Welcome to the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds. Barnstable County was founded in 1685 and encompasses the land and the 15 towns that make up what is popularly known as Cape Cod. The Barnstable County Registry of Deeds contains the over three centuries of real property ownership history for Cape Cod. In Massachusetts, Registries of Deeds deal only with title to real property.
The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on November 11, 1620 by most adult men (but not by most crew and adult male servants). The Pilgrims used the Julian Calendar, also known as Old Style dates, which, at that time, was ten days behind the Gregorian Calendar.
In November of 1620 at New Plymouth, a consensus of new settlers drafted a written agreement that is referred to as the Mayflower Compact. The settlers had anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod and had made the trip across the ocean in a ship that was called the Mayflower. The basic idea of the Mayflower Compact was to create fair, equal laws in the best interest of the settlement and agreed to by the majority. There were many reasons that they had decided to draw this compact. The main reason was that they knew about earlier settlements that had failed due to lack of government.