An Old-Timer on Cape Cod

This 1640 house in Barnstable, Massachusetts, is so drenched in history that you may even hear echoes of the first Thanksgiving.

Yankee likes to mosey around and see, out of editorial curiosity, what you can turn up when you go house hunting. We have no stake in the sale whatsoever and would decline it if offered.

BY GUEST MOSEYER TIM CLARK

drove to Cape Cod, hardly thinking about the fact that it was July 2, the last workday before the long Independence Day weekend. However, traffic was surprisingly light, and I crossed the Sagamore Bridge at about 11:30 a.m., in plenty of time to meet Bobbi Cox, owner and broker for Mulberry Cottage in Barnstable, at noon.

“It’s close to the road,” she warned me ahead of time. And why not? It was built around 1640, when the only traffic to be concerned about was the occasional war party of Wampanoags investigating the tall-hatted strangers who had shown up 20 years earlier in Plymouth, robbing Native burial sites of grain to keep from starving. Eventually the Pilgrims, as we’ve come to know them, and the local tribes made peace over a big meal. But that’s another story.

The road, now Route 6A, is also called Main Street, or Old King’s Highway, which gave its name to the National Historic District that was declared in 1973. It’s the largest in the nation, encompassing more than 1,000 acres and nearly 500 buildings.

Living in a National Historic District is a mixed blessing. On one hand, the owner of a property must get the approval of the local board for any changes to the exteriors of buildings and structures (including paint colors), fences and signs, and new construction or demolition.

On the other hand, it’s beautiful. And who wants to buy a 375-year-old house on Cape Cod in order to change it?

The house was built for Samuel Hinckley, one of the earliest settlers. Somehow he and his wife managed to stuff 13 children into a two-room halfCape (“They must have hung them on hooks,” Bobbi remarked), and until the early 1900s, it was called the Hinckley House. (I read that Samuel Hinckley is said to be an ancestor of three presidents: Obama and father and son Bush.)

That changed when the Beale family moved in and planted a mulberry tree in the front yard. It has been Mulberry Cottage ever since, even though the tree blew down in a storm decades ago.

The Beales were local landmarks. Louise Darwin Miller (Mrs. Arthur Beale), a poet and dedicated bicyclist, was famous for her daily 16-mile round trip from Barnstable to the South Shore and back, which she celebrated in verse:

No gas, no oil

Do I need!

No traffic cops to fear!

My pedal’s license covers all,

As across the Cape I speed!

OPPOSITE: Mulberry Cottage owners Bobbi Cox and John Powlovich. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The house and property offer a tasteful blend of old and new. A modern kitchen features worn brick walls; a spacious addition was built on the footprint of the original barn; the library and staircase retain many historic features, including wide floorboards.