Cape Cod (or simply the Cape) is an arm-shaped peninsula coextensive with Barnstable County, Massachusetts and forming the easternmost portion of the Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States. Although the Cape was originally connected to the mainland, the Cape Cod Canal, opened in 1914, effectively transformed Cape Cod into a large island. Three bridges cross this canal from the mainland to the Cape. Cars can cross on the Sagamore Bridge and the Bourne Bridge; the other is a train bridge.
The peninsula of Cape Cod is located for the most part in Barnstable County. The towns of Plymouth and Wareham, in adjacent Plymouth County, are geologically part of Cape Cod (see “Geology” below) as well, but the 1914 completion of the Cape Cod Canal separated them from the rest of the Cape's towns. Since then, the land on the mainland side of the canal is often colloquially referred to as “off-Cape”.
Cape Cod consists of five unofficial portions:
The Shoulder of Cape Cod includes historic Plymouth and the town of Wareham.
The Upper Cape is the section of Cape Cod closest to the mainland. This portion of the Cape includes the towns of Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee, and Sandwich. While part of the town of Barnstable is located on the Upper Cape, it is more commonly considered to be in the Mid-Cape area. Falmouth is the home of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and several other research organizations, and is also the most-used ferry connection to Martha's Vineyard. Falmouth is composed of several separate villages, including East Falmouth, Falmouth Village, Hatchville, North Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth, and Woods Hole, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Davisville, Falmouth Heights, Quissett, Sippewissett, and others).[1]
The Mid-Cape includes the towns of Barnstable, Dennis and Yarmouth. The Mid-Cape area features many beautiful beaches, including warm-water beaches along Nantucket Sound, e.g. Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, which gets its name from one of the inventors of Technicolor, Herbert Kalmus. This popular windsurfing destination was bequeathed to the town of Barnstable by Dr. Kalmus on condition that it not be developed, possibly one of the first instances of open-space preservation in the US. The Mid-Cape is also the commercial and industrial center of the region. There are seven villages in Barnstable, including Barnstable Village, Centerville, Cotuit, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville, and West Barnstable, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Craigsville, Cummaquid, Hyannisport, Santuit, Wianno, and others).[2] There are three villages in Yarmouth: South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and Yarmouthport.
The Lower Cape is the narrower portion of the cape, where it bends sharply to the north. This section includes the towns of Brewster, Chatham, Harwich, and Orleans.
The Outer Cape is the outermost part, containing the towns of Eastham, Provincetown, Truro, and Wellfleet. This area is home to some of the most popular beaches in America, namely Coast Guard and Nauset Light beaches in Eastham.
The large area of water spanning from PlymouthtoProvincetown, boarded to the north by Massachusetts Bay and enclosed by Cape Cod is Cape Cod Bay; west of Cape Cod is Buzzards Bay. To the south lie Nantucket sound; Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard (both large islands); and the mostly privately owned Elizabeth Islands in the town of Gosnold, of which the most populated is Cuttyhunk.
Cape Cod is connected to the mainland by a pair of canal-spanning highway bridges from Bourne and Sagamore that were constructed in the 1930s, and a vertical-lift railroad bridge. The entire Cape is roughly bisected lengthwise by U.S. Route 6, locally known as the Mid-Cape Highway and officially as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway. Commercial air service to Cape Cod operates out of Barnstable Municipal Airport and Provincetown Municipal Airport. There are also ferry connections from Boston to Provincetown and from Plymouth to Provincetown.
"East of America, there stands in the open Atlantic the last fragment of an ancient and vanished land. Worn by the breakers and the rains, and disintegrated by the wind, it still stands bold." - Henry Beston, from his book The Outermost House
Cape Cod forms a continuous archipelagic region with a thin line of islands stretching toward New York, historically known by naturalists as the Outer Lands. This continuity is due to the fact that the islands and Cape are all terminal glacial moraines laid down some 16,000 to 20,000 years ago.
Most of Cape Cod's geological history involves the advance and retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet in the late Pleistocene geological era and the subsequent changes in sea level. Using radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers have determined that around 23,000 years ago, the ice sheet reached its maximum southward advance over North America, and then started to retreat. By about 18,000 years ago, the ice sheet had retreated past Cape Cod. By roughly 15,000 years ago, it had retreated past southern New England. When so much of Earth's water was locked up in massive ice sheets, the sea level was lower. As the ice began to melt, the sea began to rise. Initially, sea level rose quickly, about 15 meters (50 feet) per 1,000 years, but then the rate declined. On Cape Cod, sea level rose roughly 3 meters (11 feet) per millennium between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago. After that, it continued to rise at about 1 meter (3 feet) per millennium. By 6,000 years ago, the sea level was high enough to start eroding the glacial deposits that the vanished continental ice sheet had left on Cape Cod. The water transported the eroded deposits north and south along the outer Cape's shoreline. Those reworked sediments that moved north went to the tip of Cape Cod. Provincetown Spit, at the northern end of the cape, consists largely of marine deposits, transported from farther up the shore. Sediments that moved south created the islands and shoals of Monomoy. So while other parts of the Cape have dwindled from the action of the waves, these parts of the Cape have grown. Also, many "kettle ponds" - clear, cold lakes - were formed on Cape Cod as a result of the receding glacier.
