Town of Truro, Massachusetts

A Brief and Ever Growing History of the Town of Truro Massachusetts

(Taken from some writings in the Truro Chamber of Commerce Information brochures of years past, Rich's Truro, and writings of F. Wesley Garran.)

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Edited by Mark Peters, July, 2007

In November of 1620, the Pilgrims sailed into Cape Cod Bay and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. Having lived under cramped, smelly, dirty conditions for the previous few months, many came ashore to look around. A group led by Miles Standish, (who had the nickname “Captain Shrimp”), wandered into what became Truro. There they found fresh water (Pilgrim Springs), a cache of maize (Corn Hill) and a place to camp out for the night, ( Pond Village). While tromping about in Truro the Pilgrims met a group of locals, Pamet Indians. Both sides fired on each other. Fortunately no one was hit and as honor had been satisfied, the locals and the “wash-a-shores” withdrew. A few days later the Pilgrims weighed anchor and sailed across the bay to what is now Plymouth. They would be back!

In 1709, Truro was incorporated as a town. The descendents of those Pilgrims, who had stopped by almost ninety years before, had returned. Initially Truro was part of Eastham, but Truro had some unique advantages that made settlement popular and with hard work, a good living could be realized. In those days the land which is now Wellfleet was swampy and marshy, and created a geographical barrier to the south. Communication was difficult by land and only slightly easier by sea. **

There was a good harbor at the mouth of the Pamet River and East Harbor, which is now Pilgrim Lake. In addition there was plenty of upland, which would allow for farming and pastures. With this prosperity the local citizens were able to build a church and pay a minister. Having a house of worship and supporting a minister for at least two years was a requirement to become a town. This was accomplished and on July 16, 1709, Truro was incorporated, and became an official town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Through the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Truro both participated and prospered. Gentlemen from Truro were sent to Nantucket to teach the islanders the art of killing whales and blackfish. Small shipbuilding in the harbor, fishing, salt-works through the use of windmills, combined with large gardens made for a good life in this small hamlet.

In the middle part of the nineteenth century the Pamet Harbor shoaled in. This ended the shipbuilding and the easy access to the bay with an all weather harbor for a refuge. Beach Point threatened East Harbor, which had become accessible only at the highest tides in the Fall and Spring. Framing alone wouldn’t sustain a booming economy, so Truro started getting smaller as many of the best and the brightest moved away.

Shortly after the Civil War the railroad came through Truro with its terminus in Provincetown. Transportation and access was now available on a more reliable venue than the weather, tide and sea. Those farmers left in Truro had discovered that sandy soil was excellent for growing asparagus and turnip. Asparagus for the Boston Yankees, turnip for the Irish, a swamp garden, a few cows and chickens, a lot of hard work and a decent living could be made. Another benefit from the railroad was the arrival of the summer tourist. Summer hotels quickly appeared near Truro Center, Highland Light and Pond Road, with many of the larger older homes becoming guesthouses. These people had to be fed, watered and carted – something which still goes on today.

The biggest event in Truro’s history was yet to come. Shortly after World War II, the Federal Government straightened and rebuilt Route 6. Millions and millions of people were now a days drive away from Truro. Route 6 was wider, smooth and modern; and they came. On many days during the summer season Truro may have as many as 15,000 people enjoying the sun, the woods and the beach. Another substantial factor in today’s Truro is the creation of the National Seashore in 1960. This has preserved almost 2/3rds of Truro in its natural state. Truro is very fortunate that much of what the Pilgrims saw and the Pamets enjoyed will be there for future generations of Truro citizens and visiting guests.

Please take advantage of what Truro has to offer as it approaches it’s 300 th year.

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Truro, a more formal History
History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts
edited by Simeon L. Deyo.
1890. New York: H. W. Blake & Co

TOWN OF TRURO.

