Editing Yarmouth, Massachusetts (section)

===Early economic endeavors===
[[File:Redjacketclipper.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The clipper [[Red Jacket (clipper)|''Red Jacket'']]]]

Yarmouth began as a farming community in which the people of the town raised pigs,<ref>{{harvnb|Swift|1890|p=455}}: "Yarmouth men were granted liberty to "keep their swine unwringed," "they keeping them with a herdsman until complaint be made of some hurt they have done."</ref> cattle,<ref>{{harvnb|Swift|1890|p=457}}: "In 1643 Mr. Hallet presented to the poor of the town a cow, which was accepted by the court for the purpose indicated—a gift at that time munificent, as cattle were valued, and evidently appreciated by the recipients."</ref> and sheep.<ref>{{harvnb|Swift|1890|p=485}}: "When Mr. Parker started his store he also purchased the wool of the surrounding country, and had cloth and yarn made from it at East Falmouth; this he, assisted by his son, sold throughout the county."</ref> Due to livestock pasturage, firewood collection, shipbuilding, and the construction of the [[Old Colony Railroad]], the [[old-growth forest]]s of the Wampanoag era had disappeared from Yarmouth by the end of the nineteenth century,<ref name="Barbo2012">{{cite book| author=Theresa M. Barbo| title=Cape Cod Wildlife: A History of Untamed Forests, Seas and Shores| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abS6ZJeXgxkC| access-date=February 24, 2013| date=June 19, 2012| publisher=The History Press| isbn=978-1-60949-225-0| pages=39–40}}</ref> not to be replaced with stands of incipient [[Secondary forest|second-growth forest]] until agriculture declined in the town during the twentieth century.

[[File:Weeping European Beech Tree, Captain Bangs Hallet House, Yarmouth, MA - April 21, 2012.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Weeping European Beech]]
Although agriculture was a prominent part of Yarmouth life, the town's location led its people to make much of their living from the ocean. For centuries, many Yarmouth men worked as whalers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kittredge| first1=Henry C.|date=June 1937| title=Review: Along New England Shores. By A. Hyatt Verrill| journal=The New England Quarterly| volume=10|issue=2| page=393| quote="It was Yarmouth . . . that taught whaling to the Nantucketers."| doi=10.2307/360040| jstor=360040}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Swift|1890|p=461}}: "In 1661 the colonial authorities and the towns came to an agreement, by which two barrels of oil from every whale secured in town should be delivered to the treasurer of the colony."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Swift|1890|p=464}}: "Before making the third and final division it was voted at a proprietors' meeting held July 1, 1713, 'that a piece of land and beach lying near Coy's pond, about two acres, shall lie undivided for the benefit of the whalemen of the town of Yarmouth forever.'"</ref><ref name="Schneider2001">{{cite book| author=Paul Schneider| title=The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9kYYqglR8wC&pg=PA181| access-date=February 24, 2013| date=June 1, 2001| publisher=Macmillan| isbn=978-0-8050-6734-7| page=181}}</ref> In the early nineteenth century, merchantmen skippered by Yarmouth captains participated in the [[Old China Trade|China Trade]] between New England and the [[Guangzhou|Cantonese]] trading center of [[Huangpu District, Guangzhou|Whampoa]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hsoy.org/history/china_trade.htm|title= The China Trade| date=2001–2008| publisher=The Historical Society of Old Yarmouth, PO Box 11, Yarmouth Port, MA 02675| access-date=February 24, 2013}}</ref> Captain Ebenezer Sears of Yarmouth was the first American skipper to take a merchant vessel around the [[Cape of Good Hope]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Kittredge| first=Henry C.| title=Shipmasters of Cape Cod| year=1935| publisher=Houghton Mifflin| page=41}}</ref><ref name="Snow1946">{{cite book| author=Edward Rowe Snow| author-link=Edward Rowe Snow| title=A Pilgrim Returns to Cape Cod| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SgTVAAAAMAAJ| access-date=February 24, 2013| year=1946| publisher=Yankee Publishing Company| location=Boston| page=206}}</ref> In 1854, Captain [[Asa Eldridge]] of Yarmouth skippered the clipper [[Red Jacket (clipper)|''Red Jacket'']], a packet ship, between New York and [[Liverpool]] in only 13 days, 1 hour, and 25 minutes, dock to dock, setting a speed record for fastest trans-Atlantic crossing by a commercial sailing vessel that has remained unbroken ever since.<ref name="Swift1884 quote">{{cite book| author=Charles Francis Swift| author-link=Charles F. Swift| title=History of Old Yarmouth: Comprising the Present Towns of Yarmouth and Dennis: from the Settlement to the Division in 1794, with the History of Both Towns to These Times| url=https://archive.org/details/historyoldyarmo00swifgoog| access-date=February 24, 2013| year=1884| publisher=author| pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyoldyarmo00swifgoog/page/n234 216]–218| quote= Although this great captain was continually doing things which excited the admiration of the world, nothing gave him a more lasting reputation than sailing the clipper ship Red Jacket across the Atlantic Ocean to the eastward, from Sandy Hook to the Rock Light, Mersy, off Liverpool, in thirteen days, 1 hour, in 1854.}}</ref><ref name="Sea Captains">{{cite web |url=http://www.yarmouthcapecod.com/html/sea_capt.html| title=Sea Captains| access-date=February 24, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Asa Eldridge House">{{cite web |url=http://kathyschrock.net/capecodsketchbook/page15.html| title=Asa Eldridge House| access-date=February 24, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Haunted Hotel">{{cite web |url=http://www.redjacketresorts.com/halloween/| title=Haunted Hotel| access-date=February 24, 2013}}</ref> In 1856, Captain Eldridge skippered the ill-fated steamship [[SS Pacific (1849)|''SS Pacific'']], which disappeared at sea on a voyage from Liverpool to New York.<ref name="Swift1884">{{cite book| author=Charles Francis Swift| author-link=Charles F. Swift| title=History of Old Yarmouth: Comprising the Present Towns of Yarmouth and Dennis: from the Settlement to the Division in 1794, with the History of Both Towns to These Times| url=https://archive.org/details/historyoldyarmo00swifgoog| access-date=February 24, 2013| year=1884| publisher=author| pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyoldyarmo00swifgoog/page/n234 216]–218| quote="January 25, 1856, after a voyage across the Atlantic, in which he successfully competed with a Cunard Line steamer, he sailed in the steamer Pacific from Liverpool, England, on a return trip to New York. He was never heard from more. It was a year of most unprecedented disaster to vessels; many were foundered, or went down in the gales; the best nautical opinion is to the effect that the Pacific struck an iceberg and that all on board met an instant death."}}</ref><ref name="Sea Captains"/><ref name="Asa Eldridge House"/><ref name="Haunted Hotel"/> The house of another Yarmouth sea captain, Captain Bangs Hallet, is now a museum and home to the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth.<ref>[http://www.hsoy.org/ The Historical Society of Old Yarmouth]. Hsoy.org. Retrieved on February 16, 2016.</ref>