How HSOY came to own the Yarmouth Port Post Office

Remember last fall when we revealed that HSOY owns the Yarmouth Port Post Office building? Are you curious as to how this came about?  Let us share this interesting story with you.  

In 1958, the year the building was constructed, HSOY was in its infancy and seeking innovative ways to raise funds for restoration of its Greek Revival treasure, the Captain Bangs Hallet House.  Then, seemingly by a stroke of luck, an individual unaffiliated with HSOY came forward and proposed building a post office in a compatible architectural style on land he wanted to lease from the group.  Thus began HSOY’s journey of deriving rental income to further its mission; of fostering the construction of a much-needed new post office; and of focusing on historic preservation and conservation projects on its 50-acre parcel of land. 

The South Yarmouth Pancake Man.

The individual behind building the Yarmouth Port Post Office was John T. Crawford of South Yarmouth.  According to ads that appeared in the Yarmouth Register in 1958, he was the proprietor of Babbitt Rentals, Hyannis, which was a tool and equipment rental business (interestingly enough, in 1961 he and his wife Frances were co-founders of The Pancake Man restaurant in South Yarmouth!).  He also must have been a builder because the U.S. Postal Service awarded him the contract to build the Yarmouth Port Post Office. After the town denied construction at one location, he was forced to identify another site.  It appears that by March of that year, he had contacted HSOY about leasing some land. The minutes of HSOY’s Executive Board meeting, dated March 17, 1958, indicate that “land is to be leased to John T. and Frances Crawford for a term of 10 years at an annual rental of $240, payable in monthly installments of $20…with an option for extension times” and “said property is to be used for a Post Office.”  Ann Maxtone-Graham, co-founder and then-president of HSOY, “…said Mr. Crawford had been very helpful in making the arrangement” and added that “…Royal Barry Wills, well-known Boston architect, would design a colonial style building” (Yarmouth Register, March 14, 1958).

Yarmouth Port Post office, about 1959.

As part of this project, the historically separate Yarmouth and Yarmouth Port post offices merged into one operation.  As highlighted in a May 9, 1958, article in the Yarmouth Register, “[t]he Post Office Department decided to consolidate Yarmouth Port and Yarmouth Post Offices by absorbing the Yarmouth office in the new building…”  

The new post office opened at the beginning of August, with the merging of the two offices having been completed at the end of the month.  The previous Yarmouth Port Post Office was housed in the 19th-century commercial building at 194 Route 6A, which became the offices of the Dennis Yarmouth Register immediately after the post office vacated the building.  The old Yarmouth Post Office was located in a modest gable-front commercial building at 490 Route 6A.  Both buildings survive today; one is a private home, the other is a law office.

By 1969, Mr. Crawford was out of the picture as builder, lessee, and “agent” for the U.S. Postal Service, and HSOY bought the building and leased the land directly to the Postal Service.  In 1978 Theodore Childs, former administrator of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and chair of HSOY’s Post Office Committee, negotiated with the Postal Service to arrive at a compatible design for the rear addition to the building (a plaque dedicated to the memory of Theodore Childs hangs in the lobby on the wall opposite the front door). The addition, which doubled the size of the building, was designed by Harold Palmborg of Needham.  

In 1995 Cape artist Karen Dexter Mackiewicz painted a mural entitled, “Yarmouthport in the 1800s,” which hangs above the mailboxes in the lobby opposite the front wall.  This mural was carefully removed and restored by Cape Cod Picture Framing & Restoration/Art Rescue after a car damaged the right side of the front wall and part of the lobby in October 2024. The building reopened to the public on November 26, 2024, after the damaged portion of the front wall had been rebuilt, the front door replaced with an accessible door, and new lobby flooring installed. The restoration of the mural took a little longer, and it was reinstalled in March 2025.

So, there you have it: The connection of the Yarmouth Port Post Office to HSOY and its property is no longer shrouded in mystery.

Researched and written by Gary Sachau

Before it was the Gorey House

The house at 8 Strawberry Lane in Yarmouth Port has become well known, on and off Cape Cod, as the Edward Gorey House. The entertaining exhibits celebrate and preserve the life and works of the unique author, illustrator and theatrical designer who lived there with his multiple cats from 1986 until his death in April of 2000. Fascinating as Gorey was, he was just one of the colorful owners in the history of this home.

