Cabot Cove

Cabot Cove, Maine, is the small, fictional fishing village in which Jessica Fletcher lives, in the popular television series "Murder, She Wrote". Many episodes of "Murder She Wrote" used Cabot Cove as a location because the show's producers were contractually obligated to deliver five Cabot Cove episodes a year.Barron, James, 1996-04-14, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E3DA1139F937A25757C0A960958260 Whodunit? That Under-40 Crowd] , "New York Times".] Cabot Cove became notable as a place where a large amount of murders took place. The "New York Times" calculated that almost 2% of Cabot Cove's residents died during the show's run. More visitors to Cabot Cove died than residents. There were around 800 murders while Jessica Fletcher lived there. With the crimes being local, over half of the population was involved in a murder in a twelve year span. O'Brien, Jack, [http://www.cracked.com/article_15084_7-worst-fictional-towns-in-america.html The 7 Worst Fictional Towns In America] , "Cracked".]

Cabot Cove is named after the town's founder, Winfred Cabot. Perhaps setting the stage for the town's reputation for murders, Cabot was killed in a murder-suicide situation with his wife Hepzibah. It has a good architectural heritage in the form of Victorian houses. CBS stated that the town's population was 3,560.

That rich tradition, being next to the coast and neighbor to the great Eastern cities, transformed Cabot Cove from being a small economy based in fishing, to a tourist destination for the people coming from New York. Throughout the 1990s, the construction has grown, and so has the population. Immigration comprises people coming from the industrial cities of the Eastern coast.

Despite important economic changes, politically there have not been many changes. The mayor has been Sam Booth for many years. The town's sheriff was for a long time was Amos Tupper (played by Tom Bosley). He was later replaced by Mort Metzger (played by Ron Masak).

Location

In "The Szechuan Dragon" (season 6, episode #131) a transport truck is seen stopping at the righthand turnoff to Cabot Cove to let out a hitchhiking old sailing captain. The sign indicates that Cabot Cove is 2 miles from this point. The other destinations on the sign are as follows: Portland, 20 mi; Biddeford 37 mi; Kennebunkport 48 mi; Kennebunk 46 mi; Ogunquit, 56 (or 50) mi.

This would place Cabot Cove 18 to 22 miles Northeast of Portland, Maine, somewhere between Freeport and Brunswick and off of US Route 1. The primary difficulty with this location for Cabot Cove is that a person travelling south or southwest, towards Portland, along Route 1 and making a righthand turn off the highway would be turning west or northwest , away from the Atlantic Ocean, not east towards the ocean where one would expect to find a place called Cabot Cove.

There was actually a town by the name of Cabot Cove in Northern California, near where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds. The television show, however, was filmed at a hotel in the oceanside hamlet of Mendocino, California. [McKinney, John, 2005, "California's Coastal Parks: A Day Hikers Guide", Wilderness Press.]

Further reading

cite book
last = Tropiano
first = Stephen
year = 2000
title = TV Towns
publisher = TV Books L.L.C.
location = New York, NY
id = ISBN 1-57500-127-6

References