Pilgrim Exploration Route

Via Laura Kelly...

This map shows the approximate routes that the Pilgrims took around Cape Cod between November 10th to Dec 16th 1620.

From: Maps of Early Massachusetts, by Lincoln A. Dexter 1979.

Notes:

- Bourne, even then, was flyover territory.

- The Mayflower, 300 years before beaches became recreational for most Americans but amazingly just like a July 2020 Saturday day tripper, suddenly had her smooth commute slow to a crawl as she moved through Bourne. She didn't hit Cape traffic, she just had rudder problems.

- Corn Hill was actually a dune/bluff with burial mounds on them when the Pilgrims visited. Some were graves, some were corn. The Pilgrims raided these, gaining the enmity of the local Nausets. They paid up 6 months later, with Squanto as an intermediary.

- Saquish may likely have been an island when the Pilgrims sailed by.

- Truman Capote lived on Clark's Island for a summer. Local legend said he wrote In Cold Blood there, although it was actually Breakfast At Tiffany's. He used to be rowed into Duxbury for supplies, shading himself with a parasol.

- Clark's Island is where the first on-land religious service went down. It happened at Pulpit Rock. Local historian snobbery requires calling this "the real Plymouth Rock."

- The Pilgrims were supposed to go to Virginia. Pollock Rip Shoal (3 miles east of Monomoy) teamed with rotten New England weather to turn them around and keep them in Massachusetts.

- No one knows exactly how deep into Duxbury Bay the Pilgrims went, but Duxbury Beach (especially the bay side) is a fair cutoff point for their northern terminus. The Mayflower was anchored off of Saquish, and they went into Duxbury Bay on a shallop.

- If you ever go to First Encounter Beach, your enjoyment of the amenities there may be enhanced by knowing that the "first encounter" involved theft and gunfire. The English had been in these waters before, and were not averse to kidnapping or shooting the occasional native. The locals fired a few arrows at the Pilgrims, who shot back with guns and chased them into the woods. The English then stole some corn and beans.

- Samoset had a better first encounter. He was from Maine, had picked up some English from fishermen, and walked- pretty much nude- into Plymouth, greeting the Pilgrims in English. They didn't fully trust him until he started asking for beer.

- The maps above and below show the Manomet and Scusset Rivers, which would be merged to form the Cape Cod Canal. Myles Standish was an early proponent of a Cape Cod Canal.

Plymouth/Duxbury/Wareham = Cape Cod?

We did an article on Where Cape Cod Ends a while ago.

The basic answers are:

- Cape Cod Canal

- The western border of Barnstable County, which includes mainland parts (Buzzards Bay, Bournedale, Sagamore/Scusset Beach) of Bourne and Sandwich

- A "gateway" version of the mainland answer, expanded to include Wareham

- A more fun, snobby answer of "once you cross the Bass River."

Most people buy the first one. The second one has many proponents, and the third one has support as well. You don't have to cover Cape Cod for long to see the logic of the last one, which moves along the lines of "When someone thinks of Cape Cod, they're thinking of the Outer Cape."

We spammed the article all over Facebook's Cape Cod groups. 99.9% of commenters were in one of those 4 camps.

One guy was not in those 4 camps. He was/is a geologist. He insisted that- geologically- Cape Cod actually includes Wareham. It also includes most of Plymouth and all of Duxbury Beach. There may be some Marion and Rochester, too... I don't see it on the map, but I seem to recall the geologist guy saying something to that effect.

Cape Cod and Massachusetts sit on bedrock. Massachusetts is composed of several sorts of bedrock, which run north-to-south.

Cape Cod sits on a bed of granitoids, principally Quartz. The "Qp" on the map above means "polycrystalline quartz." If you find some Quartz on the beach, it was locally grown.

This Quartz eventually runs into some Zinc once you get out of Plymouth. The Zinc supports the South Coast and the Irish Riviera, then turns into some mineral with a P for western Plymouth County and northern Bristol County.

A cape (geographic cape, not the one Batman wears) is a headland that sticks out into the water. A bay is surrounded on 3 sides by land, while a cape is surrounded by water on 3 sides.

Bays are created by water eroding looser material like sand, leaving  the stronger material behind. Capes are created the same way. They are both part of a gradual straightening of the coastline.

But this doesn't answer the question in the headline. Are Plymouth and Duxbury Beach part of Cape Cod?

Taking the boundary options from the beginning of the article, the answers seem to be in the phrasing of the questions.