Nathaniel Stone Simpkins

The front part of the house was built on the east side of what is now the Yarmouth Port Common, by Captain Edmond Hawes, probably about 1820. At the time the Common was a swamp on the north end and a shallow, clay bottomed pond on the south end. Little is known about Edmond except that he died in 1831. The house was sold to Nathaniel Stone Simpkins on April 5, 1830. He was born in Brewster in 1796 and married to Eliza Jane Thacher, daughter of Henry Thacher who lived in the handsome house at the top of the Common. They had six children and Eliza died in 1836, shortly after the youngest, George, was born. In 1852 Nathaniel married Mary Sears. During his lifetime he improved and remodeled the house, adding what is now the middle portion, and planted trees and shrubbery, including boxwood transplanted from the house next door. Nathaniel was a prosperous businessman in Boston, as well as on the Cape. He founded the Yarmouth Register and Barnstable County Advertiser, and was a director the First National Bank of Yarmouth Port and of the Cape Cod Railroad. He was also a civic leader serving in State House of Representatives and involved in the establishment of schools, the New Church and the Yarmouth Port Library. We don’t know if he lived full time on Strawberry Lane, but he spent his old age there. His second wife, Mary, who was twenty one years younger, died in 1886, and he died in 1887. His youngest son George took possession of the house.

The Simpkins family at home in the 1860s.

An 1860s view of 8 Strawberry Lane.

George Simpkins, like many young men of the time when the maritime trade was declining, had left the Cape and gone west. He settled and prospered in St. Louis, and became the treasurer and vice-president of the Hydraulic Press Brick Company. He married a St. Louis girl in 1865, Mary Louise Michael, and they had four sons and three daughters. They were prominent members of St. Louis society, but George never lost his attachment to Yarmouth Port and brought his family to the old homestead to spend the summers. They sometimes traveled in a private railway car, and brought with them their cook, Laura, as well as their coachman and a succession of sewing girls from an orphanage. Sometime in the late 19th century they added the back section to the house which included more bedrooms and a large new kitchen with a pantry featuring a small, high door for ice deliveries. The second floor now had seven bedrooms and three baths, all with marble wash basins and claw-footed bathtubs. There were two more rooms on the third floor, likely for the servants. George died in St. Louis on April 2, 1901. In a letter in the Yarmouth Register dated April 10, T. W. Swift, pays tribute to him, remarking that “he will be greatly missed at Yarmouth where his coming was one of the most charming features of summer life.” After his death, the family continued to summer on the Cape. George’s widow, Mary Louise, died in 1909.

George Simpkins’ gravestone in St. Louis.

The three daughters, Louise, born 1872, Olive, born 1879, and Ethel, born 1882, seem to have been more attached to Yarmouth Port than the surviving brothers who spent little time there. The local papers were full of chatty information and from 1899 through 1914 there are various items about the family’s arrivals, departures and activities. In later years “Miss Louise” and “Miss Olive” were the only family members who continued to summer in the old family home. In 1909 Ethel married William Griffith McRee, Jr. in St. Louis. He was a well-to-do business man who played polo, but he was Catholic so the family wasn’t entirely pleased with the match. The McRees built their own summer home, more or less copied from the design of the old homestead, on the rise behind it and adjacent to the library. William later lost heavily in the stock market crash and the couple became full time residents here. Sally White, whose mother was Martha White, long time librarian at the Yarmouth Port Library, remembered all three sisters well. She said that Louise was short, plump and lively while Olive was tall, slender and shy. Although Louse was once engaged (her fiancé died of pneumonia a month before the wedding), neither of them ever married. The sisters inherited money from an uncle who was in copper mining in Colorado, and presumably from their father, and this allowed them to live comfortably, both here and in St. Louis where they had an apartment in a hotel.

A side view of the house, with its many additions, dated 1912.

Sometime in the 1920’s Louise and Olive took up “motoring” and bought a car. Louise never learned to drive so Olive was always at the wheel. With their increased mobility they shopped in Hyannis, referring to their outings as “motoring to market.” They joined the Beach Club in Centerville and much of their social life revolved around it. They also enjoyed taking road trips. On one trip in 1928 or 1929, they went to Virginia and visited Mount Vernon where they purchased a small southern magnolia tree in a pot. It was planted on the sheltered south side of the Yarmouth Port house and has grown into a large and striking feature of the landscape.

Passport photos of sisters Olive (left) and Louise Simpkins in the 1920s.

Louise died in July 1952. Olive continued to spend time on the Cape, but sometimes stayed at the Colonial House Inn (now Chapter House) rather than be alone in the big house. She died in Yarmouth Port in March of 1962. Her obituary describes her as a member of a prominent St. Louis family and a member of the Country Club and Christ Cathedral, Episcopal in her native city. Ethel didn’t want the family house to be sold, and it remained empty except for a family of raccoons. Ethel occasionally had small tea parties in the south front parlor, and she sold flowers from the magnolia tree at the Yarmouth Port Library for $1.00 apiece. She requested that her funeral be decorated with “whatever was growing in the yard at the time.” Remarkably, when she died on September 15, 1976, the magnolia tree produced a single bloom, a rare occurrence so late in the season, and her friends climbed out a third story window to retrieve it for her memorial service.

