The Olde Colonial Courthouse

The Olde Colonial Courthouse. . , You are standing where, on September 27, 1774, Cape Cod won its independence from the British without a shot fired. , The Province of Massachusetts Bay had been self-governing since its creation. But to punish it for the Boston Tea Party the year before, the Parliament in England scrapped the colony's ancient charter. , In response, more than a thousand patriots gathered here, in front of what was then the Barnstable County courthouse, to wrest control of Cape Cod from the British. , On arriving at the courthouse the chief justice, Col. James Otis, commanded, "As is my duty, I now, in his Majesty's name, order you immediately to disperse." , To which Nathaniel Freeman, the protest's elected leader, replied,"We thank your honor for having done your duty; we shall continue to perform ours." , And stand fast they did. In the end, Otis and other county officials formally agreed that they would ignore Parliament's new rules and continue to honor the colony's long-standing democratic form of government. , That summer and into the fall of 1774, similar protests swept Massachusetts and by the end of the year, all of the colony except Boston was free of British control. , That's why Gen. Thomas Gage, the Royal governor, ordered troops to Concord the following April to secure munitions stored there. It was the resulting Battle of Lexington and Concord that ignited the Revolutionary War. , It was not until July 1776 that the united colonies declared independence from Great Britain , nearly two years after Massachusetts had won its own. , Court of Law to House of God , After Cape Cod outgrew this small courthouse, a Baptist congregation bought the building in 1842 and converted it into a church. In 1905 the building was expanded, becoming the structure you see here today. , When the church disbanded in 1972, Tales of Cape Cod bought the building, to preserve a precious piece of Cape Cod's , and America's , history.