Using the Cape Cod Canal as the boundary is the Simple answer. I favored this one before I moved to Buzzards Bay.

Using Barnstable County (including mainland Bourne and Sandwich) as the boundary is the Political answer. This was my answer once I started living in Buzzards Bay, although it is very parochial on my part.

Using mainland Barnstable County and including Wareham is the Traditional answer. I can understand this one, although I enjoy the Lady Yelling At A Cat meme where the drunk lady screams "I'm from Cape Cod!" and Smudge the Cat (named after a famous British cat, I believe) looks up from his salad and says, "You're from Wareham."

Using the Bass River as a boundary is the Exclusive answer. I grew up in Duxbury, and while I am more White Trash than preppy, I have an internal tendency towards Snobbery which may cloud my judgement on this one. I find this theory to be too enjoyable to fully dismiss it.

Including Wareham, Plymouth and Duxbury Beach is the Geological answer. Keep in mind that while I did work one very unqualified year as a high school Science teacher, I got into Journalism as a sports-betting columnist, and you should keep that in mind when I start speaking about Geology. When I drop Science, it literally hits the floor.

In the end, Cape Cod, Plymouth, Wareham and Duxbury Beach are more of a (stealing a name from a defunct local band) Feel Thing than anything that can be defined by Science or a Cape League baseball team. We hope that we have given you ample ammunition for whichever argument you choose to make.

Mild Winter Day, Duxbury Beach

We had some DBC shots in the gallery, why not make an article with them?

They're a few weeks old, I'm not sure if the sand is still that high in front of the seawall.

A few years ago, it was high enough that you could walk down the seawall and step off to the beach, without breaking stride. 

The same glaciers which formed Duxbury Beach also pushed the marsh mud onto it. I'm no geology expert, that mud may go miles into the ocean, buried under sand.

I don't see mud in older (pre-seawall) pics of the beach. It is possible that the seawall changed sand flow dynamics enough to unearth buried muck. I have no scientific basis for this theory, though.

Mount Manomet, in background. She is actually Manomet Hill, and at 395 feet above sea level, she is the tallest thing in Plymouth County. She sits among the Pine Hills, the region of Plymouth which the Pine Hills residential area is named for.

Waves about this high are where a Surf Check article vanishes and a "We're emptying our photo galleries" articles begins.

I try to post non-storm pics now and then. Otherwise, I risk Ghoul status in the neighborhood I grew up in. You never want that Jim Cantore vibe where people see you and instinctively think bad weather is coming. 

"Big wheel keep on turnin'..."

Temporary seawall repairs

Barnstable County Towns, By Population

We rank the town's of Barnstable County by population. We'll list a few items of note about population growth.

The census numbers we're using are a decade old. They're doing a census this year, so we will update this when information becomes available.

With old stats, the populations listed may be a bit behind. We apologize in advance. The information we have should still be interesting.

Town populations change dramatically in the summer. We are using winter numbers.

Barnstable County, 213,413 (2018 est.)

Barnstable, 45,193

Falmouth, 31,532

Yarmouth, 23,793

Sandwich, 20,675

Bourne, 19,754

Dennis, 14,207

Mashpee, 14,006

Harwich, 12,243

Brewster, 9,820

Chatham, 6,169

Orleans, 5,890

Eastham, 4,956

Provincetown, 2,972

Wellfleet, 2,750

Truro, 2,003

NOTES

- Barnstable County had steady population growth from the Revolution through the Civil War, peaking at 35,990 in 1860. They then began decades of population loss,  dropping to 26,670 in 1920. It took them 150 years to reach 40,000 people, but they got a boost from highway construction and her population peaked at 222,230 at the turn of the century. It goes up over a half million in the summer. She is 92.7% white, and 27% Irish.

- Bourne had 196% populaction growth in the 1950s, going from 4,720 people to 14,011. Bourne doubles in population during the summer.

- Sandwich lost 48% of their population in 1884, when Bourne bailed. They did not meet their pre-Bournexit population of 3,500 until the 1960s, but have since surged up to 20k, 40k in the summer.

- Falmouth has a summer population of over 100,000. It took her 150 years to get 5,000 people, but it only took her 60 more years to get 30,000.

- Mashpee's population took 150+ years of US history to reach 500 people. Since then, they are up to 14,000 in 50 years. She gets up near 35k in the summer.

- Barnstable is 11 times more populous than they were in 1920. They went from just about 20k to just about 31k in their largest decade of growth, between 1970 and 1980. Their summer population of about 120,000 makes them- temporarily- the 4th largest city in Massachusetts and the 9th largest in New England.

- Dennis saw her population fall from 3,662 in 1860 to 1,536 in 1920. She did not regain her 1860s population level until the 1960s, and is around 14 to 15k now, 65k in the summer.

- Yarmouth lost population after 1850, and took until 1950 to get back to their 1850 population. Yarmouth went from 5,500 in 1960 to 12,000 in 1970. She's good for 50k in the summer.

- Brewster didn't get to 1,000 people until 1950, but got to 10k by 2000. Her summer population is 24k.

- Harwich couldn't get back up to their 3,400 1860s population until the 1960s. She jammed in almost 10k ever since. They get 37k in the summer.

- Chatham has about 4,000 more people now than they had when Andrew Jackson was the President. By contrast, Barnstable gained about 40,000 people between 1820 and now. Chatham's population quadruples in the summer.

- Orleans almost fell below 1000 people in 1920, and has only added about 5k since. They go up to 22k in the summer. Ironically, Orleans in France had about the same population in 1429 when Joan of Arc laid siege to it that Orleans in Massachusetts has today.

- Eastham didn't get above 1000 people until the 1950s. They get all swole in the summer, doing whatever word similar to quadruple but meaning six times as much.

- Wellfleet does OK with population, considering 70% of her land is protected.They have a tenfold increase in population during the summer.

- Truro had less people in 2010 than they had in 1850... in the winter. In the summer, they have 30,000 people.

- Provincetown's summer population estimates range from 27k to 60k.

- If you include Wareham on Cape Cod, pencil them in right above Sandwich.

Plymouth County Towns Ranked By Population

We rank Plymouth County towns by population, and throw in some things to note at the end. Census dates vary by town.

Our numbers regarding race are a bit fuzzy, as our census numbers for Brockton and Plymouth County regarding black residents are impossible. 31% of Brockton is greater than 4.5% of Plymouth County. Another source says 9.7% black residence in Plymouth County, and that may be closer to the truth.

Racial numbers were dodgy enough that we didn't even try them in our Bristol County article.

Plymouth County, 518,132 (2018)

Brockton, 95,777 (2019)

Plymouth, 58,271 (2010)

Bridgewater, 26,553 (2010)

Marshfield, 25,132 (2010)

Middleboro, 23,116 (2010)

Hingham, 22,157 (2010)

Wareham, 21,822 (2010)

Scituate, 18,133 (2010)

Pembroke, 17,837 (2010)

Rockland, 17,489  (2010)

Abington, 15,985 (2010)

Duxbury, 15,059 (2010)

Whitman, 14,489 (2010)

Hanover, 13,879 (2010)

East Bridgewater, 13,794 (2010)

Kingston 12,629 (2010)

Carver, 11,509 (2010)

Lakeville, 10,602 (2010)

Norwell, 10,506 (2010)

Hull, 10,293 (2010)

Hanson, 10,209 (2010)

Halifax, 7,518 (2010)

West Bridgewater, 6,916 (2010)

Mattapoisett 6,045 (2010)

Rochester, 5,232 (2010)

Marion, 4,907 (2010)

Plympton, 2,820 (2010)

NOTES

- Plymouth County has never had a decade with negative population growth, dating back to 1790. The pre-Pilgrim plague that hit the Wampanoag tribe lowered populations in some villages by 90%, and King Phillip's War may also have produced negative population growth, depending on if you count natives. She is presently 31% Irish.

- Brockton holds almost 20% of Plymouth County's population. They do so with 2% of Plymouth County's land. Brockton has about 80% of Plymouth County's black population. Her black population alone is larger than any other Plymouth County town's entire population, except Plymouth.

- Plymouth has 12% of the county's population on 13% of the county's land. She is the largest town in Massachusetts by land area. She had the same population in 1790 that Plympton does today.

- Bridgewater's population does not reflect kids living in college dorms. If all the Bridgewaters teamed up, they would not be able to pass Plymouth in the population rankings, even if we threw in the U and the nuthouse. To be fair to the hospital, I have seen more than one Bridgewater resident point at BSU and say something along the lines of "We have a nuthouse in town, as well as a mental hospital."

- Abington didn't get the giant population growth in the 1970s that other Plymouth County towns saw. They gained less than 800 people between 1970 and 1980. Duxbury, by contrast, gained 4000 people in the same span.

- Carver almost tripled in size between 1970 and 1980. Some of that total was highway development, some was busing related and some was a downturn in cranberry prices turning former farms into current neighborhoods.

