Remembering Our Past 1st Lt. Walter 'Skip' Daley

Brewster Baptist Church is celebrating our 200th Anniversary in 2024! Our theme for this year is Remembering Our Past, Rejoicing in Our Present, Reimagining Our Future. This week we're Remembering Our Past, featuring 1st Lt. Walter 'Skip' Daley, who gave his life in Vietnam serving our country.

Cobb House Museum Tour 2021

Tour the famous sea captain’s home of Elijah Cobb and the museum headquarters of the Brewster Historical Society. The Captain Elijah Cobb House at 739 Lower Road is one of Brewster’s most historically significant buildings, considered the finest example of late Georgian architecture on Cape Cod.
The Brewster Historical Society purchased the Captain Elijah Cobb House on February 17, 2015, restored and renovated the historic house, and adapted it for use as its history museum and offices. The Society is proud to at long last offer the Sea Captains Town, as Brewster is called, its first sea captain’s home open to the general public, and to showcase Brewster’s historic treasures.
21:05

Brewster Historical Society gardens

Bob Hoxie, owner of Great Hill Horticultural Services, gives a tour of the Brewster Historical Society gardens. Caro's garden and the Sundial Garden feature historical New England flower plantings based on the 1870s diary of Carolyn Dugan, grand-daughter of Captain Elijah Cobb.

1795 Harris - Black House

John Harris, a “seafaring man",” and wife Sarah paid five pounds eight shillings for three acres of woodland and built this sixteen foot square house. His wife Sarah Ralph, was a descendant of two noted Wampanoag sachems, Iyannough and Mashantampaine. They had six children. To our knowledge, of the many small early houses believed to have existed throughout the Cape, only one has survived. First used as a homestead dwelling, as it passed down through generations it was later used as a cranberry storeroom and a small forge. The house was eventually moved to its present location and restored by John MacKenzie.

Join Docent, Beth Finch, in this informative video tour of the original structure, now located at the BHS Windmill Village in Brewster, MA.
20:50

Local Native American Artifacts

As part of the “Eastham 400 Sunset Series”, Chris Dudzik presents Local Native American Artifacts. Chris is the Brewster Historical Society Manager for the Windmill Village next to Drummer Boy Park in Brewster, and serves on the BHS Board of Directors. A personal passion for Chris, he has been collecting and identifying Native American artifacts in the local area since he was a boy.
11:30

Nellie’s Dollhouse

This dollhouse was hand-crafted by Captain Josiah Nickerson Knowles (1830-1896) for his small daughter Ellen “Nellie” Sears Knowles (1858-1913).
In early 1858 Captain Josiah Nickerson Knowles, husband of Ellen Sears (oldest daughter of Joseph H. Sears), survived a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean and spent months stranded on an uninhabited island. He eventually returned to Brewster -- and a family who had mourned him as dead -- but soon faced real tragedy in the death of his twenty-four-year-old wife.
In the fall of 1859 Knowles left his twenty-month-old daughter Nellie in the care of Olivia Sears, Ellen’s nineteen-year-old sister, and set off on a series of voyages that would keep him from home for more than three years. Read more history >>
5:45

Postcards from Summer Camp

For over a century Brewster has been home to more than a dozen summer camps. Each summer, boys and girls made the trip from destinations near and far to enjoy outdoor life on Cape Cod. As stated in one brochure, “classes in sports, crafts, and appreciation of the arts and nature are conducted by instructors with wide knowledge and experience. With increased ability to think constructively, in the autumn the campers return to school and college rested and strengthened by fine friendships.” The tradition continues today, and Brewster Historical Society is proud to honor this fine legacy.
8:23

Cobb House resident from 1945-1970

“Art must be concerned with the inner truth rather than objective imagery,” said Howard Gibbs.

Born in 1904 in New Bedford, where he first studied art, the young Howard Gibbs set off to teach art in Bermuda and then to study in France. Working there during a very fertile period in art history, he exhibited with Matisse, Seurat, and Derain. It was where he found the “seeds of direction” and a broadening effect on his work. But when he returned to Boston and to Brewster on the Cape he developed his unique artistic niche and followed no movement.
Beth Stein has been educating adult audiences on the lives and works of famous artists for the past fifteen years, on Cape Cod and in New Jersey.  In addition, she is the current Chair of the Programs and Advancement Committee for the BHS. See more about Beth at arttalkscapecod.com
42:10

Cobb House Museum Tour with Sally Gunning 2016*

Enjoy a personally narrated video tour of the 1799 Captain Elijah Cobb House Museum with Sally Cabot Gunning. Courtesy of the Town of Brewster. Ms. Gunning is a well-known author and is President of the BHS Board of Directors.
*Note some displays shown in this video have changed for the upcoming season.
11:45

Chris Dudzik Exhibits Brewster Sauquatucket Artifacts

Chris describes local stone artifacts found in Brewster MA now in the custody of the Brewster Historical Society Collections. These tools and stone points were collected and donated many years ago and are a source of pride and interest for the museum. The uses and composition of several pieces on display at the Cobb House Museum in Brewster are explained with the knowledge and enthusiasm Chris has for their history. Included is a short visit to the original Sauquatucket area now known as the Mill Ponds and Herring River, and the Stony Brook Valley to show how early natives once managed the land for their subsistence. They learned to keep the balance and respect for all living beings and to receive all the gifts from The Creator.