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The Cape Cod town likely got its name from Sandwich, England — but historians still cannot say exactly who brought it to Massachusetts.

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Sandwich is one of those Massachusetts town names that seems like it should have an obvious explanation.

But nearly 400 years later, historians still cannot say with certainty exactly who named the Cape Cod town — or why.

Instead, the story survives through scattered clues: colonial court records, a group of families moving from Saugus, an old English port town, and a powerful Massachusetts Bay official with ties to Sandwich, Kent.

And yes, eventually, there is a connection to the food — just not in the way people might think.

The name appears early, but the explanation does not

The first clues in Sandwich’s origin story show up almost as soon as the town itself does.

According to June Murphy at the Sandwich Historical Commission, Sandwich was the first town established on Cape Cod, founded in 1637. Russell Lovell, Sandwich’s first town archivist, wrote in Sandwich, A Cape Cod Town that the earliest known use of the name appears in writings from the end of that year. One came from John Winthrop’s History of New England, where he described a new plantation near Cape Cod, started by families who had moved from Saugus, that was already “called Sandwich.” 

The name also turned up in Plymouth Colony records in a Jan. 2, 1638 court case. The case itself was not about the town’s name. It was about goods that were supposed to be delivered by boat from Weymouth to Sandwich and supposedly did not make it there. 

Referencing Lovell’s book, Murphy said the dispute confirmed that by early 1638 the settlement was already known as Sandwich — and suggested that coastal trade was active. 

A name from England, a clue from Saugus

At first, the name might have seemed easy enough to explain: There was already a Sandwich in England.

Sandwich, Kent, is an old English town, so it would have made sense that English settlers brought the name with them to Massachusetts. But the story was not quite that simple.

The town’s founding families had been living in Saugus, then known as Lynn, before they moved to Cape Cod in 1637. They do not appear to have come directly from Sandwich, Kent, which made the name harder to explain. 

The strongest clue may be a colonial official named John Humphrey.

Who was John Humphrey?

Humphrey was a magistrate in Saugus when Sandwich’s original settling families left for Cape Cod. He was also an assistant governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, part of the early circle around John Winthrop, and someone with enough standing to influence colonial affairs. Lovell wrote that Humphrey had been assigned land in the Saugus area, where the future Sandwich settlers had been living before they moved south. 

He also had something Murphy said Lovell could not find among the early settlers themselves: a known connection to Sandwich, Kent.

According to Lovell’s book, the Humphreys had a residence in Sandwich, England, which was then one of the embarkation points for the New World. That made Humphrey stand out. The founding families do not appear to have come directly from Sandwich, Kent, but Humphrey knew the place — and was connected to the community they left behind. 

Murphy said Lovell never found definitive proof that Humphrey named the town, but he believed the circumstantial evidence was pointed strongly in that direction.

Lovell’s theory does not depend on Humphrey traveling to Cape Cod and naming the town himself. It rests more on where Humphrey was — and who he was — when the settlement was taking shape.

As the magistrate in Saugus, Humphrey likely would have known about the families’ move to Cape Cod and may have approved the venture. If the name was suggested before they left, Humphrey was the strongest candidate to have introduced it.

That made him the clearest bridge between the new Cape Cod settlement and old Sandwich in England.

Why Sandwich, England?

Sandwich, Kent, was an old port town with a long history of trade. In its prime, according to the Confederation of Cinque Ports, hundreds of ships could gather in its harbor, carrying goods such as stone, wine, and spices through the Wantsum Channel.

There is a physical resemblance between the two places. Both have flat marshes, a shallow harbor, and a bay running northeast to southwest. The Cape’s trading connections, including activity around the Aptucxet Trading Post, may also have reminded someone familiar with Kent of Sandwich, England’s own history as a trading port. 

The marshes were not just scenery. According to the Sandwich Historical Commission, they were one reason the location was so appealing to early settlers. The broad marshes along the sea could provide salt hay for livestock, without the work of cultivating upland hay. 

So to someone who knew Sandwich, Kent, the Cape Cod settlement may not have looked entirely unfamiliar. It had marshes, water, trade, and a landscape that echoed the English town whose name it likely inherited.

Is there any connection to the food?

The obvious next question is whether Sandwich the town has any real connection to sandwich the food.

The short answer: not really.

The longer answer is that both names appear to point back to the same place: Sandwich, Kent, in England.

Sandwich, Massachusetts, was already using its name in the 1600s. The food story came later, through John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who lived in the 18th century.

The familiar version of that story is that Montagu, unwilling to pause a card game for a full meal, asked for meat served between two pieces of bread. The detail has helped make the sandwich’s origin story memorable, but it is not exactly airtight.

Britannica says the food was named for Montagu, but notes that the famous gambling-table version is widely considered rumor. Other versions suggest he may have asked for the meal while working at his desk, not while playing cards.

Either way, the connection to Sandwich, Massachusetts, is distant, not direct. The town was not named after the food. Instead, the town likely took its name from Sandwich, Kent — the same English place tied to the Earl of Sandwich’s title.

The strongest case, but not a settled story

Nearly four centuries later, Sandwich’s name has likely outlived the records that once explained it. What remains is the strongest theory historians have: that a familiar English port town lent its name to Cape Cod — carried across the Atlantic by settlers and perhaps one well-connected colonial official.