Chatham, MA
Topic: Barnstable County, MA
Chatham is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. It is located on the south-eastern tip of Cape Cod with Nantucket Sound to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the area was inhabited by several hundred members of a tribe known as the Monomoyicks. The first European to visit the area was the Frenchman Samuel de Champlain in 1605, but after difficulty with the natives he ultimately departed and founded Quebec City in 1608. During his time there and on subsequent maps, he named the area “Port Fortune”.

The first English colonist, William Nickerson, arrived in 1656 after purchasing land off of the local Monomoyicks chief. Unfortunately, he did not have approval for the purchase from the court at Plymouth, a requirement at the time, and was ensnarled in a 10-12 year legal battle over his purchase. He was finally allowed to settle in 1664 and general settlement began the following year. At that time, the land belonged to the towns of Yarmouth and Eastham, but in 1696 the area formed the Constablewick (area overseen by a constable) of Monamoy. In 1712, it was incorporated as a town and renamed “Chatham”.

In the 1890 “Massachusetts Gazetteer”, a reference with historical information on many of the towns of Massachusetts written by Elias Nason and George J. Varney, the origin of the name Chatham was indicated as being in honor of the Earl of Chatham, in England. However, this could not have been the case as William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, was not given the peerage until 1766 – well after the town had been named. However, while we do not know what sources Mr. Nason and Mr. Varney were drawing from, it can be postulated that they actually meant the Baron Chatham, the predecessor of the Earl title, which had been created in 1705 and “recent news” to the town founders.

The title of Baron Chatham was initially created and bestowed to John Campbell (1678 - 1743), a Scottish nobleman and Duke of Argyll, in recognition to his support of the Act of Union of 1707 which combined England and Scotland (and Wales, which was already absorbed into England) into Great Britain. Later, he would fight in the War of Spanish Succession and eventually become Commander in Chief of the British Army in 1742. However, if the town has been named in John Campbell’s honor, it might have been named Argyll or Greenwich which were superior titles instead.

Equally likely is that the town was named Chatham simply in honor of the naval port town in Kent, England on the River Medway. As Chatham, Massachusetts is a town on the south-eastern part of Cape Cod, it may have seemed appropriate to name it for a port town on the south-eastern part of England.