CapeLinks Cape Cod Massachusetts
articles & blogs
-
Floral Splendor
Have you ever noticed that flowers look gayer on the Cape than they do on the mainland? They seem to possess a sparkle and color more vivid than flowers unfortunate enough to grow elsewhere. -
Flag of the Free
Some persons have the idea that when the Mayflower set sail from Old Plymouth, she flew from one of her mastheads a flag or a pennant with the inscription, “Freedom of Worship for All.”… -
Mayflowers
The most celebrated flower of Cape Cod and Plymouth is the little mayflower. -
Bananas Came First To Cape
Once upon a time every man and boy in Wellfleet was a whaler. Boys as young as ten began going to sea on the old whaling vessels with their fathers. Both whales and oysters made Wellfleet prosper. -
The Forest Primeval
When the explorer Champlain, and later John Smith, explored the coast of Cape Cod, and when Captain Myles Standish first landed at Provincetown in November of the year 1620, much of the land was covered… -
The Great Plague
The reason the Pilgrims met no Indians aside from Samoset during the early days of their settlement was that in 1617, three years before the Pilgrims arrived, a terrible plague had spread from a Maine… -
Banking up Cape Cellars
In past times Cape Cod houses had no cellar beneath their main body. That left part of the house exposed below to the open air. When cold weather was seen coming, when leaves began turning and apples… -
Real Bores!
This is a little dissertation on one of Cape Cod’s clams worst foes the snail, more particularly the kind called the boring snail or whelk.… -
Cape Shipwrecks & Wrecking
The Cape has been the scene of many shipwrecks. Oftimes, a ship would run aground on the constantly shifting sand bars found off the Cape. Sometimes the ships were lured into coming near shore by the… -
Blueberry Paint
The strangely beautiful silver look to the shingles of an old Cape Cod house may sometimes be used as a measurement of its comparative age. -
Sperm Whales
Back in the days of whaling, the sperm whale yielded the finest and most valuable oil. The sperm whale, a toothed whale, has teeth, but only in the lower jaw. -
The Wreck of the Franklin
On the first day of March, 1849, the full-rigged ship Franklin struck and foundered near Newcomb’s Hollow, on the ocean side of Wellfleet. The Franklin was en route from Deal, England,… -
Not A Clam At All
Everyone who has strolled on a Cape Cod beach for any distance has seen the long, black shells which so-called razor clams once occupied. The shells are usually paired, so that they can be closed together,… -
All But One
Thomas William Nye of New Bedford, our famed whaling city, was the only person out of 223 aboard the ship John Rutledge who survived when she hit an iceberg in the Atlantic and sank. -
Ship’s Medicine Chest
All captains took aboard medicine chests filled with bottles of strange concoctions. Jamaica Ginger and Rhubarb Syrup were the usual dose for a stomach ache. -
Copper Plates In His Ears
When Gosnold, touring the eastern side of Cape Cod on his first voyage here, landed at what he named… -
Fish and Farm
Early New England prospered in two main endeavors of her hard colonial days. Ashore, her principal occupation was agriculture. Afloat, it was fishing. -
The Romantic Past
For centuries the rendezvous of pirates, freebooters, fishermen, smugglers, adventurers of all nations, have contributed to Provincetown’s romantic past. -
The Kettle Mystery
When the Pilgrims’ little band of surveyors went ashore from the Mayflower to look over the new land and seek a good place to live, they discovered in a certain spot the remains of a house,… -
No Wonder the Sea is Salty!
