A horse-drawn carriage prepares to depart from the Truro Lighthouse in the summer of 1900. The current lighthouse “was erected in 1857, replacing two earlier towers that had been built in 1797 and 1831. It is the oldest and tallest lighthouse on Cape Cod.”

From a summer album containing Truro images and others by American amateur photographer Philip Patterson Wells, (1868-1929) who vacationed with his family on Truro that year. Dr. Patterson was librarian and instructor at Yale Law School for several years, and chief law officer under Gifford Pinchot for the U. S. Forestry Service, 1907-1910, counsel National Conservation Association, 1910-1911, chief law officer U. S. Reclamation Service (Department of the Interior), 1911-1913.

Phillip Patterson Wells enabled the Weeks Act in 1911 to protect the headwaters of US rivers & waterways by purchasing forested lands. He was Legal Advisor to Gifford Pinchot, head of the US Forestry Service 1907-1910.