The Village

Here are the last of the Sandwich photos.


This was my elementary school, Henry T. Wing. When I went there, everyone from K-12 was in this one school, and I remember how small I felt, lining up for lunch in the high school section with all those big kids around. The new high school was completed in the spring of 1976, and my class, the Class of '82, was the first to start off 7th grade in the fall of '76 in the new Junior/Senior high school in East Sandwich.


The first set of windows on the left were my Kindergarten & first grade classrooms. They kept trying to expand the school, first by putting in "temporary" classrooms called Portables. For the first month of my 3rd grade year, all of us were in the gym till the Portables were ready. We moved in but it was short lived, because once the fall rains started, the flat roof leaked, so it was off to the gym again till they got the ceilings fixed. They built on another addition on the other side of the school for the 5th and 6th graders, but eventually, they had to build the high school. Now, there are 3 elementary schools, 1 middle school and Sandwich High. The Portables were never removed and I think are offices now.


This is a shot of what used to be the old cafeteria/auditorium. When we had lunch there, it was very old and musty. There was a piece of grey insulation sticking out of the high ceiling, and the "big kids" liked to torture us younguns by saying it was a mouse and be careful, it might drop onto our lunch tray. It didn't take too long to figure out that the "mouse" never moved. So then we passed the legend along to the kids who were younger than us! And who could forget the day we were eating and Peter Gill let out a bloodcurdling scream, as his fingers got caught in those heavy blue doors? In about '75, one of the other gyms was converted to a new cafeteria/auditorium, and this old one was used briefly as a youth center. I assume it's been renovated inside as well, but I haven't been in it since the late 70's.

Quail Hollow, across from the Wing School. It's really sad to think that I never patronized many of the historic places in Sandwich, and as a result, I have no idea what Quail Hollow is. Or does. Or sells. But every time I see it, I flash on a memory of being in first grade, in Mrs. Hart's classroom. It was either the last day or day before the last day, in mid-June. It was so hot and humid, and the windows were all open. I was wearing a sleeveless sundress. Since all lessons had officially ended for the year, she had us pull our desks into a circle and she read to us. The whole class was so sleepy from the opressive heat, and I remember just staring out the window at the bright yellow Quail Hollow building, spacing out.

This was Yesteryear's Doll Museum, and was white with dark red trim, when I lived in Sandwich. I loved the old doll museum, and it had the most amazing collection of antiques dolls and doll houses from all over the world. For awhile in the 70's, the clock's bell would chime the time on the hour and half hour. The building was falling apart and in the 80's & 90's, it was a blight on Main Street. It was built in 1703. I think it's a bistro/B&B now. The funds for the clock at the top were donated in 1808, by Titus Winchester, the last slave in Sandwich. I used to live in this building, from 1988 to when I moved to San Francisco. It's next door to the Doll Museum and across from the library. My apartment was on the 2nd floor, left. The two windows on the left were in my livingroom. The window on the same floor, but behind the main part was my bedroom.

I didn't shoot the side so that you can see the angle, but this is a large saltbox house, owned by the Columbo family. From K-12, I was in the same class as Joya. Her dad was my dad's dentist. My dad did all their plumbing. The plaque over the door has the year it was built, I think it was around 1697 or 1693. Although we knew each other from kindergarten, Joya and I had different sets of friends (she being from town and me being from E. Sandwich), so I've never been inside her house.

Another of the oldest churches in Sandwich, built in the late 1600's. It's called the First Church of Christ, or "The Christopher Wren" as it is in Wren's style. Senior year in high school when I was in chorus, we did a concert of Vivaldi's "Gloria" with the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, in this church. All those months and months of practice in class and after school and it totally paid off. I have to say, Mr. Graham's Sandwich High Chorus kicked some serious butt that night, eh Liz?

The "Greco-Roman Piece of Shit" Sandwich Town Hall, as Brian calls it. I never really thought about it's imposing and out-of-place architecture as compared to the Ye Olde Sandwich Towne historic homes and churches till Brian mentioned it. But thanks to my cousin Bobbie, I now know why it was built in this style. Which is that in the early 1800's, after the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, New England towns were moving as far away from their English colonial roots as possible, and shunned that style in favor of the classical Greek and/or Roman architecture. (Did I get that right, Bobbie?). In the 6th grade, my class took a field trip to Town Hall and we were shown the 2nd floor dancehall. I bet very few people in Sandwich even know it exists. They had to close it to public events b/c the floor wasn't safe anymore. But there's a stage with huge asbestos curtains (which are probably gone now but they pointed them out on our field trip), and it was just used for storage. But I guess for awhile, it was one of the places to go for entertainment.

This is an Artesian Well, located at the Grist Mill, next to the duck pond. People always come to fill up their plastic jugs with this water. It is cold and refreshing and delicious, that's for sure. And I'm proud to say that my dad did the plumbing on this well till he retired.

At the grist mill.

Dexter's Grist Mill. It's open for tours in the summer. I think they still do stone ground milling demonstrations and then you can buy the ground corn meal if you want. At least they used to do that; not sure if they still do. Always loved the weeping willow tree along the creek. The grist mill is behind town hall.

I'm not entirely sure why this photo came out so tilted....I thought I was shooting straight at the time. I liked how it reflected in the duck pond. This house has a sign that says, "Newcomb's Tavern" and it was built in 1693. While Fessenden's Tavern (now Daniel Webster Inn) was the headquarters of the Patriots during the Revolutionary War, Newcomb's Tavern was the HQ of the Tories. Newcomb's Tavern is now a rental property. So if you find yourself with an extra $1,000 burning a hole in your pocket, that's how much it will cost to stay for one night. $5,500 gets you a week; $20,000 buys you a month. Now, the Webby may be pricey at a few hundred bucks for the suites, but it's not THAT pricey.

It was all I could do to keep myself from squealing with delight when two fuzzy little yellow heads popped up from the grass near 2 Canada geese. The geese let me get pretty close to the babies to take photos.

Maybe they are used to humans. Maybe they could sense I meant no harm and thought that their family was lovely.

Thornton W. Burgess Museum. He wrote a bunch of children's stories set in Sandwich, and included characters like Jimmy Skunk, Grandfather Frog, Mother West Wind, Little Peter Cottontail, Mrs. Peter Rabbit, Lightfoot the Deer, and his stories were set at The Briar Patch.

I shot this one from the bus, going back to Logan Airport in Boston. This is from the Sagamore Bridge, looking at the eastern entrance of the Cape Cod Canal, and the power plant at the Sandwich Marina. There are 2 bridges that link the Cape to the rest of the state by car, the Sagamore and Bourne Bridges. There's also a railroad bridge in Buzzards Bay, at the western entrance of the Canal, that stays raised to allow shipping traffic and lowers when a train needs to cross.