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Point Taken: Hancock Has Plenty of Other Parts, Too
When the New York
Times carried a full-length feature about Hancock in a Sunday travel
section last month, the focus was Hancock Point in summer.
The
library at Hancock Point was formed in 1899. It continues as a
community building today with seasonal services. |
Among other charms,
Hancock Point has the chapel, the library, the wharf with sailing
lessons, tennis courts and tennis tournaments for families belonging
to the Hancock Point Village Improvement Society.
With cottages lined
up along Frenchman Bay, and between 200 and 300 families enjoying
either their residences or rentals, Hancock Point is an idyllic
summer spot.
But Hancock proper
is far more than the Point alone. And exactly where Hancock Point
starts and ends, isn’t exactly clear.
“I don’t enter into
that argument,” said Esther Peirce, vice president of the
Improvement Society. “But there is an argument.”
To be honest,
Hancock Point, five miles down Point Road from the town office,
doesn’t even enter into the daily lives of many of Hancock’s 2,147
residents. With only about a dozen families living year-round at
Hancock Point, they actually represent just a small portion of the
town’s population.
Still, says town
historian Lois Crabtree Johnson, “without the summer population,
Hancock would be a vastly different place.”
Fair enough. In the
meantime, the rest of Hancock is growing. Non-point residents live
in areas along
Point Road,
Mud Creek Road, Route 182, Route 1 and Washington Junction Road.
Johnson happens to
chair an ad hoc committee charged with looking at ways in which a
very spread-out town can develop more sense of being one community.
Just a dozen years
ago, in 1990, the U.S. census recorded 715 households in Hancock.
That is 485 fewer than today’s 1,200 (with 217 of those seasonal
homes).
How does one
explain Hancock’s development?
“There have been
quite a few subdivisions,” said Stacy Clement, who has worked as the
town’s administrative assistant for the past three years. “People
also are moving in because of the school system.”
That second comment
comes from Clement, the mom, who has two children at the Hancock
Grammar School. The school board, including Joe Carter in his 28th
year as a member, oversees the 240 grammar students.
Like many of the
county’s towns, Hancock also has a volunteer fire department. But
quite unusually, it also has a volunteer police department.
Thirteen
members—not all of whom are credentialed to make an arrest—share
patrol of the town each evening.
All of which makes
Hancock a pretty special place to live—wherever one lives in this
town of points, parts and personalities.
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