Falmouth: A Pleasing Octet of Villages
Released on Dec 27, 2007Press Contact:
Michael Patrick Communications
Bill DeSousa, bill@mpdcltd.com or 508-790-0566
Glenn M. Faria, CHME
Member, Society of American Travel Writers
glenn@mpdcltd.com or 508-737-1595
Falmouth:
A Pleasing Octet of Villages
Falmouth’s pleasing octet of villages—East Falmouth, Falmouth, Hatchville, North Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth and Woods Hole—contains components as dissimilar as fraternal siblings yet united by a pride of place and stewardship. Each provides a diversity of experience and terrain and, whether near or far from ‘downtown,’ has a personality separate but indivisible from the ‘Falmouth experience.’
East Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit and Hatchville
East Falmouth, the most populous village, was home to Portuguese and Cape Verdean immigrants in the early 20th century and this plenitude of labor made it the world’s one-time ‘strawberry growing capital;’ today, its cranberry bogs’ bounty is abundant. Narrow land fingers poke into Vineyard Sound south of Route 28, where all roads lead to peaceful inlets and marshy bays fringing the shore. Beautiful Menauhant Beach lies on a land sliver dividing Vineyard Sound and a grassy cove. The historic district along Davisville Road comprises roads canopied with elm and maple, country farmhouses and historic former sea captains’ homes. And in July, all roads lead to Barnstable Country Fairgrounds where Cape Cod Stampede, Harvest Festival, Kennel Club All Breed Show and Barnstable County Fair are held.
Teaticket
Teaticket memorializes the area’s original residents, named Tataket by Wampanoags. The village is located along the main travel corridor, Route 28, which connects Falmouth Village with East Falmouth, Hatchville and Waquoit. From Teaticket, the Maravista Peninsula, once comprising a collection of summer cottages, has developed into a year-round residential area owing to its proximity to Vineyard Sound warm-water beaches. Here one finds the main commercial district, with an incredible diversity of shopping; from Falmouth Mall and Falmouth Plaza to scores of old time purveyors and unique stores of every description.
Waquoit
Between East Falmouth and Mashpee lies the village of Waquoit. This diminutive village has, for the most part, eluded commercialization and sits, pristine, between its sibling East Falmouth and the town of Mashpee. In 2004, the National Park Service placed a large portion of the village on the National Register of Historic Places. Quiet, unassuming and picturesque, the village is home to Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve on no less picturesque Waquoit Bay, which includes a beach, a state park recreation area, Washburn Island (which contains 11 campsites), an upland forest track, salt ponds, barrier beaches, dunes and open water along 15 miles of shoreline. Quiescent Hatchville, in the northeast corner of Falmouth, can be easily passed by. This relatively obscure village contains some of Falmouth’s most beautiful terrain—ideal for hiking, trekking, kayaking and cycling. Ashumet Holly and Francis Crane Wildlife Reservations are bucolic venues for laid back walks or educational tours.
Falmouth
This, the ‘capitol’ of the Town of Falmouth, presides over a stately, prim Falmouth Village Green, evoking the quintessential New England tableaux. First Congregational Church stands eloquent witness to the spirit of Congregationalism, its slender and graceful spire points faithfully heavenward, a delight to the eye and an inspiration to the soul. The 1796 Paul Revere bell—engraved with the pious phrase: “The living to the church I call, and to the grave I summon all”—peals out among and beyond the Green’s venerable edifices. Falmouth Village, like its bustling harbor, pulses with life. Main Street shopping and dining provides a heady assortment of shops of every flavor, shape and color. This village is large enough to be financially feasible, but small enough to maintain its small town charm. Recall the patriotic paean “America the Beautiful?” Falmouth resident Katharine Lee Bates, whose former home and birthplace (owned by the Falmouth Historical Society, located just off the Green) authored it; a simple plaque pays tribute to this grand lady, who was born and lived in Falmouth until she was 12 years old. She was interred here after her death in 1929. Of her hometown, she claimed, “Never was there a lovelier town than our Falmouth by the sea … tender curves of sky look down on her grace and knoll and lee.” Stroll Main Street, poking your head into each nook and cranny, for the wonder that surprise brings is sure to be found here.
North and West Falmouth
This delightful and dignified duo of timeless villages, stacked like so many confections between Cataumet and Woods Hole, preserves ‘olde Cape Cod’ like grandma’s attic—the proverbial Cape Cod of yore, replete with bucolic vistas, ancestral homesteads and clutches of ancient trees. These two exclusive and desirable residential villages sit along beautiful Buzzards Bay and are idyllic venues for the Cape’s most dazzling sunsets. Wooded country lanes leading to secluded coves with a smattering of sailboats typify these exclusive enclaves. The architecture in these villages is the oldest in Falmouth, with many structures dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. Along West Falmouth’s Route 28A, visitors will experience the unsullied Cape. West Falmouth’s highlands, some of the highest ground on Cape Cod, provide exceptional seaward vistas from its harbors. Weathered Cape Cod homesteads, centuries-old pink stonewalls and house foundations are abundant. More rural North Falmouth, bordering Bourne, is home to stately Colonial homes along elm-shaded byways. Find Old Silver Beach—one of the Cape’s greats—here along Buzzards Bay.
Woods Hole
Hip, smart and overflowing with geniuses, Woods Hole is perhaps Cape Cod’s most unique and understated village. More Nobel Laureates work, have worked and studied within the confines of this diminutive village than almost anywhere else in the world. It is here that some of the 21st century’s most ground-breaking scientific discoveries are presently being made.
The railroad reached tiny Woods Hole in 1872, a year after the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries had established a small seasonal collecting station to study marine specimens. The result was a year-round scientific community of international stature. This international community of intelligentsia has a unique persona. It is home to NOAA’s Northeast Fishery Science Center, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), and the National Academy of Sciences conference center. Summers, it is basically a one-street village overflowing with scientists and graduate students either studying or undertaking independent research projects at one of these institutions. A handful of restaurants and boutiques along Water Street are all but hidden behind mountains of bicycles. Free tours of these institutions are on offer year round.
The Woods Hole Science Aquarium is owned by NOAA Fisheries and is operated jointly with the MBL. Aquarium visitors can view exhibits about local species, a sea pool, endangered marine turtles, hands-on tanks, and a behind-the-scenes area. The aquarium provides a permanent home for harbor seals that have medical conditions that make it impossible for them to live in the wild. Nearly 100,000 people per year visit the aquarium on Albatross Street. Saltwater tanks on the first level introduce visitors to many species of local fish. Rare blue lobsters and an enormous 35-year-old lobster are on display downstairs. Visitors are welcome upstairs for a “behind the scenes” look at an aquarium’s inner workings. Touch tanks offer the chance to examine sea creatures close-up, including sea stars, whelks, spider crabs, horseshoe crabs and lobsters. Interns and aquarium staff are on hand to answer questions.
Woods Hole is a village worthy of a stroll and is readily reached summers
aboard the WHOOSH trolley or the Shining Sea Bike Path, both of which emanate from Falmouth Village. Visitors can visit the local Coast Guard base, open for free tours, or head out along the beach road, Church Street, to historic Nobska Lighthouse, for magnificent views of Vineyard Sound, Woods Hole and Martha’s Vineyard.
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