Matt Clark

The British man-of-war Somerset III terrorized the Cape area for some years up to and during the American Revolution, and was often anchored in Provincetown Harbor, where “boats frequently landed, and the officers helped themselves to water, provisions, and...

Last year, the wreck of the pirate ship Whydah gave up part of her captain: a leg bone found in concretion is widely believed by archaeologists to belong to “Black Sam” Bellamy, New England’s most famous pirate, who became wealthy not because of greed...

Sassafras was valued in England for the medicinal qualities of its roots (it was supposed to cure both syphilis and smallpox!), so much so that two ships were sent on the “Great Sassafras Hunt” to New England. One of the captains had previously sailed...

Provincetown’s Donald Baxter MacMillan went on 30 expeditions to the Far North between 1908 and 1954. He was 34 years old on his first trip and a few days short of 80 when he completed his final journey. “While I would like to go into the Arctic for the...

In the early 1800s, winters saw an average of two wrecks off the Outer Cape every month. Many sailors made it to shore—and then froze to death right on the beach. In 1872 an efficient lifesaving service was put into operation, with stations every five miles...

Called the “hero of adolescent Americans,” Harry Kemp was a poet and prose writer who lived and worked in Provincetown during the mid-20th century. What you might not know about him is that he was terminally frustrated with the myth that the Pilgrims...

It’s not an obvious connection, that between Provincetown and an artist of iconic mid-century Americana, but Norman Rockwell did in fact study here under Charles Hawthorne, and the August 20, 1955 cover of the Saturday Evening Post—titled Mermaid (A Fair...

Eugene O’Neill arrived in Ptown in 1916. He was a 27-year-old Princeton dropout who’d been spending his time at sea in a tramp steamer and, almost incidentally, writing some plays. That summer he found a stage for them. In 1915, the summer before...