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Provincetown :: Saturday, May 17th 2008
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Pilgrim Monument. Photo by J. Santy.
Monument Reopens for Visitors
Monument and Museum Open Daily from 9 to 5
By Kahrin Deines
April 5th, 2008
It was a sunny day and the harbor shimmered with a quicksilver brilliance. The town’s buildings were adorned with so many buntings and banners that the streets themselves looked as if they had put on their Sunday best for the occasion. Meanwhile, people had traveled to Provincetown from all over the east coast and they too lined Commercial Street in their very finest.
| In addition to its permanent displays, the museum is also mounting a collaborative exhibit about artists’ studios in the upcoming summer. |
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Although now such crowds and decorations are generally associated with Provincetown’s famous annual Carnival parade in August, the year was 1907 and Commercial Street was not decked in its best in anticipation of the “Hat Sisters,” but rather the appearance of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt was in town for the laying of the cornerstone of the Pilgrim Monument, which was built to commemorate Provincetown’s role as the first landing place of the Mayflower Pilgrims in America.
The monument, finished long ago, just reopened for another season of visitors on April 1.
Although many textbooks fail to mention Provincetown’s Pilgrim connection, residents have always been proud of their home’s role in the Pilgrim’s entry to the “new world,” and at the close of the nineteenth century they began lobbying the federal government to help them with the costs of building a monument to honor this history.
The resulting commemorative proudly juts 252-feet into the air, dominating Provincetown’s skyline from nearly every vantage point in town. Today visitors can climb to its top to enjoy a breathtaking vista of Provincetown’s perch on the Outer Cape, and the harbor where the Pilgrims found their first American shelter.
The monument is also joined in its historic vigil by an adjacent museum, which also just reopened on April 1 for spring and summer visitors.
It is home to a wide variety of exhibits about everything from the area’s native Wampanoag tribe to its maritime history, its Portuguese community, and its arts colony heritage. In addition to the permanent displays, the museum is also mounting a collaborative exhibit about artists’ studios in the upcoming summer.
The monument and museum are now open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. To find out more information about the Pilgrim Monument or the Provincetown Museum, call 508.487.1310 or visit www.pilgrim-monument.org.
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