Hyannis; est. 1664
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun, surf and sky of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the rainy, foggy and rather cool island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this raw May 19th day of 2015, a Tuesday at 1 p.m., as promised, here is the first installment of “better know your district”, I mean “better know your Cape and Islands!”, my apologies Steven Colbert, as Sea Cape Cod introduces you to all of the towns that make up this unique and sacred sand bar created 11,500 years ago by the “Last Great Ice Age”…
Hyannis is one of seven villages in the Cape town of Barnstable. The others are Centerville, Osterville, Cotuit, Marstons Mills, Barnstable, West Barnstable and Haynnis Port. Hyannis Port being a neighborhood within Hyannis and thus named because it once served as it’s port before the harbor was dredged, allowing larger ships to travel into it. The word Hyannis is most likely a derivation of the name of the Native American sachem Yanno, who in 1664 sold to early settlers much of the land that makes up Hyannis. Early documents refer to Yanno’s Harbor and Yanno’s lands.
Hyannis’s rich history is filled with sea captains, boat builders, enterprising immigrants, merchants, educators and entrepreneurs. Hyannis has been the hub of Cape Cod since the days of sail. That reputation was further strengthened when the railroad reached the village and the tracks were extended to the south shore along Nantucket Sound so that trains could meet ships coming in with passengers and cargoes of coal, lumber, fish, grain, and mail. The village’s economy was once tied to the sea and later to tourism.
Of course, it was a proud and heady time for the village when summer resident John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960. The president and his family loved Cape Cod, and many Kennedys considered Hyannis Port home. (a special “chapter” will be dedicated to this most gracious town ‘at some juncture’…)!
Like everything in America, things change and those changes came to Hyannis in a big way during the 20th Century. High speed ferries now wiz people, dogs, cars, trucks and whatever one can fit on a boat back and forth daily from the bottom of Pleasant Street and Ocean Street(s) to the same named street on an island ‘far, far away’, with over 7 million tourists visiting the sandy hamlet annually. However, let the cell phone towers fool you not, the “old world shadows hang heavy in the air”, and if you listen very carefully, you can hear author Clara Jane Hallet--an outspoken, witty, and independent writer who spent nearly here entire life in the Ocean Street home where she was born.
During the 1940’s, at the height of World War II, she wrote as an elderly women, “…we had no telephones, no automobiles, busses, or taxis, no mail delivery, no green vegetables in winter, no steam-heated houses, no movies, and no bathrooms…bath tubs were almost unknown. But somehow we lived and thrived and found happiness. We had camp meetings in summer, picnics, sailing parties, rides on the steam cars, dances and plays in the old Masonic Hall, lectures, old folks concerts, singing schools, spelling bees, buggy rides, sleigh rides….We knew every one and they knew us. We had neighbors and friends always coming and going and we did not expect as much of life as people do today.”
The connection with people, animals and the Wilderness itself permeates this most unique town, the hub of Cape Cod. Giant Duck boats now cruise people up Main Street and back down South Street, with the constant flow of interested souls bringing richness and diversity to a land the could never have dreamed it would SEA so many different walks of life. Each living the very best they can for what they has been afforded in said life.
May you come on down and visit US soon here, historic Hyannis, Massachusetts, Cape Cod, USA, 20601... We will, as always–
“Leave the lights on... because it might be nighttime when I’m on my way home”…
Have a great day! (pictures by the late, great Roland Marsan of Osteville).
PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