Stenciling inside the 8 Strawberry Lane. Photo courtesy of the Edward Gorey House Museum.

Ethel’s heirs (she was a widow with no children) inherited the property, by then very overgrown and neglected, and put it on the market. In the summer of 1979, Edward Gorey drove by, was attracted by the unkempt yard and air of genteel decay and bought it forthwith. He had considerable interior work done but for years was comfortable with the somewhat gothic exterior. When the wall paper was removed from the south front parlor, it was found that the walls underneath were decorated with stencils, probably dating from the time of the first owner, Captain Hawes.

They remain today as a reminder of the long history of the house.

Written by Elizabeth Morton

The Cape Cod Coliseum

Fifty years ago, you wouldn’t have to leave Yarmouth to see concerts by the Beach Boys, J. Geils, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, and many others. You’d be able to watch a pre-season NHL hockey game featuring the Boston Bruins, as well as professional wrestling and boxing. Sound incredible? Welcome to the history of the Cape Cod Coliseum, located on White’s Path in South Yarmouth.

The Coliseum was in part an outgrowth of the hockey craze that hit New England in the late 60s and early 70s, when the big, bad Bruins with Bobby Orr won their first Stanley Cup in 26 years in 1970. The Coliseum, with seating for nearly 7200, opened in September 1972 and hosted four different professional hockey teams between 1972 and 1983. None lasted more than two seasons. 

The first tenant was the Cape Cod Cubs, an expansion franchise in the Eastern Hockey League and an affiliate of the NHL's Boston Bruins. The players lived at Camp Wingate during the short pre-season, coached by former Bruin Bronco Horvath. The Cubs lost their first game with 1000 attending on October 13, 1972. Attendance rose to nearly 3000 for a game in November. A December 7 Register article said the team was moving toward 4000. Winning the EHL's Central Division championship that year, the Cubs’ first year budget was $300,000. They needed to average 2500 in attendance to break even, but managed only 1900. This team formed the background for the 1977 movie “Slap Shot.” The movie’s Hyannis Presidents team was based on the Cape Cod Cubs, and featured one of its actual players, Mark Bousquet.

The Yarmouth Indians of the Cape Cod Amateur Hockey league, actually played the first game in the Coliseum, October 8. Using free puck nights and double-headers, they did draw some crowds. Public skating also provided funds and interest.

Promoters tried to raise money with other entertainment. The first non-ice event was a roller derby on November 3, 1972. The teams, the Chiefs and Jolters, were co-ed, and they brought their own portable track, not much larger than a basketball court.  2500 people attended. The Icicles, a 250 member Yarmouth Ice Club, put on a show in 1973, as did American Hockey League Boston Braves vs R.I. Reds in a game on Sept 29 1973. A few days later, on October 3, WHA’s NE Whalers played the Quebec Nordiques; tickets were $6.50.

No complete listing of events held at the Coliseum has ever been compiled. The first major non-sporting event at Coliseum was Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops (costing $6000 to convert from hockey, move scoreboard, etc.) Fiedler arrived on a Yarmouth fire engine and played 3 encores to the sell-out crowd. They played multiple times at the Coliseum. The London Symphony Orchestra also played there.

Concerts could hold 7200 people. The list of performers reads like a hall of fame for the 70s and 80s, many playing there several times. The Boston Phoenix’s 40 greatest concerts in Boston history listed the July 15, 1978 - J Geils Band + Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Coliseum at #29. Peter Wolf reminisced in an interview, "Once in the ‘70s, I was doing an interview at WBCN and the band was down at the Coliseum. I went outside the radio station and there was a stretch limousine. I got in it and it was enormously long, it seemed like you could fit a boat-load of people and we started going down the Cape. There were all these people on the side of the road with signs saying “GEILS CAPE COD COLISEUM” so I’d say to the driver, “Pull over” and the door would open and in would jump fans. We’d drive another couple of miles and there’d be a bunch more and by the time we got to the Coliseum we had a full load. And it was great. Some of the fans couldn’t believe it. Plus, a stretch limousine was so unusual at the time, something you rarely saw."

