The Buzzards Bay Glacier, ancient drainage, and erosion over time, geologically shaped Cataumet and the adjacent areas. The Buzzard's Glacier, by pushing lower sediments up on the eastern shore, and by it's eventual melting, helped form the many coves, sandbars, and bogs for cranberry growing, that characterize Cataumet today. Cataumet was originally inhabited and named by the Succonessitts Indians, a tribe belonging to the greater Cape Wampanoags. They were known to be independent and peaceloving, and showed particular friendliness to the early white explorers and settlers. The Succonessitts while sharing many of the American Indian traditions, did make their pipes from wood and lobster claws instead of stone, and had their own house like variation of the TP. Settlement was primarily on the coast, and shell deposits later discovered indicated where they lived. Eventually, the greater area was settled by colonists in 1640. While Jonathan Bourne, a whale-oil capitalist and the person Bourne county was named after, showed interest in improving the condition of the local Indians, he also sought to replace their sacred deity Kiehtan with Christianity. Eventually, the culture of the Indians dissolved, but their naming of Cataumet remains today.
Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica. Kitterage, Henry; Cape Cod-It's People and History.

"The Nye family held much of what we now know of as Cataumet when David Dimick, a sixth generation Cape Codder, bought the property in the second parish of Sandwich 200 years ago, now the Arsenult property, located on Red Brook Pond. His earliest ancestor in this country, Thomas Dimock, had come from England in 1635 and, four years later established the village of Barnstable with the Rev. Joseph Hull. Succeeding generations lived in Barnstable and Falmouth before coming to Cataumet."
Source: This excerpt is from 200 Years In Cataumet by David Dimmick, in the Bourne Conservation Trust Newsletter 21. My thanks to the Bourne Historical Society for their help.

Please send any historical information or ideas.