Cotuit is a village on Cape Cod in the Town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. Located on a peninsula on the south side of Barnstable about midway between Falmouth, Massachusetts and Hyannis, Massachusetts. Cotuit is bounded by the Santuit River to the west on the Mashpee, Massachusetts town line, the villages of Marstons Mills, Massachusetts to the north, and Osterville, Massachusetts to the east, and Nantucket Sound to the south. Cotuit is primarily residential with several small beaches including Ropes Beach, Riley's Beach, The Loop Beach and Oregon Beach.



History
=Colonial Era =
Cotuit was part of a major...

Cotuit is a village on Cape Cod in the Town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. Located on a peninsula on the south side of Barnstable about midway between Falmouth, Massachusetts and Hyannis, Massachusetts. Cotuit is bounded by the Santuit River to the west on the Mashpee, Massachusetts town line, the villages of Marstons Mills, Massachusetts to the north, and Osterville, Massachusetts to the east, and Nantucket Sound to the south. Cotuit is primarily residential with several small beaches including Ropes Beach, Riley's Beach, The Loop Beach and Oregon Beach.



History
=Colonial Era =
Cotuit was part of a major land purchase negotiated by Myles Standish of the Plymouth Colony with Paupmunnuck, Wampanoag headman of the Cotachessett village allegedly located on or near the island known today as Oyster Harbors, or Grand Island. That transaction, which occurred on May 17, 1648, was made by Paupmunnuck and his brother, and'sold'about'twenty square miles of land in what is now the southwestern section of Barnstable. '.

The purchase price was two kettles, a bushel of Indian corn, and the agreement to fence off of land comprising the Cotachessett village. However this was renegotiated shortly after the conclusion of the Standish agreement to drop the fence and corn and settled instead on a price of'one great brass kettle seven spans in wideness round about, and one broad hoe. '

Cattle and the harvesting of salt marsh hay was the primary economic activity in colonial Cotuit. The Little River section of the village (near the location of the present Cotuit Oyster Company) was the site of some early shipyards.

Built circa 1793, just off of Main Street near the center of the village, is the Josiah Sampson House, the oldest standing home actually built in Cotuit (the Crocker House on Route 28 was built in 1749 in the village of West Barnstable and then moved its present location in Cotuit by oxen). When this Federal-style New England house was built by English businessman, Squire Josiah Sampson, it was regarded as so extravagant for its day that it came to be known by the townspeople as'Sampson's Folly'', faced with many windows and containing a ballroom for dancing on its second floor. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this home today operates as a bed-and-breakfast. The house is also referred to as'Sampson's Folly'on the List of Registered Historic Places in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. The property contained a working farm and a mill on the Santuit River, lending its name to the road which ran nearby, Sampson's Mill Road.