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By Jeffrey D. Crocker Wartime often produces great stories of courage and heroism. This is not one of them. The year was 1864, the third year of the American Civil War. The previous year, Congress had passed — and President Abraham Lincoln had signed — the unpopular Enrollment Act, requiring men between the ages of 20 and 45 to register for military service. Thomas F. Crocker of West Barnstable became notorious for his wild attempts to evade the draft during these events. As a result, his...

Salt-making on Cape Cod, including in Barnstable village, has a very long history. Historian Amos Otis reports in his Genealogical Notes of Barnstable families that: A salt work was erected in Barnstable very early, on the point of land on the west of the entrance of Rendezvous Creek, still known as Saltern point. Otis clarifies that the word “saltern”: Means a salt work, a building in which salt is made by boiling or solar evaporation. It is lost to time who owned that first salt...

It is almost impossible today to contemplate life without refrigeration. However, almost within living memory that was a reality. Before refrigeration, Cape Codders harvested ice from ponds and stored it in icehouses and then ice boxes in their houses. One such pond was Hinckley’s Pond in Barnstable Village. There was an icehouse at the edge of that pond, along 6A, from which the local iceman would make deliveries when requested by local households and businesses. Ms. Mary A....