WELLFLEET

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WELLFLEET JEWEL ON THE CAPE by Nea Colton
D'Amelio paintings by George Yater 1958 The
Churches of Cape Cod story and paintings by
George Yater 1960
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WELLFLEET JEWEL ON THE CAPE by Nea Colton
D'Amelio paintings by George Yater Wellfleet has
always been a very special possession among
people who know Cape Cod. Lacking the elderly
quaintness of the Barnstable area, the
county-seat crush of Hyannis, and the milling
Bohemia of Provincetown, it has an aura of its
own. The aura is compounded of the sea, privacy,
and the sand roads and freshwater ponds of the
inner Cape. The big highway adjacent to Wellfleet
is insurance that things will remain as pleasant
as they werefor a time, at leastfor it carries
cars past town in the mad scramble for
Provincetown or the mad scramble to get away from
it and leaves Wellfleet in blissful peace and
isolation. Well, relatively, anyway. No Cape Cod
town knows a lot of peace and isolation in the
summer. The traffic in early summer across the
bridge at Bourne, where most motorists enter the
Cape, is something to see. Somehow the towns of
the Cape manage to swallow the visitors but
around mid-morning of any day you get the full
flavor of the Cape at any post office and nearby
stores. It's a little like a Marx Brothers
comedy the mob jostling itself in the scramble
for letters, the New York papers, and quinine
water. Wellfleet is no exception during the
morning and some of the afternoon hours, but most
of the time Wellfleet can hide
Cahoons Hollow on the Back Shore Its summer
visitors in the profusion of sand roads that curl
in and around the town between the Atlantic side
and the Bay side. These sand roads are a
remarkable experience for visitors. When you meet
another car, you have to nuzzle your car up in
the bushes to let the other pass. A newcomer is
virtually Capn Higgins Spit-and-Chatter Club
and the Morning Glory House
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Wellfleet's oyster boats ? certain of getting
lost, for roads branch off to left and right
constantly and there is no way of knowing what to
do when searching for friends or your own
house. It is along these roads that you find the
little jewels of the Wellfleet wildsthe ponds,
Gull, Slough, Long and others, all deep, clear
and cool, some of the best swimming holes in the
world. They are sheltered from sea winds, are
remarkably private, have a wonderful woodsy
aroma, and occasionally have a very modern house
among the more traditional ones peeking from the
trees. But the Atlantic at Wellfleet is also
marvelous. Along the seemingly endless miles of
sand the breakers come roaring in, knocking life
and excitement and vigor into every tired
vacationer who comes there. And here, too, is
privacy, for you can walk an hour or more in
either direction and find only a swimmer or two
and the gulls as the sole inhabitants of a world
of sky and ocean. For all the beauty of Wellfleet
in summer, it is early autumn that finds the town
at its loveliest. The foliage becomes
wine-colored, accented with the brilliance of
goldenrod and the brown of bayberry. The beach
plum leaves stay green and the red fruit of hog
cranberries form a covering carpet. Best of all,
the Cape Cod air, always bright, seems to take on
a brilliance in fall. The human tide of the Cape
ebbs in this season as the crowds of reluctant
vacationers board up the cottages and head back
across the bridge at Bourne. They give way to
flocks of migrating birds, a few dedicated
striped bass fishermen who expect better luck in
September than in July, and rabbits, deer, and
fiddler crabs, all of whom are too shy to be much
in evidence during summer. Wellfleet, you might
say, becomes more natural in fall. You can get on
more intimate terms with gulls and the ocean. You
can get the mail more easily in town. You can
join the little band of devotees who proclaim the
town in all seasons, but especially in this one. 
                                                 
        Gulls at Indian Neck-?
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The Churches of Cape Cod story and paintings by
George Yater There are any number of reasons for
going to Cape Cod besides the obvious onethe
miles and miles of ocean and bay that lure
thousands in the summertime and hold them
immersed in sunshine and salt water until the
nights turn nippy and the school bell rings. For
exampleand these are things to do in the fall
when the Cape comes into its own, when you don't
have to share it with a horde from elsewhereyou
can roam about in search of old houses, of which
the Cape has its share of the finest. Or you can
tramp the long Atlantic beach from Nauset to
Provincetown, following a route Thoreau saw over
a century ago. Or you can drive about in search
of inns. Or you can search out the churches . .
. Cape Cod has sheltered and nurtured more
beautiful and historic churches than any
comparable stretch of land in the country. Since
the earliest days of the Cape these churches,
which were and still are known as "meeting
houses," have served to chart the way for the
voyages of sailors at sea and the salvation of
souls on land. In the old days, the fifteen towns
of Cape Cod supported thirteen parishes of the
Congregational Church alone. Today, of course,
there are many churches of many faiths on the
Cape,
Sandwich Congregational Church. On the village
green of the Cape's most venerable town, this
church, 110 years old, is dominated by a graceful
spire of the Christopher Wren type, one of the
most beautiful on Cape Cod. In its early years,
this church had two ministers, neither of them
ordained, and each with his own following, like
rival sopranos in an opera company. When Sunday
came, they would count the congregation to' see
who had attracted the most fans and the winner
would have the right to preach the sermon.
