The Historical Society Museum

No, Wellfleet's Main Street is not under attack. The little cannon on the Museum lawn is not aimed against an enemy. Rather, it is ready for the kind of life-saving action it was designed for.

In fact, it is not a true cannon. It is a Lyle gun, a tool used by the Life-Savers on the Back Shore when a ship foundered on the sand bars near enough to the shore so that the ship's crew might be rescued without sending the Life Savers into peril themselves.

The Lyle Gun was loaded with a round shot which carried a line out to the rigging of the wrecked vessel with the message to make it fast in the ship's rigging. Then a stronger line followed bearing a breeches buoy, a life ring with a pair of men's pants attached, so a sailor could climb into the britches and be hauled, hand over
hand, to the safety of the high dunes above the hollow. We have other interesting material about ship wrecks and rescues in our Life-Saving exhibit, including two silver medals given for the heroism of the rescuers.

Most visitors to Wellfleet today want a souvenir to take home and the Museum has a souvenir case which will make you envious of the lucky travelers of an earlier era.
But you may not buy them! They are delicate china pieces with transfer pictures of old Wellfleet scenes, lovely mementos that visitors a hundred years ago were able to purchase in the small general stores here in Town.
A photographer from perhaps England or Austria
would take pictures of our light houses, our churches or the view from Cannon Hill, get an order from the store keepers here, take the negatives home and transfer the picture to the china pieces which would then be brought back to Wellfleet to be sold as a souvenir.
We do have books and maps of Wellfleet for sale - and even T-shirts - but these china pieces are here only to be admired!"