Quick History Stops: Falmouth, MA

During my Cape Cod Adventure back in August 2024, I made several quick history stops around Falmouth, MA. Besides my usual rounds of historic buildings, walking trails, and memorials, I discovered a tiny carousel, a unique traffic light, and a beautiful nature preserve. The steady rain that had intermittently plagued my trip even began to clear towards the end of the day.

Bourne Farm stands next to Crocker Pond in West Falmouth, a village of Falmouth. The fifty-one acre property is currently owned by Salt Pond Area Bird Sanctuaries (SPABS), incorporated in 1962 after beginning as a committee in the Massachusetts Audubon Society (Mass Audubon). The building itself has been listed as Crowell-Bourne Farm on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980. The railroad running past the property has since become Shining Sea Bikeway, which I had biked a few days early. Linking the farm to the nearby woods was a cattle tunnel, which historically allowed cows and sheep to safely cross underneath the tracks. I could walk through this tunnel easily, but some visitors might need to duck.

At the center of Falmouth, in the same area as Museums on the Green, were all the buildings one would expect of a small New England town. First Congregational Church in Falmouth was constructed in the classic whitewashed Greek Revival style in 1857. This was the fourth church building since the congregation formed in 1708. The minister at the time of construction was Rev. William Bates, father of songwriter and educator Katherine Lee Bates who famously wrote “America, the Beautiful”; tragically, Rev. Bates died less than a month after his daughter was born.

On a lighter note, a time capsule from the 1976 American Bicentennial is embedded in the village green with a note to open in November 2076; apparently, the embedding took place a few months late. Plenty of architecturally interesting buildings stand in the area. The oldest bank building in Falmouth is at 84 Main Street and was built as Falmouth National Bank in 1821. After a series of mergers and sales, the building is now owned by Martha’s Vineyard Bank, which started its business in 1955. Nearby at 120 Main Street is the Falmouth Post Office. Although constructed about a hundred and twenty years after the bank in 1940, the two buildings use red brick and a Neoclassical style entryway to create a cohesive look.

Other buildings of interest in the area included Eight Cousins Book and the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce building. The red brick bookstore is cleverly named after a novel by Louisa May Alcott published in 1875, who was better known for Little Women. Meanwhile, the Greek Revival style Chamber building was constructed in the 1834 as Lawrence Academy, a private school that was later taken over by the town to serve as its public high school. The building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1998 and is slated for renovation in the next few years. As an added bonus, the woman at the information desk was among the nicest people I spoke to during my trip.

Moving down the street, I came to the Falmouth Public Library campus, which included spacious grounds and several memorials. The Falmouth Library Society was founded in 1792 and became Falmouth Circulating Library in 1876. The original section of the library building, also called Granite Memorial Library, was constructed in 1901. The library was greatly expanded between 1966 to 1968 with even more additions in 1978 and 2008. Today, the library is part of Cape Libraries Automated Materials Sharing (CLAMS), which allows card holders to request books, movies, and other materials from all buildings in the network. Other CLAMS libraries appearing on this blog include Hyannis Public Library and Cotuit Library.

While the library grounds include standard memorials to veterans and fallen soldiers of World War I and World War II, a unique memorial is the bronze statue of Katherine Lee Bates erected in 1986 at the 1686 Falmouth Tricentennial celebration and sculpted by Lloyd Lillie. He worked at an arts professor at College of Fine Arts at Boston University and was known for his depictions of historical figures. I last saw his work at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, which I visited many years before starting this blog.

Conveniently located across the street from the library is Mullen-Hall School, the public elementary school of Falmouth. The reason for the double-barrel name is that this building was originally two separate buildings. Hall had its own cupola, but this architectural feature was removed during the combing process. Visitors can still see the cupola down the street amid a flower bed. Also on property was Carousel of Light, a fairly recent addition to the area. The animals on the carousel were hand-carved by local artist Lance Shinkle between 1988 and 1993, when the carousel debuted at Barnstable County Fair. The carousel came to its current location in 2013.

The Falmouth Rescue Department building on Main Street, also known as Central Fire Station, was constructed in 1929 by architectural pair Stephen Wesley Haynes and Harold Elliot Mason. (Later in 1935, Haynes would design Uxbridge High School in my hometown.) This red brick fire building has black shutters on its second story windows and wooden quoins or corner pieces, making it a prettier than the average fire station and earning it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Equally important is the unique traffic lights near the building. Besides the classic red-yellow-green light, a sign reading FIRE lights up whenever the firetrucks enter or exit the building.

The last stop at the center of town was St. Patrick Church of St. Joseph Guardian of the Holy Family Parish. The reason for this long name is that four parishes and a chapel in Falmouth combined in 2021 to form a larger parish. The St. Patrick parish began in 1889, while its building was constructed as a classic whitewashed church in 1911 with additions in 1949 and 1991. The result is a meandering structure with multiple roof lines, gables, and entrances.

My final stop in Falmouth was The Knob, which came recommended by the nice woman at the information desk. Another property of SPABS, the conservation area is located in the village of Woods Hole. On one side of this tiny peninsula is Quissett Harbor Boatyard filled with picturesque family-sized sailboats, and on the opposite side is Buzzards Bay. The granite beach was bequeathed by Cornelia Lee Carey in 1973. Her family had owned the land for about a hundred years since the 1870s and maintained stones along the banks to prevent erosion. This was a relaxing last stop for my busy trip to Falmouth.