Nickerson Homestead Eligible For National Register

CHATHAM – The homestead of the town’s first European settlers, William and Anne Nickerson, is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, the Massachusetts Historical Commission has determined.

In an Oct. 3 letter to the town’s historical commission, Justin Malcolm, a preservation planner and archaeologist with the state agency, wrote that the site off Orleans Road is significant both as the home of the town’s founders and for its recurrent use by the indigenous population over many centuries.

The William and Anne Nickerson Homestead sites stretch over 2.5 acres behind the Nickerson Family Association’s compound at 1107 Orleans Rd. and includes land owned by the Chatham Conservation Foundation. It was on Foundation land that archaeological digs in 2016 and 2019 confirmed the location of the Nickerson home site.

The state commission’s determination clears the way for submission to the agency of a National Register nomination, said Chatham Historical Commission Chair Frank Messina.

“The eligibility is actually the biggest hurdle,” he said. “If they didn’t think it was worthwhile, it wouldn’t go further.”

The determination study submitted to the state by the Pawtucket, R.I.-based Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. was funded by about $30,000 in town money from different sources, Messina said. The Nickerson Association will fund the work required to submit the National Register nomination, also expected to be done by Public Archaeology Laboratory, according to Association President Jill Nickerson MacDonald.

The Conservation Foundation has agreed to move forward with the nomination process as well as the naming of the site as the “Nickerson Homestead on the Monomoyick Homelands,” in recognition of the "millennia of indigenous peoples who were the original stewards of the land,” Foundation Executive Director Lauren Arcomano wrote in an email.

It is likely to take several months to complete the nomination, Messina said. According to Malcolm’s letter, the listing process takes an average of 18 months to two years after the nomination is submitted. After review by the Massachusetts Historical Commission staff, the nomination goes before the State Review Board, and if approved is then sent to the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. for inclusion on the National Register. Once approved by the state, listing on the National Register is almost always approved, Messina said.

According to the state commission letter, the site meets all four of the National Register eligibility requirements: it is associated with significant historical events and persons, has well-preserved archaeological features and is likely to yield additional information from the pre-Colonial and Colonial period.

 Some 350,000 artifacts were recovered by Craig Chartier of the Plymouth Archaeological Rediscovery Project during the two digs, ranging from pipe stems to coins and pottery. The material dates from between 1664, when the Nickersons built their homestead, to about 1690. The excavations uncovered the footprint of the home — which was rather large for its time and, unusually, had two hearths — a wooden palisade and what may have been the only iron smelting foundry on Cape Cod at the time.

“This is the starting point of the Nickersons in the United States,” said Nickerson Association board member Robert Nickerson. “All of our history is tied to that specific site.” Although the archaeological dig was covered when the excavation was concluded, signs on the property explain the site and the artifacts that were found. Those are being updated, Nickerson said.

This is the second successful National Register determination sponsored by the historical commission. The commission was behind the nomination of the South Chatham Village Historic District, which was added to the National Register in 2022.