(1882)
Cape Cod Oil Works.
The wharf of John Atwood Jr. saw second duty as part of the Cape Cod Oil Works, established by Jonathan Cook in 1875, which extracted everything usable from the carcasses and excreta of whales and fish. To this day, the ruin of a brig hull, as elegant in its skeletal outline as an elongated wishbone, can be seen alongside the few remaining pilings of the Atwood wharf.
¶ Adapted from Building Provincetown (2015). ¶ Image from Bird’s Eye View of the Town of Provincetown (1882), by A. F. Poole, courtesy of the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House.