Yarmouth, Massachusetts: One of the Cape's Oldest

Yarmouth was organized on September third, sixteen thirty-nine, by settlers led by John Crowe, Thomas Howes, and Anthony Thacher, making it one of the two oldest towns on Cape Cod, sharing that distinction with Sandwich. The town's first roads followed existing Wampanoag paths, including what is now Route Six A along the north shore. Yarmouth originally incorporated what is today the town of Dennis, which split off in seventeen ninety-three when the population grew too large to share a single town government.

The north side of town, lined with sea captains' houses from the whaling and packet trade era, became the Northside Historic District. The south side caught the summer resort boom of the late nineteenth century. Route Six cuts through the middle of all of it.