Okay, “Jeopardy” fans, let’s take “American history” for $200.
Answer: “The Pilgrims stopped here on Nov. 11, 1620.”
Question: “What is Plymouth, Mass.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But I humbly admit that’s what I would have said had I not journeyed to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod and stopped at the towering Pilgrim Monument poking high into the salt-laden air.
It was here in Provincetown where the Mayflower first docked in the New World. And it was here, not in Plymouth, where the illustrious Mayflower Compact, the first written agreement of self-government in America, was written and signed. The document established the rule of law for the new land, stating that the colonists will follow just laws passed by a majority. It was signed by the males on board the boat.
The Pilgrims did not make landfall in Plymouth until five weeks later. Both Provincetown and Plymouth were accidental destinations; the Pilgrims had been heading for the Virginia Colony when sudden storms blew the Mayflower a few hundred miles north.
Along with the 252-foot-high monument commemorating the site is the Provincetown Museum, which could easily be described as the town’s repository, showcasing everything from an extensive gallery devoted to the Mayflower connection to a small exhibit honoring Provincetown resident and modern-day author Norman Mailer.
One reason the Pilgrims seem so disconnected with Provincetown (and if you call it “P-town,” you will pass as a local), is that the touristed yet historical community is heavily associated nowadays with anything but history. The art galleries, the clubs, the Portuguese fishermen, the craftsmen, the gay population, the sand dunes, the narrow streets–all those say Provincetown more than Colonial America 101. At the outermost tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown doesn’t draw people just passing through. One has to want to come here. Like other outposts such as Key West to the south and San Francisco to the west, this community has a reputation for tolerance.
The Pilgrim Monument atop High Pole Hill literally dominates the landscape even if its story no longer does so figuratively. It is 116 steps and 60 ramps (the passages between staircases) to the top, and the view can lure even the most ardent craft seeker off Commercial Street, center of P-town’s shopping district. Boston’s skyline, 42 miles away, is visible on the clearest of days.
On all but the foggiest of days–and fog does slow dance in now and then–one can eyeball the wharves and water to the south and the rambling dunes to the north; and after taking in the total view one will understand why Henry David Thoreau wrote in the 1860s, “Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzard’s Bay; the elbow, or crazy-bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at Provincetown.” (Cape Mallebarre is the present-day town of Chatham.)
The climb up, as with most such ascents, can be tiresome. Consider pausing during your climb to look out windows lodged into the tower’s sides, but also to read some of the 175 plaques placed in the stone wall by Mayflower descendants or others with a link to Pilgrim history.
Most merely mention a town’s name and the year it was settled, but a few are noteworthy, such as this notation about the town of Stoughton, Mass.: “First in Music Musical Society in Stoughton Began 1762 Old Stoughton Musical Society Organized Nov. 7, 1786.”One display inside the accompanying museum tells the monument’s history, how the cornerstone was laid in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt and the monument was dedicated three years later by his successor, William Howard Taft. There is also a trove of trivia here. This is the tallest all-granite structure in the United States, its design copied from the Torre Del Mangia, or Bell Tower of Il Campo, in Siena, Italy
The museum is a low-key and low-tech enterprise, with just one hands-on exhibit, allowing visitors to try their skills tying common sailor’s knots. But it is the place to head to see the relics of four centuries of Provincetown history, beginning with the Pilgrims’ landing. Perhaps the biggest–and certainly most important–of the museum’s five total galleries is devoted to the Pilgrim story. The Pilgrim gallery consists of seven dioramas tucked into the walls with subject matter including the first landing, the first washday and the discovery of a fresh water spring.
One diorama, titled “The First Encounter,” depicts the initial meeting of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, which took place farther down the Cape in present-day Eastham; there, Myles Standish and other Pilgrims landed while on an exploration expedition from Provincetown and were attacked by Native Americans. The Pilgrims fought back and the Native Americans retreated. Another diorama, “Finding the Corn,” set in December in Plymouth Colony, features bare-chested, male Native Americans, warm in the winter chill thanks to a coating of bear grease smeared over their skin. What appear to be their trousers are tubes of deerskin.
The largest diorama offers visitors an inspection of the Mayflower’s mid-section; take a close look on board and you can see the signing of the Mayflower Compact in action while the boat rests quietly in Provincetown Harbor. Nearby, a videotape chronicles the boat’s journey from Plymouth, England, to Plymouth in the New World. The Mayflower Compact is transcribed on a stand-alone display.
Other displays are heavy on Provincetown’s maritime past, with a cross-section of a whaling boat captain’s quarters and the actual jawbone of a finback whale that formed a walk-through arch entrance to the home of a 19th Century Cape Cod whaling captain. Be sure also to take the time to check out two particular items: the collection of sailors’ valentines, intricate ornamental patterns constructed of seashells; and the narwhal tusk, thought in the middle ages to be the tusk of a unicorn and looking just like a unicorn’s tusk should look.
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IF YOU GO
The Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum are open daily, April through November, from 9 a.m., with last admission at 6:15 p.m. in July/August, 4:15 p.m. other months. Admission: $7 adults, $5 ages 62-up and students 15 or older with ID, $3.50 ages 4-14; admission free to all on Sundays from 9 a.m. to noon.
HOLIDAY LIGHTING
From Nov. 23 through New Year’s Day, the Pilgrim Monument will be lit every night with 3,154 tiny white bulbs.
INFORMATION
The Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown , Box 1125, Provincetown, MA 02657; 508-487-1310; www.pilgrim-monument.org.
Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, Box 790, Hyannis, MA 02601; 508-362-3225 or 888-332-2732; www.capecodchamber.org The Cape Cod visitor center is located at the junction of Massachusetts Highway 132 and U.S. Highway 6 in Hyannis.
— M.S.
