History Archives

Provincetown History Snippets: Where Is Race Point Light Station?

June 29, 2018

History

As early as 1808, Provincetown’s residents asked for a lighthouse at Race Point. Travel was treacherous for vessels negotiating the bars at Cape Cod’s northern tip. Race Point Lighthouse was first lighted on November 5, 1816, and was one of the earliest...

Provincetown History Snippets: What is East Harbor?

June 15, 2018

History

Early records indicate this protected inlet was called Eastern Harbor, a name that evolved into East Harbor. In 1868 the railroad needed track—Provincetown’s flourishing fish industry needed transportation and eventually the railroad brought fish...

Provincetown History Snippets: Did She Fall or Was She Pushed?

June 8, 2018

History

The Mayflower had to cross the Atlantic at the height of storm season, making the passage both unpleasant and dangerous passage. Many of the passengers were so seasick they couldn’t move, and waves were so rough that one passenger was swept overboard....

Provincetown History Snippets: How Did Provincetown Originate?

May 25, 2018

History

Along with the rest of Cape Cod, the area that would become Provincetown was formed sometime between 17,000 BCE and 15,000 BCE. Glaciers had covered North America throughout the various Ice Ages; the last glaciation—called the Wisconsin Glaciation—left...

Where Did Boo Boo the Sheep Come From?

May 21, 2018

ptownie founder Mike Miller’s father had grown up on a farm in Ohio and, along with his sister Mindy, Mike spent a month or two on the farm every summer throughout his childhood and adolescence. He remembers his grandmother with fondness. “She was a...

Provincetown History Snippets: What is The Gropius House?

May 18, 2018

History

At 2 Commercial Street you can look up and possibly spot part of the Gropius House, also known as the Murchison House. Commissioned by Dr. Paul Murchison and created largely by Walter Gropius, it was based on a Japanese temple design with minimalist lines and...

Provincetown History Snippets: What is The “Great Dying”?

May 11, 2018

History

Between 1616 and 1619, a plague struck native villages of coastal New England from Maine to Cape Cod. It killed tens of thousands of people, among them hundreds of men, women, and children from the Wampanoag Nation. The exact nature of the “Great Dying,”...

Provincetown History Snippets: What is The Mayflower Compact?

May 4, 2018

History

The Mayflower Compact was a set of rules for self-governance established by English settlers on the Mayflower on November 11, 1620. London stockholders had financed the Pilgrims’ voyage with the understanding they’d be repaid in profits from the new...

Provincetown History Snippets: Moby-Dick and Other Whales

April 27, 2018

History

While the home port of the Pequod was Nantucket, as we celebrate the annual reading and celebration of Moby-Dick here in Provincetown this weekend, we can remember the novel—and the whaling tradition that Ptown shares. Written in 1851, Moby-Dick recounts...

Provincetown History Snippets: What is The Portland Gale?

April 20, 2018

History

On Saturday, November 26, 1898, New England was struck by a gale that killed over 200 persons and wrecked or sank at least 140 major vessels. The best-known victim of the gale was the coastal steamer Portland that gave the storm its name, lost off Cape Cod...