We want to give our family and visiting friends a little history about the house, some interesting facts about the Cape (depending on climate change, our home may be on an island surrounded by the Bass River in the next century) and recommendations to the best places to visit while enjoying your trip here.

Geologically speaking, climate change created Cape Cod.

As a land mass, the Cape has been steadily shrinking since the retreat of the last ice age’s glaciers. The gravelly rubble left behind formed the spine of the Cape, enormous ice chunks melted to form the area’s hundreds of kettle-hole lakes and ponds, and shifting sands made up the majority of the rest. As little as 6,000 years ago, even the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard were part of the mainland. The land-shaping through storms, wind, and waves has continued ever since.

Cape Cod’s popularity far exceeds its size. It’s a 70-mile-long barrier island rimmed with curving sandy beaches and grassy marshes. More than five million tourists visit annually, and the year-round population tripled between 1960 and 2010, rising from 70,000 to 215,000. Nearly everyone on the Cape does something outdoors – commercial fishing, surfing, bird-watching, boating and eating lobsters.

Our home is located in South Yarmouth. Yarmouth straddles the “bicep” of Cape Cod, bordered by Cape Cod Bay to the north, Dennis to the east, Nantucket Sound to the south and Barnstable to the west. The town was organized and incorporated as part of the Plymouth Colony on September 3, 1639, making it the second oldest Cape town behind Sandwich. The town originally included what is now Dennis, which separated in 1793.

The Town of Yarmouth and its early residents have an intriguing history. Before colonization from Europe, the Wampanoag and Algonquin tribes inhabited the area, which they called “Mattacheese” (roughly translated: “plowed fields”).

During the American Revolution, Yarmouth was the site of an active group of the Sons of Liberty and mustered a militia force to provide assistance at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, although the group returned home when they heard the rebels had already defeated the British in those battles. The citizens of Yarmouth even went as far as to declare the town’s independence from the Crown on June 20, 1776.

Yarmouth began as a farming community but relied on the sea for economic growth in later years. One Yarmouth resident of note is Captain Asa Eldridge, who captained the clipper Red Jacket on a voyage between New York and Liverpool in 1854. Captain Eldridge made the voyage from dock to dock in only 13 days, 1 hour, and 25 minutes, setting the record that remains unbroken for fastest trans-Atlantic crossing by a commercial vessel.

Enjoy your visit to this magical place