Performers included: Jesse Colin Young (former Youngbloods), Herman’s Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Wayne Fontana, Mind Benders, Billy J. Kramer, Dakotas, Search, Sly & the Family Stone, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Chuck Berry, John Denver, Helen Reddy, Lee Colton & the Pile Drivers,  Uriah Heep and ZZ Top, Earth Wind & Fire, Aerosmith, Johnny Winter, Blue Öyster Cult; REO Speedwagon, 3 Dog Night, The Beach Boys, King Crimson, Golden Earring, J. Geils Band, David Bowie, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Journey, Poco, Dave Mason, Todd Rundgren, James Taylor, Starz, KISS, Duke And The Drivers and Nils Lofgren, Peter Frampton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kingfish, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Boz Scaggs & Little River Band, Dart Band, Pablo Cruise, Ted Nugent, Foreigner, Styx, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Outlaws, The Kinks, The Doobie Brothers, Heart, Allman Brothers Band, Rush, Loverboy, Foghat, The Clash, Ozzy Osbourne, Gary “U.S.” Bonds, Alice Cooper (Joan Jett & Black Hearts were opening act), Journey, Carlos Santana, Foreigner, Charlie Daniels Band, Bobby & the Midnites, The Marshall Tucker Band, Huey Lewis and the News, Loverboy, Elvis Costello, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia Band, Def Leppard, The B-52s, Talking Heads, Iron Maiden – and this list is not complete.

People who attended remarked that heat was a major issue - the term “sweatbox” came up alot. Some called the building a concrete tube with a stage. The A/C couldn’t keep up, and after one concert ended and the A/C cooled things down, some said that it actually rained inside from all of the condensation on the ceiling. Traffic jams, drugs and fighting in the parking lots and other shenanigans caused widespread neighborhood complaints.

Concert at the Coliseum.

Jazz greats performing at the Coliseum included Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles, Errol Garner, George Shearing, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Carman MacRae, and Benny Goodman with Bobby Hackett on trumpet.

Various attempts to refinance and/or sell eventually ended in 1979 with a no money down mortgage to Vince McMahon, later of WWF fame. McMahon and wife, moving to Yarmouth, brought many different kinds of shows. In early September 1979, he sat at a press conference alongside Bruins Brad Park and Rick Middleton to announce “the event that would put the Coliseum on the map.” The event? - a Buffalo Sabres versus Boston Bruins preseason game to be played in the Coliseum on October 6. The building rocked that night, a sellout 5-4 win for the Bruins, some viewing it as predicted, “the greatest event in the building’s history.”

Under McMahon, the Coliseum hosted many famous wrestlers, including Chief Jay Strongbow and Andre the Giant, both on the same tag team. Other wrestlers appearing there included Haystack Calhoon, Pedro Morales, Gorilla Monsoon, Mr. Fuji, Prof. Taru Tanaka, George the animal Steele, and Tony Garea.

The Coliseum hosted an ESPN boxing show headlined by light middleweight contender Sean Mannion. But, McMahon’s only professional hockey team, the fourth to play at the Coliseum, never got above .500, and folded early in 1982. Sadly the seasonal nature of Cape Cod could not support such a venue, even with sports events and concerts.

Inclement weather forced DY High School to hold a graduation ceremony there, and their graduations continued at the Coliseum through the early 80’s until it closed.

Peter Patton was general manager of Coliseum in 1984 when the building was sold to Christmas Tree Shops for storage. In 1996, they tried to sell to Home Depot. Remembering traffic tie-ups and other less savory thoughts about some of the crowds, the sale was not allowed. Christmas Tree Shops closed it, then reopened it again for storage. In 2003, an addition more than doubled the building’s size. Mid-Cape Homes bought the original building for a distribution facility that year. 

And there the building sits today, its name still faintly visible high on the front façade, a reminder of some remarkable events that took place on the now quieter White’s Path.


Written and researched by Duncan Oliver.

Our Yarmouth Libraries : a brief history

The first formal private library on Cape Cod was in Yarmouth. It was organized on March 16th, 1807 at Elisha Doane’s tavern, a building still standing on the corner of Route 6A and Playground Lane. Called the Union Library, shares were two dollars each, and yearly dues were eight cents a share, payable to the librarian. The committee was admonished not to accept any second hand volumes when purchasing books.

The former Elisha Doane Tavern.

Fifty-six individuals initially bought shares; seven others purchased them later, and three women were subscribers. HSOY owns the original regulations and documents, along with the lending history of each subscriber, which were found as part of Prince Matthews’s journals; he lived at 1 Strawberry Lane and was the last clerk (a previous blog post was about those very journals). The records indicate the conditions of books upon return, including “grease stain on page 304,” “folded corner on page 11,” and “slight tear on page 25.” At least four men were tardy returning the book, “Self Controlle.” Circulation slowed considerably after the War of 1812, and the library was disbanded in 1817.

