Eastham is home to the National Seashore’s Salt Pond Visitor Center, and Wellfleet is home to its headquarters. A stop at the visitor center east of U.S. 6 is an excellent way to discover—through films, exhibits, publications, interpretive programs, and guided walks—the Outer Cape’s many natural and historical features and recreational opportunities (see [pages 90-91]).
Eastham
When the Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod, a small group led by Myles Standish encountered some Indians on Eastham’s bay side. After the Pilgrims had settled in at Plymouth, some of them decided to move back to the Cape, and in 1644 a group founded Nauset, which has been known as Eastham since 1651. One of the Nauset founders, Thomas Prence, governed the whole of Plymouth Colony from Eastham for a few years.
Symbolic of these Plymouth-Eastham ties is the gristmill at Windmill Park on the west side of U.S. 6, about 2½ miles past the Orleans border. The mill was built in the 1600s in Plymouth and was reconstructed in Eastham in 1793. The mill is open during the summer and on weekends in the spring and fall (see [page 47]).
The Penniman House on Fort Hill Road is symbolic of another Eastham era: the heyday of sailing ships and whaling. Edward Penniman was 11 years old in 1842 when he left Fort Hill and went to sea. By the time he was 29 he was captain of his own whaler and soon was sailing to ports around the world. He returned to Eastham in 1868 to build this ornate house complete with mansard roof, kerosene chandelier, and cupola (see [page 49]).
The Nauset Marsh Trail is a loop that starts and ends at the National Seashore’s Salt Pond Visitor Center and goes past its namesake, a former glacial kettle pond that has been inundated by seawater, a salt marsh rich in wildlife, and an abandoned farmstead.
Fort Hill Trail takes a loop through the late-18th century farmstead of Rev. Samuel Treat. You can start at either of 2 parking lots on Fort Hill Road south of the visitor center. It winds past stone walls to Skiff Hill and Fort Hill on the edge of Nauset Marsh and then past the Penniman House. The Red Maple Swamp Trail is a spur loop off the Fort Hill Trail.
Other places of interest: whaling, lifesaving items, and other artifacts at the Historical Society’s Old Schoolhouse Museum opposite Salt Pond Visitor Center; Doane Rock, a glacial erratic; Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach; Three Sisters Lighthouses; local historical objects at Swift-Daley House on U.S. 6.
Wellfleet
The town of Wellfleet—which was a part of Eastham and called Billingsgate until 1763—is an old whaling port and still a major fishing and shellfish center on Cape Cod Bay. Some say Wellfleet got its name from being a “whale fleet” base, while others say the name came from the Wallfleet oyster beds area of England.