The First Parish (Unitarian Universalist) Church at the crossroads of Main Street and Breakwater Road in Brewster was built in 1834 to replace a meeting house founded on October 16, 1700-making it one of the oldest churches in the United States. Horatio Alger, the American author, was its minister in the 1860s, and it is often called "The Church of the Sea Captains" (pews are still marked with some of their names).

Provincetown has long had the reputation as an "art colony" and today dubs itself as "The Art Gallery Town" - something that can trace its origins back to 1899 when Charles W. Hawthorne launched his summer art school in the Cape tip fishing village. This vintage postcard, popular in the early 1900s, perhaps captures a class of Hawthorne's students outside sketching a quaint mix of buildings hugging the shoreline.

This acid-stained glass plate negative photograph was taken by Orleans' camera buff Henry K Cummings sometime in the 1890s. It features the second set of lights in North Eastham known as the "Three Sisters of Nauset", as seen from the south looking northwest Made of wooden lapstrake construction. they were built in 1892 about 30 feet to the west of the original trio of lights (made of bricks and mortar) which were then close to the edge of an ever-eroding cliff. The house behind the southern sister (left) is the first keeper's house erected in 1838. The house in the middle is the second keeper's house put up in 1875; and, it's still standing today on a site to the west. The building just to the left of the middle sister or "Centre Beacon" is a bam. In the early 19005, the three lights were sold at public auction into private hands, moved nearby, and turned into summer homes. Today, this second set of lights has been reunited in the pine woods off Cable Road restored (in part), and now serves as an interpretative exhibit operated by the Cape Cod National Seashore which owns them.

Main Street and the Harwich Port Post Office (in the building on the right) pose for a postcard photographer sometime in the early 1920s, both guarded by a policeman standing stiffly at attention on the corner where Sea Street heads south toward Nantucket Sound. Most likely the card was produced for B. C. Kelley, the postmaster, for sale at the P. O. as was the practice in those days. The view is looking east - in the distance (right) is the Old Kemah Inn/Tavern - and there were only three cars on the main drag!

Harwich Center poses on a picture postcard that sold in the stores here in the early 1940s. The photographer stood in front of the First Congregational Church looking down Main Street (Route 39) almost due east. The intersection on the left, with the concrete traffic marker, is Pleasant Lake Avenue (Route 124) coming in from Brewster. The large building on the left corner is the old Harwich Exchange building, erected in 1884-85 as the tallest building on Cape Cod, which was demolished in 1964 due to the high cost of maintenance. Across the street (right) is the old A & P grocery store, flanked on the east by a shoe store and a pharmacy. Most of the autos pictured date back to the late 1930s, several newer models identified as 1939 Plymouths.

This pre-Second World War photo of the Stokes Store (and South Harwich Post Office) was featured on a popular local postcard years ago. Route 28 runs across the foreground, while Chatham Road curves off to the right toward Harwich Center. Lafey Stokes bought the convenience store from Hiram Crowell in 1922 and ran it for 26 years with his wife and daughter (both named Emily). In 1948, the place was taken over by Joe and Louise Mahoney, who tore down the original building and built a new one. Since November 1972, David and Carolyn Coomber have run an auto repair/towing and locksmith service there - dubbed simply Dave's Garage.