Opposite the Green is the old meeting house; in its spire is a bell cast by Paul Revere. An inscription reads: “The living to the church I call; And to the grave I summon all.” A faded receipt is in a local bank, bearing the date 1796 and giving the purchase price as $338.94. The Green had its whipping post. Not many years ago the top of the post was found in the attic of a house facing the Green and was removed to the Public Library to go on exhibition. Outstanding in Falmouth’s story is her rich fund of whaling lore. The Town’s Museum has a generous assortment of articles reflecting the great activity in this line: navigation instruments, revolvers used to put down mutinies, logbooks, handcuffs, harpoon and many ship pictures. Elijah Swift, who began as a carpenter, is rated the most useful citizen in Falmouth history and he is credited with first bringing prosperity to the town. Elijah Swift knew wood, hence his services were highly valued when he was engaged to supply live oak for the shipbuilding program of the American Navy after the War of 1812. He recruited a large number of Falmouth men to go South on the live oak operation and, incidentally, he was successful in fighting the dreaded “yellow jack” disease in the swamp country. This business was destined to run into the millions. INTERESTING PERSONALITIES A living reminder of Elijah Swift’s works are the beautiful, tall trees surrounding the Village Green. He was permitted by the town, in 1832, to plant, at his own expense, the saplings that developed into these giants. The first summer after the planting was unusually dry. Elijah Swift hired a man to carry water daily from Shiverick’s Pond to keep life in the saplings, and this loving care he gave at the outset makes this scene today “a glory to the community.” Falmouth has had, and still has, many people who have done distinctive work in their lifetime. Katherine Lee Bates, who wrote “America, the Beautiful,” was Falmouth-born. Edward Herbert Thompson, great American archaeologist, who did some of the most important work of bringing to light the facts of ancient American life and culture, was a Falmouth native. Coonamessett Ranch, in the township of Falmouth, is said to be the largest ranch east of the Mississippi. Charles R. Crane of Chicago started cultivating it in 1915, to demonstrate the agricultural possibilities of Cape Cod. But he had an idealistic aim that was thwarted by the outbreak of the last war. The great acres were to have been settled by carefully selected families of the Russian peasantry, and the owner was intent upon carrying through his ideas for developing the possibilities of the less fortunate Russian folk. MASHPEE---- _Where the Wampanoag Indian Tongue is Still Chanted_ Mrs. Dorcas Gardner, of Wampanoag Indian descent, sits in a low-ceiling little room mellowed from many years of simple living, and she speaks with the wisdom of her 74 years.