Several of these houses have been restored by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, which offers tours of the homes during summer. “A group of American self-taught architects came to Wellfleet and started homesteading and building their own version of modern architecture,” said Peter McMahon, who founded the Cape Cod Modern House Trust in 2006. “They hadn’t gone to architecture school, so this was sort of like a naïve version of modern architecture that they had seen in Europe.” These American designers became friends with a group of European designers who were emigrating to America during the run-up to World War Two – people like Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and

Cape Cod's Restored Modern Houses Recall A Golden Age Of Architecture

The Cape Cod Melody Tent begins its summer season in mid-June. Most people think of the Melody Tent as a summer music venue, but it started out nearly 70 years ago in a different location. The idea originated with British actress Gertrude Lawrence, who spent a lot of time on the Cape with her husband Richard Aldrich.

The Six-Decade Legacy of the Cape Cod Melody Tent 

The Sandwich Glass Museum is presenting a new exhibit called ‘Remember Me-Stories Engraved in Glass’ - a collection of glass items that the engravers and cutters at the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company made for their friends and family. “The stories are the artistry of the glass, the givers of the gift and the recipients of the gift,” said Katharine Campbell, the museum’s Executive Director. The Boston and Sandwich Glass Company was founded in 1825 by Deming Jarvis, a glass importer/exporter from Boston. He chose Sandwich because of its location – you could easily get from there to Boston by water. It also had marsh grass, which was used for packing to cut down on costs. And at that time, the Cape was very wooded, which offered a built-in fuel source. During its heyday, the company was one of the world’s largest glass producers - employing over 500 people. The factory originally produced a variety of everyday items. “This is back before plastic. So while we have some very beautiful

Museum Exhibit Reveals Personal Stories Etched In Glass 

Whether you live on Cape Cod year-round or visit during summer, Route 6 is a part of daily life. Most of us use it to get pretty much anywhere of any distance on this small peninsula. It’s so baked into the DNA of the place that it’s hard to imagine a time before summer traffic jams, before the familiar artery we so heavily rely on today.

Tracing the Origins of Route 6, Cape Cod's Main Transportation Artery

The Plummer House in New Bedford is one of the latest restoration projects to be undertaken by the Waterfront Historic Area League, or WHALE, an organization focused on preserving New Bedford’s architectural heritage.

Restoring The Plummer House In New Bedford

The newly opened Martha’s Vineyard Museum sits on a bluff with stunning views of Vineyard Haven harbor. It’s a renovated structure with an interesting past. “The original property was commissioned to be built as a marine hospital by the Coast Guard in 1895, and it operated as a marine hospital for a number of years,” said Katy Fuller, the Museum’s Director of Operations. “And then once the Cape Cod Canal got built, it wasn’t as necessary and needed any more. So it dwindled in use, and by the 60s, the Coast Guard sold it. It went through a number of owners for a few years until the St. Pierre family purchased it and operated it first as a sleep-away camp in the summer for island kids, and then later as just a day camp.” Eventually, the original building fell into disrepair and was mostly hidden from view and forgotten. “There was shrubbery, arbor vitae’s. Trees had just grown up in front of the terrace. No one knew it was here,” Fuller said. When the property came on the market in 2011,

The Martha's Vineyard Museum Re-Opens At A New Location

Mayflower II

The Mayflower II is currently undergoing a full-scale restoration at the DuPont Shipyard in Mystic, Connecticut. It’s a replica of the merchant ship that brought the Pilgrims first to Provincetown and then to Plymouth in 1620 - a now-historic event that was completely unremarkable at the time. “This is just cargo. The only good thing about this cargo is it was self-loading cargo,” said Whit Perry, Director of Maritime Preservation at Plimoth Plantation. The original Mayflower was sold for scrap in 1624. Many years later, a man named Warwick Charlton was returning to England after serving in World War Two, and he began reading “Of Plimoth Plantation” by William Bradford, the definitive account of the Pilgrims. “He formed a private company to build this reproduction and give it as a gift of appreciation to America for America’s help during World War Two,” said Perry. There are no surviving plans for the original Mayflower, so historians relied on their general knowledge of vessels from

After 60 Years, Mayflower II Undergoes a Full-Scale Restoration

Hidden History focuses on lesser-known historic events, places and people from around Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the South Coast. You can hear Hidden History on WCAI during every other Monday during Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

The Nantucket Historical Association recently added an unusual item to its map collection: an embossed outline map of Nantucket, tucked in the back of the 1841 Annual Report of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, now known as the Perkins School for the Blind. “It seems that the head of the school, Dr. Samuel Howe, when he founded the school, or was one of the co-founders of the school, he was interested in building a library for his students, and there were not many tactile books available for the blind at this point in time,” said Amelia Holmes, Associate Director of the Historical Association’s Research Library. “And so he was interested in increasing not just educational texts but leisure texts as well that they could read in their own free time.” The Braille method was being developed in France at the time, but it wasn’t well-known in 1841. So Dr. Howe developed his own method of tactile type, known as “Boston Line Type,” that could fit twice as much

Nantucket Historical Association Acquires a Thank-You Gift from the 1840s 

Just north of Route 6-A in West Barnstable, a narrow path runs through a nature preserve to the edge of what looks like a pond. It’s actually the flooded clay pit from the West Barnstable Brick Company, the ruins of which lie just out of view on the opposite side.

