31-35 Tin Pan Alley Road | Pearsall Cottages Nos. 6-8
Pearsall Cottage No. 6 at 31 Tin Pan Alley Road. [2007, Town Assessor]
Pearsall Cottage No. 7 at 33 Tin Pan Alley Road. [2007, Town Assessor]
Pearsall Cottage No. 8 at 35 Tin Pan Alley Road. [2007, Town Assessor]
Updated on 4 June 2026 | “The houses are named after previous owners before 1960 — all listed as state-owned before the Cape Cod National Seashore was created — though they probably have a longer story,” said Mark Adams, an artist and former geologist and geographic information system cartographer at the National Park Service.
“Three cottages are called ‘Pearsall,’ along with several more ‘Pearsalls’ at Marconi in Wellfleet. My guess is that the name comes from earlier military use.”
It’s worth noting, as Adams does, that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts administered the Province Lands before the creation of the National Seashore. And it was making investments in the state park. For instance, the first Herring Cove Beach Bathhouse was erected in 1953. Just across Race Point Road from the Pearsall Cottages, about 1,000 feet distant, the Province Lands superintendent’s house stood near the shore of Blackwater Pond, suggesting that the cabins might have served state parks employees.