Friends Meeting House. This is the oldest Quaker
meeting house in America. It stands atop Spring
Hill near East Sandwich and was established in
1658. Puritans were hard on Quakers, whose
doctrine they regarded as corrupt and damnable,
and whom they thrashed and plundered regularly.
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but our purpose here is to guide the .visitor to
a few of the older ones, those which stem from
the "golden age" of New England architecture, and
to sketch a little history. For the most part, as
our map shows, the route follows the shoresas
little as possible of the Mid-cape Highway that
takes you fast but shows you little. It was on
the shores, naturally, that the settlers lived
and built their churches, not among the barrens
of the inner Cape where the new highway
runs. Thus, by taking the old roads we get the
churches and much else that is the best of Cape
Codits charming towns, the inns, the antique
shops, and the fine flashes of water at many
turns. Our route is roughly clockwise6-A on the
north side and 28 on the south these link the
villages and the splendid history of Cape
Cod. One paragraph of this history concerns Dr.
Abner Hersey, an eccentric physician whose
practice was the whole of the
Dennis Congregational Church (lower left,
opposite). Some of America's oldest graveyards
are situated on Cape Cod, and the bones of many
an old sea captain rest here in the churchyard of
the Congregational Church in Dennis. Nearby is
another cemetery, this one without stones at all.
A simple inscription on a granite slab reads
"Burial Ground of the Nobscusset Tribe of Indians
of which Tribe Mashantampaine was Chief." The
famed Cape Playhouse, a top-notch summer theater,
was converted from the old Nobscusset Meeting
House which had served as a school-house,
tinshop, slaughterhouse, blacksmith shop and
garage.
Bell Meeting House (lower right, opposite). This
church in Truro got its name from the fact that
it houses one of the Paul Revere bells on the
Cape. It was built in 1827 on a site known as the
"Hill of Storms" where a Congregational Church
had been built in 1709. Truro has had many
churches in its past. It was once big enough to
support four Congregational churches during the
prosperous middle 1800s when fishing vessels and
packing sheds lined the harbor. After many lean
years, interest in the old Bell Meeting House has
been rekindled and people in this part of the
Cape are now working to preserve and restore it.
West Parish Meeting House (shown above). This
church in the village of West Barnstable is now
243 years old, the oldest Congregational Church
on Cape Cod. It bespeaks age in other ways. The
communion service includes a pewter flagon
brought by church members from England in 1634,
and the call to service is sounded from the
square bell tower by one of the four Paul Revere
bells now on the Cape. The church society traces
its existence right back to the Congregational
Church of Southwalk, London, in 1616.
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Church of the Redeemer (top left). This
Universalist Church in Provincetown is sometimes
called "The Church that Whaling Built." It was
built in 1847 when Provincetown was rich from
whales and fish and is considered the most
beautiful building of its kind on the Cape. Its
"Christopher Wren" tower certainly supports the
opinion. A handsome chandelier of Sandwich glass
hangs from the ceiling long-handled collection
boxes are still in use and the communion service
contains pieces by Paul Revere. Its founders were
inspired by the writings of John Murray,
preferring his liberal ideas to the old Puritan
ways.
Mashpee Indian Church (top right). Built in 1684,
this is the oldest church building on Cape Cod.
It is situated on land that was part of a
fifty-square-mile tract secured by a
conscientious white man named Richard Bourne for
the Mashpee Indians whose homelands were being
taken from them in exchange for brass kettles.
Bourne became minister of their first meeting
house which was erected in the 1660s. When war
broke out between white and Indian, the Mashpees
refused to fight the whites. Some of their
descendants still come to service in this old
building which is now sadly in need of repair.
Visitors are welcome.
Congregational Church, Falmouth (show below).
This church was built in 1796 and half a century
later was- rolled across the street to its
present site. In its steeple hangs another Paul
Revere bell, inscribed with this cheerful note
"The Living to Church I Call, and to the Grave I
Summon All." Well, anyway, it's a pleasant spot
on the largest village green on Cape Cod.
Flanking the church building on all sides are the
fine homes of old sea captains, many with widow's
walks on top.
Cape. The only doctor around, he covered his
territory by horse and buggy, and with the
considerable money he made he bought good land
which he turned into prosperous farms. His will
granted the proceeds of the farms to the Cape's
thirteen Congregational parishes, in such
proportion as each parish had used his medical
services. Three deacons from each parish (the
thirty-nine were known as the "Assembly of.
Saints") were appointed to manage the estate and
"to abide three days each year at the tavern in
Barnstable" at the expense of the departed. The
tavern proved so much fun that much of the
managing had to do with expense accounts. The
income is gone now, much to the disgust of Dr.
Hersey's ghost, but the churches remain in all
their handsomeness as an excellent reason for
visiting Cape Cod in this or any other season.