AROUND CAPE COD
The award-winning Cultural Center of Cape Cod on Old Main Street opened in 2007 in a renovated old bank building to serve the entire Cape community and visitors to the area with instruction and exhibition in the visual, literary, and performing arts. Also in town is the Yarmouth Art Guild, which provides education, enrichment experiences, and showcase opportunities for its more than 125 community artist members. ARTS The Edward Gorey House Museum on Yarmouth Port’s common celebrates the life and work of the American author and illustrator, while the nearby Thacher Hall, a historic former church revitalized by the Yarmouth New Church Preservation Foundation, serves as a vibrant center for public benefit and use. The Whydah Pirate Museum on Route 28 is home to thousands of relics from the Whydah , a ship seized by pirates and shipwrecked off Cape Cod in 1717. Since 1978, the Yarmouth Seaside Festival has been creating community spirit each October with live music, a craft fair, kayak and canoe races, children’s events, and a spectacular firework display on Seagull Beach. CULTURE Yarmouth is part of the Dennis-Yarmouth school district and has two elementary schools: Station Avenue and Marguerite E. Small. Older students attend schools in both towns, including Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, home to the Werner Schmidt Observatory. Yarmouth teens can also choose Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich. St. Pius X School, Cape Cod’s only pre-K through grade eight Catholic school, is located in Yarmouth. EDUCATION Long before 1639, when a land grant to English settlers John Crow, Thomas Howes, and Anthony Thacher transformed “the lands of Mattacheeset” into Yarmouth, generations of Native people lived here. The whole area was known as “Mattacheese,” which meant “old lands by the borders of water.” It was home to different tribes of the collective Wampanoag nation, including the Pawkunnawkuts, who occupied both sides of the southern section of Bass River; the Hokanums, who resided in the northeast section of town; and the Cummaquids, who lived in the western part. Today, a traditional Wampanoag structure, known as a Turtle Wetu, has been designed and constructed by a member of the Wampanoag nation on the grounds of the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth. HISTORY
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