Maggie's Farm

Here is the lighthouse-keeper's house today (the Coast Guard moved the light itself to California):

This little brick structure in the back contained the kerosene, delivered by boat as needed, to keep Mayo Light burning to mark Wellfleet Harbor:

Just past Mayo Beach, through the 1920s, was the grand Chequessett Inn, built on pilings (the stumps of which still poke through the mud) and finally destroyed by an attack of sea ice in the 1930s. Rumor is that rum-runner boats would stop by at night, contributing to the Inn's popularity during Prohibition.

It was built by Mr. Lorenzo Dow Baker, the pioneer of the banana trade from the Caribbean and Central America. On a whim, he loaded his schooner's empty hold with tropical fruit for the return trip to Boston, and made millions. Mainly bananas, hitherto unknown in Boston. Ended up owning plantations all over Central America, and a big hotel in Jamaica. His employees were Jamaicans: They worked Wellfleet in the summer and the Jamaica hotel in the winter.

Baker's business became the Boston Fruit Company, the foundation of the United Fruit Company. A clever Yankee.