Eastham Corner 1 1887, UT0676 - Eastham-Orleans, MA - U.S. Historic Survey Stones and Monuments on Waymarking.com

Along the Eastham-Orleans, at the corner of Old State Highway and Ellis Road, is a stone monument that is a corner stone between the towns of Eastham and Orleans.

The monument is located about an eighth mile north of a traffic light at an intersection with US Route 6 and an entrance to a mall, along the Old State Highway, which is a narrow road to a square corner, while a bypass for US 6 was built a few hundred or so feet to the west. The monument is on the northeast end of a small, traffic island in front of the Goose Hummock Outdoor Center, a canoe and kayak store to the east about 50 ft. On the traffic island is a street sign for Ellis Road and three evergreens were recently planted there.

The monument itself is a broken, roughly hewn, square column. The geocaching/mark web site has 1887 in the title, inferring that the monument has been in place since then. A comment on the page from 1958 states that the monument top where the engraved letters were located was missing at that time and the remaining portion was leaning to the north. Today, it is still rough at the top and leaning. Lichen is visible on the monument. At the base is painted the year '2012.' The pictures from the marker web site show that the same stone was in place prior to 2012, so this may be some when the marker was confirmed in some way.

Eastham and Orleans are two towns on the peninsula known as Cape Cod and form the transition from the 'upper' Cape to the 'lower' Cape. The two came from a common town that covered most of the lower
Cape plus a portion of present day Chatham, first settled in 1644. Eastham was established in 1651. Orleans was first settled in 1693 and incorporated in 1797. Both are, today, vacation havens during the summer, though Orleans has more commercial development, such as the area to the south of this monument.

Unusual among New England towns, Orleans was named after Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, to honor the French who supported the Americans during the American Revolutionary War. Typically, New England towns are named after homeland establablishments in Great Britain. However, the people of Orleans had an entanglement with the British and with that in their memories, apparantly it was enough to honor another culture.

Additional Sources:

Wikipedia (Eastham, Massachusetts):
(visit link)

(Orleans, Massachusetts):
(visit link)

Monumentation Type: Stone post Monument Category: County/Municipal boundary marker Accessible to general public: yes Historical significance: Border between Eastham and Orleans. Monument Website: [Web Link] County: Barnstable USGS Quad: Orleans, MA NGS PID: UT0676 Approximate date of monument: 01/01/1887 Monumentation Type (if other): Not listed Monument Category (if other): Not listed Explain Non-Public access: Not listed Other Coordinates: Not Listed Other Coordinates details: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
1. A closeup photo of the monument is required.
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2. A 'distant' photo including the monument in the view is highly recommended. Include the compass direction you faced when you took the picture.

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