Focus on Cape Cod, New England

Cape Cod is a sandy peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic Ocean like a crooked arm. The Cape’s first settlers were the Wampanoag people, who lived on Cape Cod for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived.

America as we know it today began along the rocky shores of New England. The Pilgrims first landed on the tip of lower Cape Cod in what is now Provincetown in 1620, but deciding that this land was too sandy to support them they continued to sail across the bay to establish Plymouth. In the twenty years that followed the settlers spread north and south from Plymouth, settling in the bay-side sections of Sandwich, Barnstable and Yarmouth.

The first homes built by the English settlers on Cape Cod with wigwams, copies of those of the Wampanoag people, made of twigs, bark, hides, corn and grasses. Eventually more European style homes were constructed but with a unique New World twist. The Cape Cod Cottage was based on a traditional English house with a hall and parlour, built of wood and covered in wide clapperboard or shingles to protect against New England’s stormy weather. Following Queen Anne’s taxation of houses greater than one storey the Salt Box houses became popular, having a long pitched roof sloping down to the back with two stories and the front and just one at the back. This asymmetry of the unequal sides and long, low rear roof line along with the flat front and central chimney are the distinctive features of this house style. Again the buildings with timber framed and covered in wooden cladding.

The prosperity of Cape Cod has always been linked to the sea, from the arrival of the pilgrims across the sea to the fisherman who have worked the waters for centuries, to the modern day tourists heading for the beach. Today tourists flock to enjoy more than sixty public beaches, enjoy numerous outdoor activities, and to sample the local cranberries, shellfish and lobster.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 14th, 2010 at 7:21 am and is filed under Lifestyle. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.