Aptucxet Trading Post Museum

Aptucxet Trading Post Museum

Replica of the Aptucxet Trading Post
Location on Cape Cod
Established 1930 (1930)
Location Bourne, Massachusetts
Coordinates 41°44′31″N 70°36′18″W / 41.742°N 70.605°W / 41.742; -70.605
Type Historic site
Owner Bourne Historical Society
Website www.bournehistoricalsociety.org/aptucxet-museum/
1971 windmill at the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum

The Aptucxet Trading Post Museum is a small open-air historical museum in Bourne, Massachusetts. The museum's main attraction is a replica of the 17th-century Aptucxet Trading Post, which was built by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in order to trade with the Wampanoags and the Dutch. In addition to the trading post, the museum also features a replica of a 19th-century saltworks, the relocated 19th-century Gray Gables Railroad Station, and a wooden smock windmill.

Aptucxet Trading Post

In 1627, English colonists from Plymouth Colony established a trading post about 20 miles (32 km) south of Plymouth at Aptucxet on the Manamet River (also known as the Manomet[1][2] or Monument[1] River) on upper Cape Cod. The post was the colonists' first permanent settlement on Cape Cod,[2] although colonists had previously visited the Manamet River area to trade for corn and beans[2] and to search for a missing colonist.[3][4] The name Aptucxet is a Wampanoag word meaning "little trap in the river", possibly referring to a fishing weir.[5]

The post was established primarily for the purpose of trading with the Wampanoags, which was desirable for the colonists for several reasons. The colony was in part reliant on corn and beans supplied by the Wampanoags, and some colonists hoped to start a fur trade in order to repay their debts to England. The trading post also came to be used as a site for trade between the English colonists and the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam (today New York City) to the south.[2][4][6]

Aptucxet was the first trading post to be established by the Plymouth colonists, and it was followed in 1633 by the Metteneque Trading Post in what is now Windsor Locks, Connecticut[7] and the Cushnoc Trading Post in what is now Augusta, Maine. Although it was located some distance from the colony, the post was staffed year-round by colonists. The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 damaged one of the buildings at the post, and by the 1650s, the post was abandoned. The land later became part of a European American farm.[4][6]

The first archaeological dig on the property was conducted in 1852, when John Batchelder and William Russell undertook a partial excavation of a double cellar hole foundation.[6][4] They believed the foundation was part of the original Aptucxet Trading Post, although some researchers have suggested that it may have belonged to a later building.[6] The Bourne Historical Society acquired the land in 1922, and a thorough excavation was conducted between 1926 and 1929 by Percival Hall Lombard and Nathan Bourne Hartford. The current replica building was constructed in 1930 upon these original foundations, using findings from the archaeological digs.[6][4]

Also in the early 20th century, the Manamet and Scusset Rivers were widened and connected to form the Cape Cod Canal, following a very similar route to the one used by Plymouth colonists to travel to the Aptucxet Trading Post.[1][2]

Saltworks

The museum also features a replica saltworks similar to ones that were used in the area to manufacture sea salt in the 1800s. The saltworks consist of square wooden vats where seawater was left to evaporate. Each vat is equipped with a sliding hipped roof that can be used to protect the vats from dew and rain. The replica saltworks were built in 1967 and rebuilt in 2000 and 2014.[8]

Gray Gables Railroad Station

Gray Gables Railroad Station building at the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum

The museum houses the original station building of the nearby defunct Gray Gables Railroad Station. The station was built in 1892 to provide rail transportation to President Grover Cleveland's summer home of Gray Gables. The station closed in the 1940s, and the station building was relocated to the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum in 1977.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Cape Cod Canal History". US Army Corps of Engineers. Retrieved July 4, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 King, H. Roger (1994). Cape Cod and Plymouth Colony in the Seventeenth Century. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
  3. ↑ Bradford, William (1912). History of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647. 1. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society/Houghton Mifflin.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Aptucxet Trading Post Museum". Bourne Historical Society. Retrieved July 4, 2017.
  5. ↑ Dimock, Gioia (2014). Images of America: Bourne. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Luedtke, Barbara E. (1998). "Worked ballast flint at Aptucxet". Northeast Historical Archaeology. 27: 33–50. Retrieved July 4, 2017.
  7. ↑ "Connecticut's Oldest English Settlement". ConnecticutHistory.org. Retrieved July 4, 2017.
  8. ↑ "Salt Works". Bourne Historical Society. Retrieved July 4, 2017.


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