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Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, and is the oldest town on Cape Cod. The town motto is Post tot Naufracia Portus , "after so many shipwrecks, a haven". The population was 20,259 at the 2020 census.

History

Cape Cod was inhabited for thousands of years by Native Americans prior to European colonization. In the contact period, Sandwich was occupied by the Eastern Algonquian speaking Wampanoag who aided the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in the 1620s. Despite significant losses of life and cultural heritage due to virgin soil epidemics, King Philip's War, and conversion and assimilation efforts that pushed them into Praying Towns, the Mashpee Wompanoag still live on Cape Cod and efforts are underway to revive the Wompanoag language.

A group of English settlers from Saugus, Massachusetts colonized Sandwich in 1637 with the permission of the Plymouth Colony. It is named for the seaport of Sandwich, Kent, England. It was incorporated in 1639 and is the oldest town on Cape Cod, together with Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The western portion of the town was separated from the original Town of Sandwich and became the town of Bourne in 1884.

There are many historic homes in Sandwich, including the Benjamin Nye Homestead on Old County Road (formerly known as Old King's Highway) and the Benjamin Holway House built in 1789 at 379 Route 6A. This property hosts one of the original Nye Homestead structures built in 1698, believed to have originally served as either a tavern or a shop. It is now used as a law office.

Sandwich was the site of an early Quaker settlement and today hosts the oldest continuous Quaker Meeting in the U.S. There were some conflicts with other religious groups, and so some Quakers left the town for further settlements elsewhere, including Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Many of Sandwich's prominent families have Quaker ties.

Early industry revolved around agriculture, with fishing and trading also providing for the town. Later, the town grew a small industrial component along the Scusset River and Old Harbor Creek and its tributaries. Today, most of its industry revolves around tourism.

Deming Jarves founded the Boston & Sandwich Glass Factory in 1825. Sandwich had proximity to a shallow harbor, was a possible canal site, and had local supplies of timber to fuel the glass furnaces. The glass works primarily made lead glass and was known for its use of color. Jarves received several patents for his improvements in glass mold designs and pressing techniques. The factory declined after the American Civil War due to competition from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia companies that produced less expensive pressed soda-lime glass tableware.

The Cape Cod Canal was constructed through the town starting in 1909, opening for travel in 1914. The Canal Generating Plant went online in 1968.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and , or 3.32%, is water. Sandwich is bordered by Cape Cod Bay to the north, Barnstable to the east, Mashpee and Falmouth to the south, and Bourne to the west. It is approximately south-southeast of Boston.

Sandwich is the site of the Cape Cod Bay entrance to the Cape Cod Canal. The northern point of Sandwich, where Sagamore Hill and Scusset Beach State Reservation lie, is divided from the rest of the town by the canal. The town is also the location of the Shawme-Crowell State Forest and the Massachusetts State Game Farm. The town is home to six beaches along the shores of Cape Cod Bay. The rest of the town's geography is typical of the rest of the Cape, with many small ponds and hills, with most of the trees being pine or oak. Sandwich is also the site of Old Harbor Creek, a large inlet with several other small creeks feeding it, which once served to provide safe harbor for ships.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification system, Sandwich, Massachusetts has a warm-summer, wet all year, humid continental climate (Dfb ). Dfb climates are characterized by at least one month having an average mean temperature ≤ 32.0  °F (≤ 0.0  °C), at least four months with an average mean temperature ≥ 50.0  °F (≥ 10.0  °C), all months with an average mean temperature ≤ 71.6  °F (≤ 22.0  °C), and no significant precipitation difference between seasons. The average seasonal (Nov–Apr) snowfall total is around 30 in (76  cm). The average snowiest month is February which corresponds