Who planted the Elms?

Hard Against the Rising Ground

by Thomas Sbarra

Logic would dictate that the oldest part of Falmouth

would be the village center or the village green. However,

the original center of town was the old burying

ground and the meeting house, near what is now the

intersection of the bike path and Woods Hole Road.

Some of the names of the streets in that area reflect

the history of those first settlers. Others–Elm Road,

Locust Street, and Pin Oak Way–were named for

trees on what had been a treeless plain. The stories of

those early settlers and a few determined larger-thanlife

characters illuminate the changes that occurred

as the town center migrated over the last 350 years.

In 1524, a century before the settling of Falmouth,

and just 32 years after Columbus, Giovanni da Verrazzano

sailed into Narragansett Bay and was struck

by the treeless landscape

extending for dozens of

miles inland from the

head of the bay. Native

Americans had been in

the area for thousands of

years, fishing, hunting,

and cultivating maize.

Their farming methods

included first girdling the

trees, then burning the

brush to clear the land and

control pests. This successful

practice remained

unchanged for millennia.

The arrival of Europeans

brought smallpox,

measles, and other diseases that were endemic in

Europe to the local inhabitants, who had no natural

resistance. The Wampanoag population on Cape

Cod declined from an estimated 40,000 in 1600

to fewer than 1,600 by 1700, an astonishing 96%

mortality. This depopulation left room for waves of

immigrants, who then made their own changes in

the landscape

Jonathan Hatch, one of the first European settlers

of Falmouth, found a treeless landscape when he

first washed up on Salt Pond in 1660. By that time,

despite historical accounts of fields of maize growing

along the shore and likely due to the astoundingly

rich shell fishing, as well as the rapid decline in their

population, the Wampanoag were not doing nearly as

much farming as they had

previously. Still, the land

was virtually treeless; the

rocky soil and exposure

to salt spray had kept the

vegetation down.

Jonathan Hatch had gotten

himself in trouble

living in Barnstable by

associating “excessively”

with the natives and being

entirely too tolerant of

the Quakers. The Quakers

were distinctly persona

non grata with the majority

Puritans, who didn’t

care at all for the Quak-

measles, and other diseases that were endemic in

Europe to the local inhabitants, who had no natural

resistance. The Wampanoag population on Cape

Cod declined from an estimated 40,000 in 1600

to fewer than 1,600 by 1700, an astonishing 96%

mortality. This depopulation left room for waves of

immigrants, who then made their own changes in

the landscape

Jonathan Hatch, one of the first European settlers

of Falmouth, found a treeless landscape when he

first washed up on Salt Pond in 1660. By that time,

despite historical accounts of fields of maize growing

along the shore and likely due to the astoundingly

rich shell fishing, as well as the rapid decline in their

population, the Wampanoag were not doing nearly as

much farming as they had

previously. Still, the land

was virtually treeless; the

rocky soil and exposure

to salt spray had kept the

vegetation down.

Jonathan Hatch had gotten

himself in trouble

living in Barnstable by

associating “excessively”

with the natives and being

entirely too tolerant of

the Quakers. The Quakers

were distinctly persona

non grata with the majority

Puritans, who didn’t

care at all for the Quak-

Moses Hatch house. Photo by Steve Chalmers

20

ers’ fair treatment of

women and their pacifism.

Jonathan and

the town fathers got

tired of butting heads.

In 1660 he got in his

boat and paddled to

Falmouth, where he

felt he was far enough

away to live peacefully.

To shelter his

house from the north

winds of winter, he

built into the south

side of the last glacier’s

terminal moraine, in his words, “Hard against the

rising ground.” His ability to speak Wampanoag

allowed him to negotiate the purchase of land from

the Native Americans, who also helped him survive.

He was optimistic enough to send for his wife a year

later; shortly after her arrival in 1663, she gave birth

to the first of their eleven children. Moses Hatch

is widely considered to be the first European child

born in Falmouth.

Over the next few decades, Jonathan continued his

purchase of most of the land from Naushon Island

to what is now Falmouth’s village green. His family

spread around him. They lived much as the natives

had, off game, some corn, berries and shellfish. They

had access to drinking water from Fresh Pond, behind

what is now Town Hall. Because of the distance

required to bring water, they dug a well down the

hill and across what became Elm Road. When son

Moses grew up, he built his house close to the well

that remained until the 1940s. That house still stands

on the same spot.

