Sunday, August 5, 2007 – Wellfleet

It's somewhat the ultimate Cape Cod town, and one ought to start with the church.  Two hundred and eighty-six years after the Pilgrims landed a tad north in Provincetown, congress passed a bill and Teddy Roosevelt signed it, authorizing construction of a monument to commemorate the landing of the Mayflower in Provincetown on 21 November 1620. The Congregationalists got here first, it seems. This church, the First Congregational Church of Wellfleet, is at 200 Main Street, the highest point in town – above the harbor. In 1606 the French explorer Samuel de Champlain explored and named the town "Port Aux Huitres" (Oyster Port). They've got those here, and they've got Congregationalists – and now tourists in the summer.

First Congregational Church of Wellfleet:

Wellfleet became a parish separate from Eastham in 1721, a condition of incorporation being that a Church building and pastor should be provided. Originally, there were no separate Town and Church Meetings; all business was transacted without differentiation in the one Parish Meeting. The first Meeting House was at Chequessett Neck, but a new site was chosen at the head of Duck Creek in 1740. The present building on this site was erected in 1850. In 1879 the graceful, tapering steeple was blown down, and it was thought desirable to rebuild on more substantial lines. The edifice is known to many people through photographs published in leading periodicals. Features of the building are the rare stained glass window depicting a ship of the Mayflower period, the Hook and Hastings organ which has been given special mention by the American Organ Historical Society, and the Town Clock which is equipped with a ship's bells striking system. In 1990 we voted to become a Just Peace Church.

Wellfleet -

Located some seventy-five miles out into the Atlantic Ocean on the outer end of Cape Cod, the Town of Wellfleet offers an abundance of quaint rural seaside character and charm and spectacular natural resources. Bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and the west by Cape Cod Bay, 61% of the land area of Wellfleet is in the Cape Cod National Seashore Park.

This is the Town Hall.

Webcam and the basics –

Wellfleet is famous for its eponymous oysters which are celebrated in the annual October Wellfleet OysterFest. The town has the second greatest concentration of art galleries on Cape Cod, right after Provincetown.

... Wellfleet was encountered by Europeans as early as 1606, when the French explorer Samuel de Champlain explored and named it "Port Aux Huitres" (Oyster Port) for the bountiful oyster population resident to the area. Originally settled in the 1650s by the Europeans as Billingsgate (after the famous fish market in East London), Wellfleet was part of neighboring Eastham until 1763, achieving town status after nearly 30 years of petitioning. The name "Wellfleet" is disputed; some argue that it comes from "Whale Fleet," after the burgeoning whaling industry in the town, while some say it comes from a brand of oyster popular in England at the time, in order to help sales.

Wellfleet's oyster fields drove the early economy, as did whaling and other fishing endeavors. The town was home to 30 whaling ships by the American Revolution. However, because of the decline of whaling and the mackerel catch in the late nineteenth century, the fleet declined, being completely free of schooners by 1900. The oyster fleet continues to this day, however, harvesting many other types of shellfish as well. Wellfleet developed the tourist industry it enjoys today with the construction of the Chequesset Inn in the late 1800s.

Guglielmo Marconi built the first American trans-Atlantic radio transmission site in Wellfleet, which sent the first American-based radio telegraph to England on January 18, 1903, a ceremonial telegram from President Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward VII. Most of the site is gone, however, as three-quarters of the land it originally encompassed has been eroded into the sea. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the Cape Cod National Seashore, which encompasses most of the Atlantic shoreline of Cape Cod. In Wellfleet the territory circles the town, from Jeremy Neck through the swamps and "islands" along the Herring River, and extending the length of the Atlantic shore of the town.

The seventh annual Wellfleet OysterFest will take place the weekend after Columbus Day, Saturday and Sunday, October 13th and 14th, 2007 in Wellfleet.

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Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0. Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik