Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> From its 1848 arrival in Sandwich the railroad has played a varied and vital role on Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. For 50 years between 1887 and 1937 the (skipping only Mashpee) with railroad ran to 14 of the 15 Cape towns (skip 94 miles of track connecting Buzzards Bay and Woods Hole with Hyannis Chatham and Provincetown. The tracks even extended onto wharfs in Woods Hole Hyannis and Provincetown for convenient transfer of passengers and freight between rail and ship for passage between the Cape and the islands. Martha’s Vineyard had nine miles of track providing summer rail passenger service for 20 years from 1876 to 1896. Nantucket had as much as 10 miles of rail for summer passengers over 34 years between 1884 and 1918. In four decades of railroad expansion on the Cape the population consistently declined from 35276 in 1850 to 29172 in 1890. The exodus of Cape Codders persisted until the automobile began offering independence from the train schedule and the 1930 U.S. Census reported a population of 32305. (LL)