Melting Glaciers Brought Brick Making to West Barnstable 

Just off route 6A in Yarmouth Port sits a former Universalist Meeting House called Strawberry Hill, built in 1836. It was converted into a private residence, and is now on the market. What makes the property so unique is the legacy of its most recent owners, world-renowned set designers Herbert Senn and Helen Pond. “They’re very, very well-known throughout the theatrical world, both on Broadway in New York, and Boston, Houston, Texas, and as far as Moscow in Russia,” said Lee Marchildon, the real estate agent handling the sale. He’s lived in Yarmouth Port for 48 years, and knew Herb and Helen well. They spent 40 years designing sets for the Cape Playhouse in Dennis. “And it was not uncommon for them, when the curtain would open they’d get a standing ovation and tremendous applause just from the set,” said Marchildon. The couple bought Strawberry Hill in 1973, and used their considerable talents as set designers to transform the building’s interior. Their living space was the section of

Set Designers’ Vision Infuses Former Meeting House-Turned Private Residence

WCAI has operated from a former sea captain's house in Woods Hole since the station’s founding in 2000.

From A Sea Captain's House To A Public Radio Station - The Story Of WCAI's Home Base

The Cape Cod musical group, the Solstice Singers, has been performing for over a quarter century. They sing mainly medieval and Renaissance songs, complemented by drama, dance, poetry and period costumes.

Solstice Singers Perform Medieval Music For The Holidays

Cape Cod’s fire towers –like the one at Howlands Park Hill in Falmouth - have played a major role in helping to detect fires for over a century – and today they’re used in much the same as they always have been.

Cape Cod Fire Towers: Still Standing Watch After More Than A Century 

Later this week, most of us will sit down to a Thanksgiving meal, just as the Pilgrims’ did after their first year in Plymouth. But Thanksgiving as we know it today is much different from the one the Pilgrims celebrated almost 400 years ago. Plimoth Plantation offers living history re-creations of that period in American history. One of their missions is to educate visitors about how the first Thanksgiving really happened. “For one thing, the first Thanksgiving was three days long,” said Kathleen Wall, a Foodways Associate at Plimoth Plantation. And it most likely occurred in late September or early October. The day that came to be known as Thanksgiving didn’t become a national holiday until 1863, under President Abraham Lincoln. “The Pilgrims are actually an afterthought,” said Wall. “First, there’s Thanksgiving to celebrate the nation together. And remember, Abraham Lincoln is President during the Civil War, so the nation is not together. And this becomes in some ways a northern

At Plimoth Plantation, Shedding Light On The First Thanksgiving

A pre-Halloween event in Falmouth called ‘A Night with the Watchman’ presents local history with a lighthearted twist. It’s held at the Dr. Francis Wicks House, built in 1790 and acquired by the Falmouth Historical Society in 1930. “It’s a sneaky way of getting historic education about the town out,” said Tamsen George, President of the Falmouth Historical Society. “In the parlor we will have the poisoner who was from Cataumet who poisoned 32 people and was captured in 1941. And she’ll talk about it.” Prior to the event, which attracts a few hundred people each year, local volunteer actors rehearse scripted scenes they’ll act out in different rooms of the house. The scenes are fictional, but they’re derived from real people and events in Falmouth history. Each is presented with tongue-in-cheek humor, like a scene in the doctor’s office dealing with smallpox inoculation. “And we will say ‘Well, the modern innovation is to use an inoculation with cow pox.’ And the patient is very alarmed

Falmouth Presents History With A Halloween Twist

Dennis Moviegoers

The mural at the Cape Cinema movie theater is one of the Cape’s largest, most unusual works of art. The Cape Cinema opened in June, 1930. It was built by Raymond Moore, who had established the Cape Playhouse in 1926, then decided to build a movie theater nearby.

An Art Deco Masterpiece Entrances Dennis Moviegoers

244 years ago, on the morning of September 27 th , 1774, 1,500 Cape Cod residents gathered at the Old Colonial Courthouse in Barnstable. The protesters were upset about new, punitive laws the British had imposed shortly after the Boston Tea Party.

Re-Affirming Cape Cod's Independence Day

Hidden History on WCAI

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