CAPE ANN CURATOR

The first time Oliver Barker visited the Cape Ann Museum, 20 years ago, he was a tourist. He and his wife, whose Gloucester roots go back five generations, went to see a chisel that had belonged to her great-grandfather, who had worked in the region’s thriving granite industry.

Barker, today a Wenham resident, was enchanted even then with the museum’s deep sense of place. But