In just one gallon of seawater there is a quarter pound of total salts in solution. A gallon of seawater, by the way, tips the scales at about eight and a quarter pounds. -
How to Walk In Cape Cod Sand
“I was told,” wrote Nat Willis, the poet who visited the Cape in 1849, “that the Cape people have a peculiar step for the sand, laying down the flat of the while foot and bending the… -
Message in Bottle Creates Sea Mystery
Almost a century ago local papers reported that “A Spanish letter in a tightly corked bottle was found on South Beach, Katama, by some summer guests.” It read: -
Bounce the Bow-Line
We may think that navigation today is much more complicated than it was in the days of the Pilgrims and of the clipper… -
Cape Cod’s Kettle Holes
Behind from the beaches and salt marshes which we find on the Bay side of Cape Cod, there is a jumble of low, rounded hillocks which rise gently from the almost level moorlands. -
They Lived Dangerously
The early settlers of Massachusetts lived in great tension. They lived dangerously, like people in a state of war. -
Broken in Two Off Cape Cod
Writing in The Mysterious Sea, Ferdinand C. Lane says: -
They Made Out Hunkey Dory
Here’s an old interesting commercial fishing story. On December 17, 1903, two Portuguese trawlers of Provincetown had a chilling if not thrilling experience. -
Fatal Collision Off Cape Cod
This is the short, sad tale of a collision between a steamer and a schooner off Cape Cod just over a century and a half ago. -
A Certified Sea Serpent
From Zion’s Herald, Boston, Aug. 2, 1826 we get this interesting account of a sea monster sighting off Cape Cod: -
Chatham Centuries Ago
Deyo’s History of Barnstable County is full of facts, both large and small, which enable the modern reader to correctly interpret and understand life on Cape Cod a century and more ago.… -
Cape Half Houses
For purely economic reasons, a newly married couple usually built a half a house, with two front windows, a door to one side of the windows, and a chimney behind the door. -
Volcanoes in Massachusetts?
Whoever heard of a red-hot volcano in Massachusetts? You would have hard work to find one; in fact, you could not find one today. Yet, we are told by geologists that once upon a time active volcanoes… -
A Young Pirate Sailed on the Whydah
Members of Barry Clifford’s team have identified the partial remains of the youngest known pirate to sail U.S. waters, a 9-year-old boy who eagerly joined -
It Got Their Goats
In 1851 the Vineyard Gazette, of Martha’s Vineyard, reported in its May 23 issue, that: -
Barnacle Bill The Sailor
The hero of the popular song by that title is entirely a myth, but barnacles are no myth. Anyone who has ever tried to scrape them from the bottom of a boat knows they are a very stubborn fact. -
The John Maho
The John Maho was a ship which over a century and a half ago nearly met her doom off Chatham near Monomoy. On November 25, 1851, while on the Handkerchief Shoals, she took on a northeast gale… -
Sulphur Salvaged From Canal Cargo
On May 5, 1951, despite all the excellent precautions which are taken by Cape Cod Canal officers… -
Plum Duff, A Sea-Going Dessert
Most landlubbers would turn pale at the thought of eating plum duff. No wonder! It was the sea-going dessert on whalers, clippers, and other long-distance sailing vessels, and a far cry from the delicious… -
Provincetown Captain Jumped Overboard
Or did he? Tongues wagged and gossip galore went about the Town of Provincetown when the schooner, Harriet Neal, Captain Pettingell in command, arrived in November, 1851, at Provincetown, with… -
A Whale of a Breakfast
In the summer of 1951, a whale managed to get himself into one of the fishing traps in the harbor in the lee of Long Point at Provincetown. -
Oldest Street In the U.S.
It is said that the oldest street in the United States is Leyden Street, in Plymouth Massachusetts. This claim may be open to question, but certainly Leyden Street is one of the very oldest. -
Curious Facts About the Tides
Visitor: “I have always been told that the tides come an hour later each day, but from my observation it would appear that this is not always so. Can you tell me about this? Also, I am… -
Forest Buried Under Cape End
According to Gustavus Swift Paine, genealogist and Cape historian, the following may be read in a rare old volume, The American Geography, by Jedediah Morse, published in London in 1794. -
Whaler of Dennis
When Dennis was known as the East Parish of Yarmouth (which was the case up to 1793), one of its foremost inhabitants was a certain Captain Ichabod Paddock. -
Beach Grass
Many types of beach grass and dune plants are found along the sandy shores of Cape Cod. Common beach grass helps protect the sandy hills or dunes against erosion. Some “dune grass” is planted… -
1,000 Year Old Indian Murder
In the spring of 1966, a 1000 year old murder was discovered through an archeological trip by three Harvard students. Two skeletons were… -
Cape Cod Leather Throats
Richardson Wright, a retired editor of House and Garden, once wrote in a Cape paper: -
Bog Shoes for Horses
Strange how some things so common not so long ago have become antiques of today. Take, for example, the big bog shoes that used to be worn by horses that were employed in gathering -
A Black Eye for Blackbirds
Since the men of the Cape who did not follow the sea did farm the land, it was important to them that the corn they planted should have a chance to grow and not be eaten and destroyed by birds. -
Cape Cod Ma vs Newport RI
According to Google Trends Cape Cod MA lags far behind Newport RI…
Page 4 of 11 pages « First < 2 3 4 5 6 > Last »
