When James Lufkin decided to build a hotel in North Dennis after the Civil War, the land he had chosen came with a great deal of history. The land was originally called Black Earth by Yarmouth’s first settlers - it was where shorewhaling took place. When the town of Dennis formally separated from Yarmouth in 1793, the two towns agreed to continue to own the land in common. 

After whales became scarce the land found little use, so in 1846 the two towns asked the state legislature to allow them to sell it. At that time, land along the shore was not considered valuable but the building of a big hotel after the Civil War changed all of that. 

Nearby land had been purchased in 1870 by James Lufkin to open a hotel which was built in 1872. Lufkin had purchased the Cliff House on Minot Beach in Cohasset earlier that year. He took it apart (called flaking back then) and shipped the pieces to North Dennis by water. Doors and windows arrived first, as they were the first to be removed when the Cliff House was disassembled.

Lufkin began construction in August 1872, and his hotel opened in 1873 as the Cape Cod Bay House. The three story building was in the French Empire style, sometimes called a Mansard, and contained 50 rooms.

Unfortunately, a severe financial depression hit the country just as the Cape Cod Bay House opened. Lufkin was soon looking for someone to buy the property. In 1876, Charles Humphrey of Weymouth agreed to purchase it, and this provided the impetus for Yarmouth and Dennis to sell Black Earth. Humphrey realized some of the hotel property wasn’t on land owned by Lufkin. 

The two towns held meetings on February 14, 1876 and they both authorized their selectmen to sell the land. An auction was advertised in the Yarmouth Register on May 20th. Simeon P. Deyo, in writing his History of Cape Cod, wrote that one of the whalehouses on Black Earth was located where the pavilion of the Nobscussett House later stood.

After owning the hotel for nine years, Humphrey realized the need to remodel and enlarge. The renovation was undertaken by John Hinckley and Sons of East Barnstable, and they employed many local carpenters. Piazzas were added on the first and second floor, and the building was increased to 4 ½ stories. The upper stories were used to house the workers at the hotel as well as maids and servants who accompanied guests. The roof was dark red, the walls French gray, the trim a light brown, and the ceilings of the piazzas a robin’s egg blue. The shutters were green.

The business office was touted for being furnished with all of the modern conveniences. Speaking tubes were connected to every floor along with electric bells. The laundry and kitchen were in the basement.

The dining room, a 30 by 40 foot room, had a birch floor and a fireplace at one end and was known as  “The Nob”. With a room this size and upwards of 200 guests, there was more than one seating with guests eating at assigned times. The children, nurses, and servants ate in a separate dining room.

The new hotel was completed early in 1886. The Yarmouth Register noted in May of that year, “The carting of furniture from our depot to the Nobscusset House has given our streets quite a busy appearance this week, there being in all several cart loads.”  

By 1895, two buildings were near to the new hotel, one housing a dancing hall, attached perhaps by a porch to the main building, and the other a bowling alley. The bowling alley stood two stories tall. Also on the premises were a riding stable and a pavilion. The pavilion, where concerts were occasionally held, was located on the bluff overlooking the bay. Into the bay extended a 700 foot pier with a covered sitting area at the end. The pier was built from remains of an 1888 shipwreck which occurred in Barnstable. The vessel’s cargo, fortunately for the Nobscussett owners, was poles for pilings. 

The hotel promoted its Nobscussett Golf Links, a nine hole course situated on the property. It was ingeniously laid out so that there were only three greens, and each green had three separate tees. Bicycling was encouraged, with a brochure noting “there is a fine macadam road running the entire length of the Cape.”  Tennis, fishing and bathing were also advertised, the Nobscussett owning its own bathhouses. The Nobscussett even sponsored a baseball team, appropriately called the “Nobs”. Baseball was wildly popular at the time, and this was another means of entertaining the guests and locals. 

In 1890, the Nobscussett owners purchased the summit of Scargo Hill. With this acquisition, hotel property would eventually cover 225 acres and a mile of shoreline. A tower, complete with a telescope, had been built on Scargo Hill earlier. When the wooden structure burned in 1900, a stone tower replaced it, built by the owners of the Nobscussett. This tower and land near it were donated to the town of Dennis in 1929.

The quality of both food and beverages received much advertising. Most of the produce came from the Tobey farm in Dennis, also owned by the proprietor of the Nobscussett, Frank B. Tobey. D.H. Sears provided the ice cream. If only they had known how popular ice cream would become to today’s tourists and locals, they’d certainly still be in business!

At the turn of the century, rooms were rented for $6.00 to $14.00 a week; suites were $12.00 to $16.00. Board was $10.00 a week for adults; $7.00 a week for children under 12 and the same price for nurses, maids, or servants.

While guests came from all over, the Nobscussett was especially popular in Chicago. This was only natural as the owners of the Nobscussett, the Tobeys, had moved from Dennis to Chicago to found a very successful furniture business there. Guests who planned to take the train were told to go to New York and take the Fall River Line steamer at Pier 28, connecting with the NY, NH, and H RR at Fall River. There they boarded the train for Yarmouth. Upon arrival in Yarmouth, they were transported by stage coach or wagon to the Nobscussett.

The post World War I era with automobiles brought new mobility to those tourists visiting Cape Cod. The days of the large hotels were numbered, as tourists chose to visit many places on the Cape, rather than remain at just one. Even by booking outside events such as class reunions, the Nobscussett could not survive the crash of 1929 and the subsequent depression. It closed its doors forever in 1930 and the main building was torn down a year later.

No evidence remains of the main building, golf course or the pier. The two large 11 room guest houses still exist, just a glimpse of what used to be.  However, if you listen quietly and watch the shadows closely, you might just get to see or hear the ghost of an early whaleman, a Chicago banker, or another guest or employee of the Nobscussett, looking for a way to return to the good old days.

Researched and written by Jim Carr and Duncan Oliver