At a time when throughout the colonies English,

French and Spanish settlers were slaughtering Native

Americans or kidnapping them and sending

them back to Europe

as prizes, the Hatch

clan remained on

good terms with the

native population.

These relationships

contributed to the

reluctance of both

sides to engage in

the conflict between

Native Americans

and settlers, known

as King Philip’s War,

named for a Wampanoag

chief. This war

raged virtually everywhere else in southeastern New

England from 1675 to 1678, devastating both Native

American and colonial settlements, but it left

the Upper Cape unscathed.

Toward the end of his life in 1747, when Moses

Hatch was 84 years old, he donated land to the

burgeoning town of Falmouth for a militia training

ground, the present village green. In 1796 the Congregational

Church was built on the training field

and later enlarged. Paul Revere, who had resumed his

foundry business after the Revolution, cast a bell for

the new church that same year. In 1857 the church

was moved across the street to its current location.

Houses and businesses were built around the field,

and the center of town gradually coalesced around

the Village Green.

The Hatches had lived and died in the same spot for

100 years, and the Old Burying Ground near Mill

Road is filled with their remains. They probably

would have stayed, but about 1750 the oysters in

Oyster Pond, a mainstay of the Hatches’ diet, began

mysteriously to disappear. Although not understood

at the time, this was likely due to the silting of the

outflow of the pond to the sea near what is now the

Siders Pond. Courtesy Falmouth Historical Society.

21

Moors beach. Because

the pond had a fresh

water source at its head,

the salinity of the pond

had slowly declined and

the water had become

inhospitable to the nutritious

bivalves.*

Grandson Ebenezer

Hatch, faced with the

loss of this food source,

looked for land that

was more fertile than the

rocky, uneven terrain the family had grown up on.

They found relatively flat and fertile land surrounding

Coonamessett Pond, a clean source of freshwater

near what is now Cape Cod Country Club.

Turners, Geggatts, Robinsons, and Fays joined

Ebenezer, all with similar plans. In 1858, almost

200 years after

Jonathan

came ashore,

Silas Hatch

was named

postmaster

of the new

Ha t c h v i l l e

Po s t O f -

fice, a position

he held

for 61 years.

Ha t c h v i l l e

Road, Sam

Turner Road,

Ro b i n s o n

and Geggatt

roads were

all named for

these early

settlers. By this time,

the Hatch clan, beginning

with Jonathan’s

eleven children, had

indeed gone forth and

multiplied: by the

late1800s there were

10,000 Hatch descendants

from Maine to

Connecticut.

Just as that post office

was being established

in Hatchville, Elm Road,

the site of the first settlement, was accepted by the

town in 1857, although the road was then only about

half its eventual length. The remaining portion was

not upgraded from path to road until 1925, when

real estate development came to the original Hatch

lands, by then farmland. So it happened that the

first Hatch homestead was the last to be subdivided.

Hatch des

c e n d a n t s

r e m a i n e d

around the

old homestead.

Greatgranddaughter

Katy had

gardens near

what is now

t h e l i t t l e

t r i angul a r

park at the

intersection

of the bike

path, Locust

Street, and

Mill Road.

Bill Mullen,

Oyster Pond. Courtesy Falmouth Historical Society.

The Hatch windmill. Courtesy Falmouth Historical Society.

22

the developer of land in the area, memorialized

her in 1955 by naming the main street in his new

development Katy Hatchs Road.

Consider Hatch had built a house on the village

green in 1748. The house backed up to the beautiful

pond, the original Hatch drinking water source,

then known as Fresh Pond, but now known, in his

honor, as Siders Pond. With extensive landholdings

the family had enough resources in 1750 to build

a grain mill at the head of nearby Salt Pond with

unobstructed access to the southwest wind. This mill

stood on Mill Road until 1936–for nearly 200 years!

A large tract of land surrounding the mill was sold

off to Nathaniel H. Emmons, a wealthy businessman

from Boston. He built a mansion near the mill and

had a 60-acre dairy farm beginning in 1880. Nearby

Emmons Road bears his name. He is known for leading

a group of investors in an unsuccessful effort to

open Salt Pond to the sea as a deep water harbor for

Falmouth, because they thought Old Stone Dock,

near the end of Shore Street, was too exposed and

too shallow for the landing of big ships. Had he been

successful, the present Falmouth Inner Harbor might

not exist. The mill was used as a schoolhouse for his

children, run by Mary Pickard Winsor, who would

go on to found The Winsor School in Boston.