The current Yarmouth Port library was organized by 20 men at the home of Yarmouth Register editor Charles Swift as a subscription library, with shares costing $10 each. Henry C. Thacher offered a plot of land and a former law office was moved there in August of 1866 to house the books. Six hundred volumes were purchased and William J. Davis was chosen to be the librarian.

Late in 1870 Nathan Matthews, a native of Yarmouth, offered to erect a $9,000 brick building on the property in memory of his father, along with a large cash endowment, on the condition that the library be free to all the inhabitants of Yarmouth. The offer was quickly accepted and the shareholders relinquished all rights. The new building, in a gothic architectural style, included an apartment for the librarian, a common and attractive feature as pay was low. The former law office became the kitchen for the apartment. 

The Yarmouth Port Library building with its original tower, late 1800s. Librarian Lydia Matthews is standing on the front steps. Click to enlarge.

The library was blessed with fine librarians. Mary Bray followed William Davis, and then for a brief time of four months in 1889 a Mrs. Stearns took over. She was followed by Mrs. Lydia C. Matthews who held the position from 1889 to 1937. Finding a replacement for someone who had served 48 years would seem no easy task, but Martha Usher White was asked to serve and she stayed 53½ years, meaning that for over 100 years there were only two librarians. Forty-seven of those years Martha and her family lived in the apartment in the library. It isn’t well known that the librarian at that time was expected to clean the building as well! 

Librarian Martha White, right, at her retirement.

Under her tutelage, major positive changes occurred. The tower on the original building was taken down in 1945 when found to be unsafe. In April of 1951, the John Simpkins wing was added, funded by Mabel Agassiz, followed by the Mary Thacher children’s wing in 1958. A genealogy room and a local history room were created on the second floor, and a librarian’s office was created downstairs. Martha convinced the board to allow her to select the new books (rather than a trustee who lived in Boston and only sent reference books) which greatly boosted circulation. The library is still a community hub today.

South Yarmouth Library

The South Yarmouth Library had its beginnings in 1865 when a ladies library association was formed. Historian Daniel Wing became the librarian and had charge of a collection of 212 books.

The South Yarmouth Women’s Club at 200 Old Main Street.

Four years later it was reorganized as the South Yarmouth Social Library, with annual dues of 50 cents. For the first 17 years it was run out of a ten foot square shed behind Peleg Akins’ house on Pleasant Street, then in 1882 the collection moved to the second floor above the Wing brothers’ store on the corner of Main and Bridge Streets. The store closed in 1901 so the library moved downstairs to occupy that space for 25 years (see cover image, top), then moved to the second floor of 200 Old Main Street, the former Women’s Club, which was rented for $10 per month.

E. L. Jenkins

One noted library booster during the early 1900s was E. Lawrence Jenkins. After returning to his home town from Boston to care for family, he began writing plays that were performed in the Owl Club for the library’s benefit. He also organized a literary society and wrote articles for the Yarmouth Register on Yarmouth’s history. In his obituary in 1923 it was suggested the “local and well equipped library should be called “The E. L. Jenkins Library.” It is he, chiefly, who has made and cared for it.”

The South Yarmouth Library

Finally, the library found its current home in 1935, when the collection moved to the Cape style house formerly owned by Zenas Wood, built about 1830. The library has since been renovated and expanded several times.

West Yarmouth Library

This little library had an informal start in 1863 when a group of young people gathered some books and created a small village library in the West Yarmouth school building. An association was formed in 1891 by a group of seven individuals, five of who were named Crowell, a very common name in town. They set annual dues at ten cents per person and the librarian received a salary of $10 per year.

The West Yarmouth Schoolhouse, left.

The library operated out of this building until 1965 when Harold and Frances Castonguay offered a new library building in memory of their daughter Ann, who died suddenly and tragically in her sleep in 1947 at the age of 17 from a heart condition. The old schoolhouse was moved back to another plot of land to make way and the new building was constructed where the school originally stood. The family also donated 600 books for children, a beautiful collection of carved birds, and later built an addition.

The West Yarmouth Library.

The three Yarmouth libraries were separate entities under private management, though awarded some town funds, until the 1990s when all three branches came under the umbrella of one director. They operated that way for about 10 years until the financial crisis in the late 2000s when Yarmouth Port again became private. It remains so today. Changes may be coming as Yarmouth has been polling residents about a new, more centrally located library building with more space and modern facilities that can better serve the community. This proposed library would replace the South and West Yarmouth buildings, creating a new chapter in the town libraries’ history.

Written and researched by Duncan Oliver and Nancy Mumford

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