Photos courtesy
of the Harwich Harbormaster and the Town of Harwich
Overview
The Town of Harwich
is a resort and residential community located on the south side of the Cape peninsula,
with an extensive shoreline on Nantucket Sound. Harwich is an affordable, diverse
community with many new facilities like the community center, good schools, and
relatively low taxes. The town has excellent beaches along Nantucket Sound, on
Pleasant Bay, and on many of the town's fresh water ponds. The town's harbors,
Wychmere, Saquatucket, and Allen's, are some of the most beautiful on the Cape.
The website of the Harwich
Harbormaster provides a thorough overview of the town.
Harwich was settled around 1665, and incorporated in 1694. Its early economy included
agriculture and maritime industries, and its history has included boom and bust
cycles from the earliest days of the community. When the whaling industry collapsed
with the discovery of oil, the community's emphasis shifted to cod fishing. By
1802, 15 to 20 ships were shore fishing and another four ships were cod fishing
in Newfoundland and Labrador, and by 1851, there were 48 ships employing 577 men
and bringing in thousands of tons of cod and mackerel. The eventual decline of
the fishing industry in Harwich by the latter part of the 19th century was caused
by increases in the size of ships which eventually outstripped the shallow port's
ability to house them.
Residents
turned to the development of cranberry bogs and resorts for summer visitors, working
side-by-side with Portuguese immigrants. The first resort hotel opened in 1880
and both the cranberry and the tourist industries remain substantial parts of
Harwich's economy in the present. In 1775, when Separatists and Baptists outnumbered
Orthodox Congregationalists, Harwich burghers felt independent enough to refuse
to support a minister with public tax monies and they continued refusing to do
so for 18 years. The town showed religious diversity from the first, including
residents who are Baptists, Methodists, Reformed Methodists (anti-Episcopal),
Wesleyans and Catholics, among others.
Commercial,
motel and condominium development has been intense along the Route 28 corridor
and suburban development has significantly decreased the remaining agricultural
landscape, but the town retains much of its 19th century character, including
period Portuguese farmhouses.
(Narrative in part courtesy of the Massachusetts Department of Housing and
Community Development.)
