Southeastern Massachusetts Magazine

                                     Not a lot of people know that Scituate was the target of a major British invasion in September of 1814 aimed at destroying the town. The reason that not a lot of people know about it is that the attack was turned back. They were met by a hastily assembled and unarmed American army. No damage was done to the town or her shipping, and John Bull ran off to have some tea and crumpets with his British tail between his legs. Pretty good story, right? It gets better. The "American army" mentioned above consisted of two teenage girls.  Rebecca and Abigail Bates squared up with 200 British marines. If they lost, Scituate would have been razed, they most certainly would have been raped and perhaps even hung as spies. Naturally, when fighting 200 marines, the girls chose Fear as a weapon.  Some background, if I may. The newly formed USA and th...

Today, we are going to assume that one side of the "Where Cape Cod ends" argument is correct, and that side is the "Cape Cod ends at the Canal" opinion.  We're choosing this side because we're very interested in the follow-up questions to ending Cape Cod at the Canal. If you choose the Canal as the cutoff point, you have to reclassify several villages from two Cape towns. Almost all of Sandwich is east of the Canal, which is the Rubicon for this argument. Scusset Beach, however, is "on the mainland," but still part of Sandwich. Bourne has a greater chunk of town on the mainland, with Buzzards Bay, Bournedale and Sagamore Beach representing hard north of the Canal. Chopping these villages off of Cape Cod completely to make a new town is a fun idea for a columnist. They would make for a very small town. I don't think Scusset has any people at all. Buzzards Bay, with 3800 people, is Bourne's most populous village. Sagamore Beach isn't far...