After the era of woolly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and mastodons that roamed these once coastal plains 10,000 years ago, came the first settlers. They were members of more than 30 tribes of the Wampanoag Indian Federation of the Algonquin nation, who ventured here from within this continent about 8,000 years ago.

The first European settlers arrived thousands of years later. In 1602, sea captain Bartholomew Gosnold of England, landed on these shores, explored the region and gave Cape Cod its name. In 1660, a band of about a dozen men led by Isaac Robinson and Jonathan Hatch left Barnstable to found a new settlement near the present Mill Road, between the Salt Pond to the west and the Herring Brook and Siders Pond (which was formerly called Fresh Pond) to the east.

The plantation, on land bought from the Indians, was called Suckanesset, the Indian name for this part of the Cape. The settlement flourished and in 1686 it was granted a charter as a Town by the General Court of Plymouth Colony.

In about 1690 the name of the town was changed to Falmouth, the name of the anchorage at the mouth of the River Fal in Cornwall, England, from which Bartholomew Gosnold had sailed in 1602. Gosnold was the first navigator from the Old World to set foot on what is now Falmouth. During his voyage he chose the name "Cape Cod" for the peninsula called "The Narrow Land" by the Indians.

As the town grew, smaller villages sprang up along the coast, at North Falmouth, West Falmouth, Quissett, Woods Hole, East Falmouth, Davisville and Waquoit, and inland at Teaticket and Hatchville. These villages together with Falmouth Village itself and the surrounding land, became the Town of Falmouth.

In the early days Falmouth was a fishing and farming community, and in the 1800's was the home port for a small but significant fleet of whalers. Ships were built at Woods Hole, Quissett and West Falmouth. During this period, the population of the town declined because land on the Cape was not very fertile and farming was more profitable elsewhere; also textile and other factories began to attract the younger people to the new industrial towns near Boston.

From about 1870 onwards the population increased, largely as a result of the growing number of summer homes and summer resort hotels and the opening of the railroad through to Woods Hole in 1872.

The growth of Falmouth accelerated after 1910 with the proliferation of automobiles, which made the Cape much more accessible. The increasing size and worldwide renown of the scientific institutions at Woods Hole have contributed to the growth and importance of the town. Expanding amenities have also made Falmouth attractive as a retirement haven.

Courtesy of the Falmouth Historical Society
 

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Photos Courtesy of and Copyright Stanton D. Terrell; Movie by Cynthia Shell-Terrell of The Falmouth Visitor