Cape Cod has a temperate marine climate. Although the weather is typically more moderate than inland locations, there have been occasions where Cape Cod has dealt with the brunt of extreme weather situations (such as the Blizzard of 2005 and Hurricane Bob). Because of the influence of the Atlantic Ocean, temperatures are typically a few degrees cooler in the summer and a few degrees warmer in the winter. A common misconception is the climate is influenced largely by the warm Gulf Stream current, however that current turns eastward off the coast of Virginia and the waters off the Cape are more influenced by the cold Canadian Labrador Current. The Cape's climate is also notorious for a delayed spring season, being surrounded by an ocean which is still cold from the winter, however, it is also known for an exceptionally mild fall season (Indian Summer), thanks to the ocean remaining warm from the summer.
Precipitation on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is the lowest in New England region , averaging slightly less than 40 inches a year (most parts of New England average 42-46 inches). This is due to storm systems which move across western areas, building up in mountainous regions, and dissipating before reaching the coast where the land has leveled out. The region does not experience a greater number of sunny days however, as the number of cloudy days is the same as inland locales, in addition to increased fog.
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avg high °F (°C) |
35.7 (2.1) |
36.5 (2.5) |
43.2 (6.2) |
53.1 (11.7) |
62.5 (16.9) |
74.3 (23.5) |
79.5 (26.3) |
80.0 (26.7) |
77.1 (25.2) |
65.1 (18.4) |
54.6 (12.6) |
41.8 (5.4) |
58.5 (14.7) |
| Avg low °F (°C) |
22.4 (-5.3) |
23.0 (-5.0) |
29.6 (-1.3) |
36.9 (2.7) |
47.7 (8.7) |
58.3 (14.6) |
66.6 (19.2) |
68.5 (20.3) |
60.0 (15.5) |
49.9 (9.9) |
39.1 (3.9) |
28.0 (-2.2) |
44.1 (6.7) |
| Rainfall in inches (millimeters) |
3.86 (98.0) |
2.97 (75.4) |
3.74 (95.8) |
3.62 (90.4) |
3.29 (80.3) |
3.02 (74.2) |
2.45 (62.2) |
2.56 (67.6) |
2.94 (75.9) |
3.34 (81.3) |
3.57 (90.7) |
3.65 (92.7) |
39.01 (990.85) |
Cape Cod was for many years a home to various tribes of Indians. They survived not only off the sea but they were very accomplished farmers. They understood the principals of forest control, and were known to light fires to keep the underbrush in check. They kept the forests of the Cape which were desimated by Europeans alive. They were some of the friendlist Indians on the Atlantic Coast, and helped European explores who landed on their coast. They helped the pilgrims who arrived in fall without shelter or food alive through the winter. The Indians who were there when the explorers and later colonists quickly had their lands taken from them, and now there are no reservations for Indians on the Cape.
"(Cape Cod is)... a vast morgue, where famished dogs may range in packs - the most uninviting landscape on earth." - Henry David Thoreau
Cape Cod was a landmark for early explorers, possibly the "Promontory of Vinland" mentioned by the Norse voyagers (985-1025). Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 approached it from the south, and Gomez the next year called it Cape St. James. Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602 gave it the name that survives. Samuel de Champlain charted its sand-silted harbors in 1606 and Henry Hudson landed there in 1609. Captain John Smith noted it on his map of 1614 and at last the Pilgrims entered the "Cape Harbor" and--contrary to the popular myth of Plymouth Rock--made their first landing near present-day Provincetown on November 11, 1620. Nearby, in what is now Eastham, they had their first encounter with Native Americans.
Cape Cod was among the first places settled by Europeans in North America. Aside from Barnstable and Sandwich (1638) and Yarmouth (1639) the Cape's fifteen towns developed slowly. The final town to be established on the Cape was Mashpeein1880. Provincetown was a group of huts until the 18th century. A channel from Massachusetts BaytoBuzzards Bay is shown on Southack's map of 1717, but the present Cape Cod Canal had a troubled development from 1870 to 1914. The Federal government purchased it in 1928.
Thanks to its early settlement and intensive land use, by the time Henry Thoreau saw Cape Cod during his four visits over 1849 to 1857, its vegetation was depauperate and trees were scarce. As all heating was by wood, and it took 10 to 20 cords (40 to 80 m³) of wood to heat a home, most of Cape Cod was cleared early on. Other areas were planted to crops familiar to the English but unsuited to Cape Cod's thin, glacially derived soils. For instance, much of Eastham was planted to wheat. Burning of woodlands was common to release nutrients into the soil. Improper and intensive farming led to erosion and the loss of topsoil. Dunes on the outer Cape became more common and many harbors filled in with eroded soils. By 1800, most of Cape Cod's firewood came by boat from Maine. The paucity of vegetation was worsened by the Merino sheep and wool "mania" that reached its peak in New England around 1840. The early industrial revolution, which occurred through much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, bypassed Cape Cod due to a lack of significant water power in the area, and as a result, combined with its geographic position, the Cape developed as a large fishing and whaling center. After 1860 and the opening of the west, agricultural abandonment began on the Cape so that by 1950 it had more forests than at any time since the 1700s.
