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BARNSTABLE – Twelve years after first opening, The Coast Guard Heritage Museum in Barnstable Village has undergone some updating and is featuring new exhibitions for both residents and visitors to Cape Cod to enjoy.
The museum, founded in 2005, is housed just a few hundred yards from the Barnstable County Court Complex, on Main Street. The building itself is difficult to miss, tall and square, bright red brick, the facility was originally constructed in 1856 as a Customs House where tariffs were once collected on imports entering Barnstable Harbor.
It was eventually converted into a U.S. Post Office before being purchased by the Town of Barnstable, which lease the property to the Coast Guard Heritage Museum.
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“In the beginning, it was run really on a shoe-string,” explained volunteer and board Rich Fichter, a retired Coast Guard Senior Chief who has been involved with the museum for the last six-years.
“A group of very dedicated people who wanted to spread the word about the Coast Guard history and when they first started they didn’t even think that they were going to have enough material for the first floor. Now we’re in a position where we probably have as much if not more ready to be displayed downstairs in the basement as we have on these two floors,” he said.
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The displays are extensive, covering the Revenue Cutter Service and the Lifesaving Service since 1790, before they merged to form the Coast Guard in 1915. Upon entering, visitors are greeted by a roughly four-foot scale model of the USCG Cutter Campbell. There are more than a dozen uniforms dating back nearly a century, photographs, models, newspaper clippings, weapons, bells from retired ships, a brass model porthole, as well as an old rescue beach cart with Lyle Gun and Breeches Buoy.
“There are a number of museums around the country that do a tremendous job in specific areas, be it lighthouses or aids to navigation. But as far as right from the get-go up to modern times we’ve been told we’re one of the best.” Said Fichter.
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A five dollar admission fee, which is waived for children under 10 or active duty members of the Guard, includes access to all exhibits as well as an audio tour of the museum’s collections, and it keeps the museum in business.
The facility operates as a 501c3 and receives no funding from the Coast Guard or any other government entity. The museum depends on the efforts of roughly 30 volunteers, mostly retired Coast Guard, in addition to financial donations and ticket sales cover their lease payments to the town and any updates to display cases or technology.
They rely on donations or loans for their exhibitions and the occasional grant to accommodate a new display.
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Upstairs houses the museum’s collection of aviation material as well as a section on women in Coast Guard and a display of an old lantern from the Lifesaving Service alongside on of the Coast Guard’s modern beacons.
Fichter says that it’s important to keep updating the museum’s displays each year. “There’s nothing worse from my perspective than to come back a year or two years after visiting and see the same exact thing in the same exact place, because there is just so much to bring forth to the public about our history and we have a chance to display it and explain it.”
Perhaps the most popular display is a collection on the Coast Guard’s famous 1952 rescue of the S.S. Pendleton by a Motor Lifeboat out of Coast Guard Station Chatham. The Museum has photos and news clippings from the incident as wells as a replica of the Gold Lifesaving Medal that the crew received for their heroics.
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Through the audio tour, visitors can listen to the crew’s leader, Bernie Webber, explain the details of the ordeal, eventually adapted into the Disney film The Finest Hours. A replica of a Sentinel-Class Cutter named in Webber’s honor is also on display, as his Coast Guard retirement uniform, protected behind glass.
“When you here this guy’s voice he is so calm and so humble, it’s unbelievable.” said volunteer Jim Sylvester, retired Coast Guard Commander, of Webber,
“It’s my favorite exhibit because this is just one of the great rescues of all time.”
Once visitors leave The Coast Guard Heritage Museum they are just a few feet from two other unique historical attractions affiliated with the museum. Operated by the Barnstable Historical Society, the oldest wooden jail in America sits on site offering pre-scheduled tours and the occasional ghost hunter claiming that the structure built in 1690, is haunted.
The jail once stood on Old Jail Lane and used to house pirates and other criminals during the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Guests may also stop by The Village Smithy Blacksmith Shop for daily demonstrations; the shop was founded in 1908 and to this day is operated by the founder’s nephew, Jim Ellis who sits on the board of the Coast Guard Heritage Museum.
“We’re open all the time,” Ellis explained, “we don’t charge anything, people just come by and see what we do. A lot of people are amazed that it’s still going on Even some young people come by wanting to learn and we try to pass it on. It’s a museum more than an actual working shop.”
Ellis’s Blacksmith Shop and the Coast Guard Heritage Museum are both open May through October, Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 AM until 3 PM.
By CapeCod.com Staff
