Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is the oldest town on Cape Cod. The town motto is Post tot Naufracia Portus, “after so many shipwrecks, a haven”. The population was 20,259 at the 2020 census.

Cape Cod was inhabited for thousands of years by Native Americans prior to European colonization. In the contact period, Sandwich was occupied by the Eastern Algonquian speaking Wampanoag who aided the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in the 1620s. Despite significant losses of life and cultural heritage due to virgin soil epidemics, King Philip’s War, and conversion and assimilation efforts that pushed them into Praying Towns, the Mashpee Wompanoag still live on Cape Cod and efforts are underway to revive the Wompanoag language.

A group of English settlers from Saugus, Massachusetts, colonized Sandwich in 1637 with the permission of the Plymouth Colony. It is named for the seaport of Sandwich, Kent, England. It was incorporated in 1639 and is the oldest town on Cape Cod together with Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The western portion of the town was separated from the original Town of Sandwich and became the town of Bourne in 1884.

There are many historic homes in Sandwich, including the Benjamin Nye Homestead on Old County Road (formerly known as Old King’s Highway) and the Benjamin Holway House built in 1789 at 379 Route 6A. This property hosts one of the original Nye Homestead structures built in 1698 and is believed to have originally served as either a tavern or a shop. It is now used as a law office.

Sandwich was the site of an early Quaker settlement and today hosts the oldest continuous Quaker Meeting in the U.S. There were some conflicts with other religious groups, so some Quakers left the town for further settlements elsewhere including Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Many of Sandwich’s prominent families have Quaker ties.

Early industry revolved around agriculture with fishing and trading also providing for the town. Later, the town grew a small industrial component along the Scusset River and Old Harbor Creek and its tributaries. Today, most of its industry revolves around tourism.

Deming Jarves founded the Boston & Sandwich Glass Factory in 1825. Sandwich had proximity to a shallow harbor, was a possible canal site, and had local supplies of timber to fuel the glass furnaces. The glass works primarily made lead glass and was known for its use of color. Jarves received several patents for his improvements in glass mold designs and pressing techniques. The factory declined after the American Civil War due to competition from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia companies that produced less expensive pressed soda-lime glass tableware.