try is the growing of vegetables and
the supplying of milk and poultry for its several villages, nearly all of
which are summer resorts. At Hyannis is a state normal school (1897;
co-educational). Cranberries are raised in large quantities, and there are
oyster and other shell fisheries. In the 17th century the mackerel and
whale fisheries were the basis of economic life; the latter gave way later
to the cod and other fisheries, but the fishing industry is now relatively
unimportant. Much of the county is a region of sands, salt-marshes,
beach-grass and scattered woods. From 1865 to 1895 the county diminished
20.1% in population. Barnstable was settled and incorporated in 1639
(county created 1685), and includes among its natives James Otis and Lemuel
Shaw.

See F. Freeman, _The History of Cape Cod: the Annals of Barnstable County_
(2 vols., Boston, 1858, 1862; and other impressions 1860 to 1869).

BARNSTAPLE, a seaport, market town and municipal borough, in the Barnstaple
parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, on the river Taw, near the
north coast. Pop. (1901) 14,137. It is served by the London &
South-Western, the Great Western, and the Lynton & Barnstaple railways. The
Taw is here crossed by a stone bridge of sixteen arches, said to have been
built in the 12th or 13th century. The town manufactures lace, gloves,
sail-cloth and fishing-nets, and has extensive potteries, tanneries,
sawmills and foundries, while shipbuilding is also carried on. The harbour
admits only small coasting vessels. The public buildings and institutions
include a guildhall (1826), a free grammar school and a large market-place.
The poet John Gay was born in the vicinity, and received his education at
the grammar school, which at an earlier period had numbered Bishop Jewel
among its pupils. It was founded in the 14th century, in connexion with a
chantry. There are also some curious Jacobean almshouses. The borough is
under a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. Area, 2236 acres.

Barnstaple (Berdestaple, Barnstapol, Barstaple, also Barum) ranks among the
most ancient of royal boroughs. As early as Domesday, where it is several
times mentioned, there were forty burgesses within the town and nine
without, who rendered 40s. Tradition claims that King Athelstan threw up
defensive earthworks here, but the existing castle is attributed to Joel of
Totnes, who held the manor during the reign of William the Conqueror, and
also founded