When Joseph Story Fay donated land and invested

in the railroad coming to Falmouth, Emmons was

an eager participant. He made sure there was a rail

stop convenient to his house near Mill Road. Mr.

Emmons wanted his guests coming for a Cape Cod

vacation to arrive comfortably.

*Since that time, the pond became nearly fresh water. Because nutrients

from the watershed increased, hazardous blue-green algal blooms developed.

Recently, Trunk River has been dredged and salt water inflow has

increased. It is not yet known whether the increased salt water inflow

will ameliorate the algal bloom.

The Mystery of Elm Road

by Thomas Sbarra

Why were so many streets named for trees when we

know trees were scarce at the time?

Clarence Anderson, who died in 2004, grew

up on a property that was the site of Jonathan

Hatch’s log cabin on Elm Road. Struck by the

history of the place, Clarence spent an enormous

chunk of his 92 years researching the extensive

history of the Hatch Family. He contacted Hatch

descendants all over the country and conducted

dozens of interviews. He has left volumes of

writings at the Falmouth Historical Society. He

documented most of the history of the Hatch

family and this part of town.

He wrote that as recently as 1920, his father

could read the clock at the Congregational

Church using binoculars, a testament to the treeless

landscape, yet Elm Road had been named

60 years earlier. Whence the elms? Numerous

photos from 1926, when the summer resort

known as the Moors was developed, show how

barren the area was. The land for that development

was purchased from the estate of Henry

Fay (the son of Joseph Story Fay), who had died

in 1920. It had been a dairy farm for 30 years

and was essentially treeless. Elm Road at that

time extended only about 300 yards from Locust

Street. Jonathan’s, and subsequently Clarence’s,

house was about 100 yards from that intersection.

Yet, especially before Hurricane Bob in

1991, the street was lined with stately elm trees.

There are three theories for this transformation:

23

First, it seems likely, since the road was named

in 1857, that elms occupied that first short segment

but did not quite reach Clarence’s house;

hence, his view of the green.

These may have been planted by Elijah Swift,

who got permission from the town to plant the

elms on the village green in 1832. He was a sea

captain, son of one of the early settlers of West

Falmouth, William Swift. He had a house on

the green and, perhaps in contrast to his time

at sea, loved the look of stately trees. Elms were

all the rage in the mid-1800s because of their

tall, straight trunks and spreading canopies,

and, ironically, disease resistance. They would

provide a pleasant arching covering to country

lanes and city streets. There is no record that

he planted elms anywhere else but the timing

would fit with the naming of Elm Road in

1857.

Second, beginning in 1852, Joseph Story

Fay, a wealthy Boston business man and avid

horticulturist, planted thousands of trees on

his extensive properties which extended from

Woods Hole to what is now Goodwill Park. He

was offended by the remarkable lack of trees

surrounding his home. “There was not a tree

large enough to shade a rabbit.” He sought to

transform the meadows into forest by planting

a variety of trees including larch, maple, locust

and beech. There is no record of him planting

elms but he planted the locust trees on Locust

Street.

Third, the town of Falmouth also got into

the tree-planting business and town meeting

reports in the 1920s show a significant budget

for tree planting. Unfortunately, the records

do not show where or what kinds of trees were

planted. An undated photo in a 1988 article by

Janet Chalmers in the Falmouth Enterprise about

the development of the Moors shows a row of

saplings along Elm Road. These were surely

planted by the town as minutes of Moors Association

meetings show no record of the developer

planting them. Prior to Hurricane Bob in 1991

there were dozens of tall elms along the street. A

few stately specimens have escaped the ravages of

Dutch elm disease and wind and remain the last

testaments to the road’s identity and a reminder

of our enthusiasm to manage the countryside.

About the Author

Thomas Sbarra was a cardiologist in Falmouth

for 35 years. He retired in 2014 and now

volunteers with several organizations, including

Neighborhood Falmouth. He thanks the

research personnel at the WHHM, the Falmouth

Historical Society, the West Falmouth

Library, and the Falmouth Public Library, and

his wife Judy for patiently proofreading his

research drafts.