Cape Cod became a summer haven for harried urbanites beginning at the end of the nineteenth century as improved rail transportation made the towns of the Upper Cape, like Bourne and Falmouth, accessible to Bostonians. At the beginning of the twentieth century many large, shingled "cottages" were built along Buzzards Bay for the Northeastern mercantile elite. The relaxed summer environment offered by Cape Cod was brought to the attention of the whole nation by writers including Joseph C. Lincoln, who published countless short stories about Cape Cod folks in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and the Delineator.
Guglielmo Marconi made the first transatlantic wireless transmission originating in the United States from Cape Cod, at Wellfleet. The beach he made the first wireless transmission from is now known as Marconi Beach. He then built upon this success in 1914 by opening the maritime wireless station WCC in Chatham, which had a hand in the communications of Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, Admiral Byrd, and the Hindenburg. He chose this site due to Chatham's vantage point on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded on three sides by water.
Much of the East-facing Atlantic seacoast of Cape Cod consists of wide, sandy beaches. In 1961, a significant portion of this coastline—already slated for housing subdivisions—was made a part of the Cape Cod National Seashore by President John F. Kennedy, and is thus protected from development. Large portions are open to the public, including the "Marconi Site" in Wellfleet, a park built around the site of the first two-way transoceanic radio transmission (byTheodore Roosevelt using Guglielmo Marconi's equipment).
Although Cape Cod has a year-round population of about 230,000, it experiences a tourist explosion each summer between Memorial Day and Labor Day, as the New England cold gives way to a brief but comfortable summer. Many businesses are specifically targeted to summer visitors, and close during the 8 to 9 months of the "off season." In the late 20th century, tourists and owners of second homes began visiting the Cape more and more in the spring and fall, softening the definition of the high season and expanding it somewhat. Some particularly well-known Cape products and industries include cranberries, shellfish (particularly oysters and clams) and lobstering.
Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, also berths several whale watching fleets who patrol the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Most fleets guarantee a whale sighting (mostly humpback, finback, and sei whales), and one is the only federally certified operation qualified to rescue whales. Most motels in and around Cape Cod provide coupons that offer discounts on the whale watching trips.
Cape Cod is also very popular for its boating, seafood, ice cream, candy, miniature golf, go-karts, and unique shopping. Bed and breakfasts or vacation houses are often used for lodging.
There are numerous working lighthouses on Cape Cod and the Islands, including Highland Light, Nauset Light, Chatham Light, Race Point Light, and Nobska Light, some operated by the U.S. Coast Guard, which are frequently photographed emblems of Cape Cod.
The Cape has nine amateur baseball franchises playing within Barnstable County in the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Wareham Gatemen also play in the Cape Cod Baseball League in nearby Wareham, Massachusetts in Plymouth County. The league has been in existence since 1885. Teams in the league are the Bourne Braves, Brewster Whitecaps, Chatham Athletics, Cotuit Kettleers, Falmouth Commodores, Harwich Mariners, Hyannis Mets, Orleans Cardinals, Wareham Gatemen and the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Pro ball scouts frequent the games in the summer, looking for stars of the future.
The Cape also is home to the Cape Cod Frenzy, a team in the American Basketball Association. The Frenzy began play in the 2004-2005 season as the Boston Frenzy. The team had a disappointing inaugural season with a record of 5-15 and had an even more disappointing season the next year with a 2-20 record. The league changed ownership in 2006 and was moved to Cape Cod, although many of their games were played on the Cape in the 2005-2006 season. The team will play a 36 game season in 2006-2007 and will have merchandise for sale throughout the year at a kiosk in the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis.
Pro Soccer is alive on Cape Cod with the Cape Cod Crusaders playing in the Premier Development League (PDL) soccer based in Hyannis. In addition, there is summer Cape Cod Adult Soccer League (CCASL) in active in several towns on the Cape.
Like Cape Cod itself, the islands south of Cape Cod have turned from being whaling and trading areas to resort destinations for the Northeast, attracting old, wealthy families, celebrities, and prosperous tourists alike. The islands include Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, as well as the Elizabeth Island Chain, which includes the Forbes family-owned Naushon Island, which was purchased by John Murray Forbes with profits from opium dealing in the China trade during the Opium War. The only accessible Elizabeth Island is the southernmost one in the chain, Cuttyhunk, with its humble year-round population of fifty-two people. Several prominent families have established compounds or estates on the larger islands, making these Cape Cod offshore islands some of the wealthiest resorts in the Northeast, yet they retain much of the early merchant trading and whaling culture.
