While our Captain commanded many ships during his career, we were lucky enough to find a rare clipper ship card, printed in 1864, that places him with a specific ship called The Rival. The framed card hangs in our foyer and is one of the first things you’ll see when you enter the house.

Captain Doane’s wife, Didama, was an adventurer in her own right. She accompanied Uriel on The Rival and took journeys with her husband on other clipper ships. While at sea, she kept a diary of her experiences, which were later published by her great-nephew in 1946. While this book is no longer in print, we have a rare copy in our library that you can peruse!

We named our bed & breakfast The Arrival as an homage to the history of the house while imparting the business with its own distinct personality. Our vision for the house is to marry new and old, to restore and maintain its original and unique character while modernizing (hello air conditioning!) and making it our own.

In the 1800s, the village of West Harwich was home to a dozens of sea captains who made a living, and often their fortunes, sailing the world. Main Street, now Route 28, provided access to the Herring River, an especially deep estuary that provided the perfect location for building ships worthy of global travel. Around 1870, our house was built for Uriel Doane, Jr. and his wife Didama on a one-acre plot that sits just steps from the river.