Photo Courtesy of Harwich Historical Society

The Osterville Historical Museum is contributing a few images, including a 30-inch panorama of the East Bay Lodge. Osterville was a destination point a century ago for some of America’s most powerful families, Morgan Williams says. The Duponts, the Mellons, and other families tethered to wealthy business magnates would visit in the summer for a month at a time, and they would stay at one of about a dozen inns in the village—including East Bay Lodge on East Bay Road. While the lodge fell into disrepair before being torn down in the mid-1990s, the photo on display in “Revisiting the Past” depicts the inn in its early 1900s heyday, with its impressive two main buildings and, in the distance, the waters of East Bay. A man stands in the driveway at the center of the image, while a woman sews on the porch and children practice archery in the side yard. “People are always asking about the East Bay Lodge,” Morgan Williams says. “It was fancy, elegant, old Cape Cod.”

In those days, sailing was a favorite activity for summer visitors, Morgan Williams says, and many who stayed at the lodge commissioned local boat builders, C. Worthington and Harris Crosby to construct one of their famous wooden boats, the Wianno Senior, or a popular catboat. “Revisiting the Past” also features an image of the catboats, sailing on the East Bay, circa 1904. Built for agility, the boats feature a large rudder and a mast that’s distinctively located near the vessel’s bow.

Morgan Williams says many of the Osterville Historical Museum’s photographs were donated by residents. The older images often require restoration work, and for this, she turns to husband-and-wife team Jim and Camilla Richman of The Artistic Framer in Osterville. “It’s always incredible to see,” Jim says. “It’s history—the country’s history—and you want to try to preserve it as best you can.”

Since the business opened in 1990, Jim says customers have brought in thousands of photographs over the years that need to be touched up or repaired. Some even bring tintypes—positive exposures that were printed on thin pieces of metal rather than film, which were common during the mid- to late-19th century. But tintype images are extremely fragile and can be damaged if exposed to direct light. To Jim’s surprise, some people, unaware of this, walk in holding the images in their hands.