Serving up History at Swift Tavern

This cast-iron cake griddle was once used in the fireplace at Swift Tavern in West Sandwich (now Sagamore). As described in the classic book, "A Trip Around Cape Cod, Nantucket ,Marthas Vineyard, South Shore, and Historical Plymouth" by E.G. Perry, the "famous Swift Tavern was from Webster's time to Cleveland's: a favorite inn of Sir Izaak Walton's followers, because the streams or creeks hereabouts always abounded in large-sized trout.”

In the 19th century, taverns like this were not just places to get a meal or spend the night. They were gathering places where travelers and locals crossed paths, shared news, and did business. Objects such as this griddle were part of the everyday life of a busy tavern.

We know something about how this particular object survived. In 1913, the Barnstable Patriot newspaper reported the donation of this griddle to the Sandwich Historical Society as part of a gift from Mrs. Helen Hinckley Whitman, daughter of Enoch Hinckley (1793–1881), who had once been the landlord of Swift Tavern.

Donated just a few years after the Historical Society was founded in 1907, this humble griddle was among the objects an earlier generation of Sandwich residents believed were worth saving.