How to Visit Revolutionary Sandwich

From the junction of Water and Main streets in Sandwich Village, you can see five centuries. But for the 250th birthday of the United States this year, let's put on spectacles that filter out all those centuries but the revolutionary 18th.

Across town, we have spaces, homes, taverns, historic cemeteries and historical institutions that show us how lucky we are to live right here right now for this national party. Most of the United States has no such physical legacy of the Revolution. All we have to do is look in the right places.

Here's how to build your own view of Sandwich in that era.

Warm up with a walking tour around the village. The downloadable app for the tour is called the Sandwich Town Hall Square Historic District Properties Tour, brought to us by the Sandwich Historical Commission with the financial support of the Visitor Services Board.

The 31 stops on the tour show the rich history that surrounds us every day, but to visualize what was here in the late 18^th century, you'll need to narrow your focus. The first relevant stop is the Dan'l Webster Inn at 149 Main St.

Resist the temptation to walk in and visit Dave Perry behind the bar at the Tavern. You're not in 2026 anymore. The gathering place to imagine is the long-vanished Fessenden Tavern, the Patriots' preferred watering hole.

Then go toward Historic Town Hall, turn left up Grove Street and check your cellphone's tour map for Newcomb Tavern, a private residence in our era, but once the hangout of the Tories.

Consider the short distance you've just walked between the two polar opposites of Revolutionary passion. Daily life in the 1770s got a little awkward.

We're talking about neighborhood conversations concerning tar and feathers and rope among people who not only knew each other but also were related to each other. In the first federal census, which would occur in 1790, the town's population was pegged at 1,991 — less than a 10^th of today's. Eleven families composed 52 percent of the townspeople.

Across Grove Street from the Newcomb Tavern, the tour comes to the place where passions rested. Old Town Burial Ground (also known as Old Town Cemetery), is the site of many Patriot graves, including that of Micah Blackwell, 1741-1781. Last June, The Cape Cod and Islands Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution led a splendid ceremony marking the grave.

The Col. Henry Knox Color Guard, Wareham Minutemen and Militia, and Yarmouth Minutemen of Cape Cod participated in a June 28, 2025 ceremony at Old Town Cemetery marking the Patriot grave of Sandwich's Micah Blackwell (1741-1781). COURTESY CANDY THOMSON

Michael Welch Jr., an American history teacher at Sandwich High School, delivered the keynote address. A copy of his speech, along with the ceremonial program and photos of the event, are available at the Town Archives, housed in the Sandwich Public Library at 142 Main St.

Welch focused on Blackwell's short, eventful life, but noted that, "We can also weave Micah's own story into the larger tapestry of the Revolution as it unfolded in this town, on the Cape, and beyond."

The six-page speech is a fine little introduction to a big piece of the American experience.

As Welch said, "We must remember that for every national hero such as Washington, Greene, or Knox, we have thousands of men and women whose stories of personal courage, sacrifice and honor are less prominent, but no less important in bringing the Revolution to its conclusion and the Republic that it birthed."

So, make an appointment with Jen Ratliff, the town archivist, to see this file and to dive deeper.

The Archives, Ratliff said, houses books and research materials related to the Revolutionary period and life in Sandwich during the 18^th century. Files document prominent Sandwich families. Property records detail historic homes and sites.

Watch out: Along with the names of local Patriots, your search into family roots and homesteads will include listings for local Tories. You may have a Tory in the attic.

In visualizing the town's role in the turbulent birth of the nation, we owe much to Cape Cod historians who sifted the old documents and presented easy-to-understand narratives.

Russell A. Lovell Jr., the town historian half century ago, pored through the Revolutionary Era resources to prepare our Bicentennial celebration in 1976. The historical notes, maps and documents he assembled are in the Town Archives. So is his book, "Sandwich: A Cape Cod Town," which includes many tales from the late 18^th century drama.

In advance of this year's celebration, the Cape and Islands Historians Committee published "The Revolutionary War on Cape Cod and the Islands," also in the library's collection.

For a reader who can afford to take the long way around to understanding history, a scroll through old Town Reports is a trip worth taking.

Things sneak up on you. Embedded in archaic accounts of town meetings obsessed with the annual herring run are lines like these:

"At a meeting of the Town of Sandwich on January the 26th 1773,

"Mr. Stephen Nye; Moderator

"Put to vote whether the letter from the committee of the Town of Boston and their state of grievances etc. directed to the Selectmen of this Town be read.

"Voted in the affirmative.

"Put to vote whether the Governor's speech to both houses at the opening of the present session of the General Court be read.

"Voted in the negative."

Eleven months before the "state of grievances" up north produced the tea party, Official Sandwich was taking sides. It was revolution in the larval stage.

Things would get much uglier around here, and much less legal. Dr. Nathaniel Freeman, a washashore from Connecticut with a bad temper but great local connections, was clawing his way into the rebellion's leadership on Cape Cod. In September 1774, he led a march from Sandwich to shut down the Court of Common Pleas in Barnstable.

While they were closing the court, a step toward ending royal authority, the marchers got word that Tories had torn down the liberty pole back in Sandwich, near today's public library.

The returning marchers made the Tories replace the pole, but the back-and-forth nasties continued. Freeman, who lived on Grove Street about 100 yards from Newcomb Tavern, was walking past it on the evening of Oct. 5 when he got clobbered by a bunch of Tories.

Not smart. Sometimes you really don't want to be where everybody knows your name. Rounded up quickly, the ruffians were lucky to escape with their lives.

In the 20^th century, a congressman from Massachusetts would remind the nation that "All politics is local."

To understand the American Revolution, get beyond reading about guys in powdered wigs somewhere discussing the eternal principle of liberty. Go local. Take the tour, see the sites, read the historic tales, get in touch with our many historical organizations.

Around Sandwich, the origin story of the United States is hiding in plain sight.

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Robert Thomson is a member of the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives, a dedicated, all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to supporting and promoting the archives’ collections and the rich, diverse history of the town of Sandwich.