(Web editors note: The following section was written in 1890, but provides a rare glimpse into the details of life on the Outer Cape during the 18th and 19th centuries)

Exploration by the Pilgrims
Proprietors of the Pamet Lands
Incorporation of Truro
Boundaries
Natural Features
King's Highway
Pounds
Industries
The Wreck of the Somerset
The Revolution
Gale of 1841
Various Town Affairs
Civil History
Churches
Burying Grounds
Schools
Villages
Biographical Sketches

Everyday Life in Truro, Cape Cod
From the Indians to the Victorians
by Richard F. Whalen

THE PAMET INDIANS,
AN IDYLLIC LIFE ABRUPTLY ENDED

By all accounts, the Pamet Indians were remarkably healthy, strong and happy, living an almost idyllic life for many centuries on the land that would become Truro. They fished off Truro’s shores, gathered shellfish from its tidal flats, planted crops in its fields, gathered nuts, berries and roots, hunted deer in the hardwood forests and lived in harmony with Nature. Their food was varied, plentiful and nutritious.

Families lived in loose clusters of dome-shaped wigwams that could be easily taken down and moved. Favored sites for their sojourns in Truro were at High Head, Great Hollow, Corn Hill, along the Pamet River and at the end of Tom’s Hill overlooking Pamet Harbor. (Truro, Ch. 1) They may well have set up dwellings at other spots, wherever there were waters to fish, berries to harvest and open spaces to till.

They numbered probably in the low hundreds. When Captain Martin Pring and his men spent seven weeks at Pamet Harbor in the summer of 1603, Indian men appeared several times in groups ranging from ten to nearly two hundred. (Truro, Ch. 2) The larger groups were probably Pamets joined by Indians from elsewhere on the Outer Cape who were curious to see the strange visitors from the two big sailing ships.

The Pamet men were tall, strong, swift and well-proportioned, according to Pring’s narrative, which contains one of the two earliest—and best—descriptions of New England Indian people and culture. (Truro, App. A) They appeared to him to have darkened their skin to a “tawny or chestnut color,” probably done with body-oil or paint or both over a tanned skin. They braided their long hair in four parts and tied it up in back, “in which hair of theirs they stick many feathers and toys for bravery and pleasure,” according to Pring. Indian men had no beards; if any hair happened to sprout, they pulled it out.

Their summer clothing was minimal. “They cover their privates only with a piece of leather drawn betwixts their twists [thighs] and fastened to their girdles behind and before whereunto they hang their bags of tobacco,” says Pring. Belts were of snake skin, mocassins of leather. In winter, they would wear capes of deer hide or other animal skins. English settlers marveled at the Indians’ tolerance for cold. William Wood, who studied the ways of New England Indians, tells of Indians in winter wearing “a deep-furred cat skin, like a long, large muff, which he shifts to that arm which lieth most exposed to the wind.” Apparently, the Indians did not wear headgear.

Pring saw only two women; he thought the men were “somewhat jealous” of them. The two women wore “aprons of leather skins before them down to the knees and a bear’s skin like an Irish mantle over one shoulder.” Other explorers and settlers in New England found the Indian women good-looking, graceful, well-proportioned, and modest. Wood says the “women’s modesty drives them to wear more clothes than their men.” Although Pring was understandably wary of the many Indians he saw at Pamet Harbor since he and his men were interlopers on Indian territory, both he and Wood found them quite friendly. Wood called the New England Indians “kind and affable . . . rather naturally cheerful.” (Excerpts in Selected Readings)

Pring, Wood and other English observers might have expected the Indians to be dirty and unhealthy because in their view the Indians were unlettered, uncivilized savages living a semi-nomadic life in the forests. But they did not. They almost always described the Indians as healthy, happy and generally agreeable unless they were provoked.

Their nutritious diet “contributed to a lithe and healthy body, vigorous and with stamina,” says Howard S. Russell in his book, Indian New England Before the Mayflower. “All explorers who visited New England shores testify to this, and the English who associated with the natives after colonization comment on the great agility and endurance of the natives. An Indian runner could cover as many as a hundred miles in a single day, and on the second day afterward return in the same time.” Their teeth, even those of the elderly, were strong and regular. Russell examined the jaw-bone remains of forty pre-colonial Indians and found that few showed signs of decay. Indian children were also in excellent health, exhibiting high spirits and vigor in contrast to the hard life of many English children. Too much freedom and a lack of discipline were the only criticisms made by early English observers.

The Indians did not entirely escape illness and injury, but they had a pharmacopeia considered more comprehensive than that of the English. They derived scores of remedies from roots, barks, and berries—and the tobacco plant. Tobacco was used as a