2018 - October 29th - Yarmouth & Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts - countryside stops

When in Provincetown, we think the place to stay is The White Porch Inn B&B! It is a lovely house with each room decorated in it's own unique fashion. Dale is the concierge, host, manager and all-round Mr. Knowledgeable! He is part of the Ptown (as the locals call Provincetown) Chamber of Commerce and takes great pride in the town. Dale told us much of the Pilgrim history from their first landing here in Ptown to their settlement in Plymouth. It was all so interesting! Our room had a fireplace and all the comfortable amenities. Visible from all parts of town is Pilgrim Monument that we stopped at last night. It really is striking from wherever you see it.

Dale cooked a wonderful breakfast which included fresh made waffles for everyone. After breakfast we wanted to stroll the town and explore whimsical Commercial Street, the.main street with unique shops and restaurants. We had seen the northern part of Commercial Street when we walked to dinner last night. Today we followed it south. These are some of the places we passed. Cute!!!

At the end of town center there was a walkway that led to Bayside Beach. The entire Atlantic Ocean coastline of Cape Cod was preserved as a National Park by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. There is even a boardwalk on the beach! Dale had told us that if we had the time to visit the Provincetown Public Library and see the Rose Dorothea. Located downtown on Commercial Street, the Library is both a literal and metaphorical center of the Provincetown community, housing nearly 40,000 items, more than 30 works of art from the Town’s Art Collection, and the Rose Dorothea Schooner model.

As a tribute to the fishermen of Provincetown and to New England’s ship-building tradition, in 1977 construction began on a half-scale model of the fishing schooner Rose Dorothea. Dedicated on June 25, 1988, the completed model spans a 66’6” length and a 12’6” beam. And the Rose Dorothea is surrounded by the books of the library in which it is housed.

Our next stop from leaving Ptown was the Nauset Lighthouse. Lighthouses are an integral part of Cape Cod history. The first lighthouse station for Eastham, known as the Nauset Beach Light Station (nicknamed The Three Sisters), was completed in 1838. Because of the encroaching cliff edge, the brick towers were replaced by three 22-foot high wooden lighthouses in 1892 and located roughly 450 feet east of where the present light now stands. In 1911, the continuously retreating shoreline made it necessary to move the lights again. One tower was moved back, put on a brick foundation, and attached to the keeper's house. The present Nauset Lighthouse is made of cast iron with a brick lining and stands 48 feet high. It was built in 1877 and was located in Chatham as a twin to the one that is there today. In 1923, the smaller wooden lighthouse in Eastham was retired, and the north tower in Chatham was dismantled, moved to Eastham, and reconstructed about 200 feet from the edge of the cliff near the relocated keeper's house. Coastal erosion continued and by 1996 it was dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. Less than 35 feet remained in November 1996 when Nauset Lighthouse was moved in one piece approximately 300 feet to a new site across the road. For the previous 73 years, the lighthouse had provided guidance to mariners traveling along the treacherous coastline of Cape Cod. In its new location, Nauset Lighthouse should be safe for another 30 years.

This is a casual day heading for Plymouth using back roads to see small sites on out-of-the-main routes. We found our way into Brewster to discover Stoney Brook and its Grist Mill. There is a natural park of sorts across the road from the Grist Mill with a stream, lovely rocks long side and in the water, a couple of small walk bridges and beautiful grassy areas along the walking path. In the stream are small fish called River Herring. They were about the size of Sardines … pretty small. The sign posted by the Department of Fish and Game warn that the River Herring are not to be picked up, touched or harvested. We had a wonderful time mulling around this area and taking in nature!

Crossing the road we took-in the Stoney Brook Grist Mill. The building was closed, so we walked around the grounds and enjoyed the Grist Mill and it's water wheel. Evidently there is not much traffic in the grassy area at this time, as when I looked down at a brown spot of leaves, it was a snake! Oh well, it's his home and we were just visiting! The Crosby mansion in Brewster is a monument to an earlier time, a time of opulence, grandeur and painstaking craftsmanship. Standing tall on a rise of land with sweeping views of Cape Cod bay, the three-story mansion is also a monument to romance. It is the legacy of a man who went west to make his fortune and returned to the cape with a bride 20 years his junior, for whom he built the mansion. He spared no expense for the three story, 35 room home overlooking the Bay. Completed in 1888, the home was named “Tawasentha”, probably after Longfellow’s poem, “Song of Hiawatha”. It was built in the grand style of Chicago’s Gold Coast Mansions and featured a 60 foot viewing tower, 15 fireplaces with imported tile, hand carved mahogany and oak walls, a parlor fashioned after one at the Palace of Versailles, an entrance duplicating one at Buckingham Palace, a two-story billiard room, marble sinks and floors in the baths, and gas lighting and heating throughout. Regretfully, no interior tour today! Traveling down the road, in the Yarmouth countryside we stopped to look at the Taylor-Bray Farm. The Taylor-Bray Farm is a rare survivor of a type of property that once characterized the agricultural north side of Cape Cod. The property consists of a house and barn built circa 1780-1820, a one time antique shop that has been converted into the caretaker's residence, a semi-subterranean farm storage structure, five recently constructed livestock sheds, and a historic marker. The area was first settled by Europeans in the late 1630s while it was still part of Plymouth colony. The farm itself was established by Richard Taylor and his wife Ruth in 1639. Sandwich, Massachusetts twined with Sandwich, Kent, England, a town well known by Sandra and Ray, was to be our next destination. Reaching Sandwich, on our list of things to see was the Sandwich Glass Museum. We decided not to take the tour but we did look around, through the windows and at some of the hand-blown glass products on display. It was a nice stop.

One of the oldest water mill sites existing in the United States today, Dexter’s Grist Mill, has Plymouth Colony Records dating back to 1640 and is in Sandwich also. The mill and mill grounds are well preserved making the area most picturesque, almost like a postcard. Dexter’s Mill sits on the dam, which creates a beautiful, large millpond. Close to Dexter Grist Mill is Hoxie House. The Hoxie House is one of the oldest, if not oldest, homes on the Cape. It reflects life in the town of Sandwich in the 17th-century. This saltbox house is named after a whaling captain who owned the house in the mid-1800s. The Hoxie House reflects early colonial construction with interesting features such as gun stock posts, pumpkin-pine Maine beams, and wide floorboards. We could only see the outside as for the season it was closed.

The land of Hoxie House is beautiful with lush grass and colorful fall trees for us!

It was such a wonderful day doing a lazy drive on back roads and country settings for seeing these marvelous places. What a variety of attractions we took-in today. Our journey ended in Plymouth, Massachusetts where we had two nights reservations at the John Carver Inn and Spa. We had great rooms and the Hearth 'n Kettle Restaurant had great food! We settled in for exploration of Plymouth tomorrow. Complete Photo Album link.