The Cornerstone Project

Two teachers, a group of Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School students, and their outside adviser, Michael Farber, have established The Cornerstone Project in 2008, working off a 1985 theory by retired architect and historian H. Morse Payne.

Payne surmised that around 1630, the Pilgrims set the original cornerstones for the first four towns, Sandwich, Barnstable, Yarmouth and Nauset, dividing the region according to the English pie-shaped surveying methods.
To survey the towns, the Pilgrims would have established a central point in the bay, using an east-west line from Wellfleet to Manomet in Plymouth, and a north-south line set along the magnetic north.

For more information on this project, please contact Daniella Garran: dgarran@cclighthouseschool.org

News about the Cornerstone Project

• Students bring Orleans history to life Cape Cod Times; May 26, 2009
• Cape boundary hunters get lesson in archeology Cape Cod Times; April 16, 2009
• Pilgrim's Progress: A community initiative works to prove the hypothesis that Cape Cod was used as a natural compass rose Point of Beginning; April 1, 2009
• History lives in classic rock Cape Cod Times; December 8, 2008
• Tracking history in Pilgrim's footsteps Cape Cod Times; November 26, 2008
• December 13 Cornerstone Forum with Michael Farber and the Lighthouse Charter School Cape Cod Museum of Natural History
• Students search for the 'first Plymouth Rock' Cape Cod Times; August 24, 2008
• Chatham man helps students unlock history's mysteries Cape Cod Times; August 24, 2008
• Chatham Man Spearheads Effort To Find Cape Cod Cornerstone Cape Cod Chronicle; July 17, 2008
• Student sleuths hit the rocks (Cornerstone Seminar) Cape Codder; May 30, 2008

Cornerstone Links

• Morse Payne Cornerstone Project challenges Cape Cod Astronomers to look for Answers
• YouTube video: Rockin with the Pilgrims (in Cummaquid)