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Lure of the Marshes

Getting started in the new land was no job for one who shied away from hard work. Chopping down enough trees to get some sort of a shelter built was just the beginning. The land had to be cleared for grazing of one’s “critters”. This is perhaps why Barnstable looked so attractive to those who pushed down from the Plymouth Colony to make new settlements.

What an allure the broad salt marshes, without a tree, must have had for the new settlers. The Reverend Joseph Hull was quick to see that the big salt marshes grew enough salt hay to keep many times the cattle he owned. Hull went to Barnstable from Weymouth because he didn’t get along well with the Weymouth folks.

He was pretty well settled with his small following on the banks of Coggin’s Pond when another group came down the Cape. The new group was led by one of the most magnetic pastors of history—the Reverend John Lothrop. Lothrop’s flock had come from the Congregational Church in England and had followed him to Scituate. When he decided to go to Barnstable most of the flock packed up and went along with him. The Barnstable organization can claim to be the oldest Congregational society in the country. Lothrop and his followers arrived on the Cape in October 1639. The town of Barnstable was incorporated the same year with the Old English town on the Devonshire Coast lending a name.

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