- Duxbury lost 18% of her population in the decade when people began to favor metal ships over wooden ones. She only saw double digit population growth during the Baby Boom, busing and the development of Route 3.

- East Bridgewater saw her largest growth after Route 24 and 495 went in.

- Halifax is 8 times larger than it was before highways started getting built. They have the second lowest % of blacks in the county. Come to think of it, I lived there for 5 years, and the only blacks I saw were when I would take my urban students there to ice-fish. (Editor's note: There is/was a black family that fishes a lot off Route 58 into West Monponsett Lake, they might be the town's entire allotment.)

- Hanover took 60 years to grow from 2000 people to 3000. In the 60 years since, they grew to 13000+.

- Hanson was under 3000 people until the 1940s. Since then, they have surged over 10000.

- Hingham doubled in population between 1950 and 1980. They had a net loss in the 80s, slight growth in the 90s and a solid 3k boom since the century turned.

- Hull had 108% population growth in the 10 years after Route 3 went in... then growth pretty much stopped. Hull may be full.

- Kingston has had steady population growth (22-39%) since 1940, with a healthy jump for the Baby Boom, Route 3, busing, the construction of the mall and whatever else gets a Kingston girl into bed. They fell off to 7% growth once the century turned... may be mall malaise related. Also, at a milky white .1%, Kingston has the lowest % of black residents in Plymouth County. I think the Klan may have a greater % of black members (I'm sure that at least some black people try to join the KKK, just for laughs) than .1%, I wonder if that number can be found?

- Lakeville has an impressive 10k population, impressive in that 20% of the town is water and X% is forest.

- Marion is one of the three bites that Plymouth County takes out of the South Coast. She has grown from 918 people to 4900+ people in 150 years. By contrast, Marshfield- 5 square miles bigger than Marion- has added 24,000 people in that same period.

- Marshfield went from 3000 people in 1950 to 6000 people by 1960 to 15,000 people in 1970 to 20,000 people by 1980. They should have villages named Baby Boom, Route 3 and Busing.

- Mattapoisett lost some people after 1860 (perhaps a really unfortunate Civil War regiment?), and it took them 70 years to pass their 1860 population of 1483. She is also our second bite out of the South Coast.

- Other than the time during the Civil War, Middleboro has never had a decade with negative population growth. They have the second largest land area of any town in Massachusetts, trailing only Plymouth.

- Norwell doubled in population (2515 to 5207) the decade after Route 3 was built, and were close to 7500 after the mall was built.

- Pembroke took 100 years to go from 1388 people to over 2000. In the 60 years since, they have added 15,000 people. Duxbury was twice Pembroke's population in 1860, they were the same size in 1970 and Pembroke was more populous by 1980.

- Plympton is the smallest town in SE Massachusetts and quite possibly all of Eastern Massachusetts... sometimes. It is more populous than Truro and Wellfleet in the winter, smaller than them in the summer. If attendance on a particular day is high, more people go to Taunton High School than live in Plympton. It would take 28.3 Plymptons to fill Gillette Stadium.

- Again, I do wonder if Mattapoisett and Rochester men made up a very unfortunate Civil War regiment. Rochester had 3800 people in 1850, and did not move past that total until 1990.

- Rockland is one of the few towns in the County to almost lose population over the decade busing was going on. To be fair, Rockland sort of lost out when they were carving out highways. They're 20 minutes away from being 20 minutes to somewhere.

- Scituate doubled in size after Route 3 was built and white flight began in earnest. Much like Rockland, it isn't near a 55 mph highway, and- beating this local phrase into the ground- is thus 20 minutes away from being 20 minutes away from somewhere. Much unlike Rockland, Scituate has miles of gorgeous coastline, and has higher population growth. Rockland was twice as populous as Scituate in 1940. Scituate is larger now.

- Wareham has the highest % of black people in any Plymouth County town, edging out Brockton 32% to 31%. Brockton, almost 5 times more populous, beats them if you start counting heads. For every black person in Kingston, there are 583 in Wareham and 2500 in Brockton.

- West Bridgewater had 6000 people in the 1960s and has not yet reached 7000 people in 2020.

- Whitman saw her greatest % of growth back when they were a shoe town. Growth is weak here. They had 13,500 people in 1969, and they are below 14,500 in 2020.

Bristol County, By Population

Town by town population totals, and notes on population growth for Bristol County.

We also did Plymouth County, and may yet do Barnstable County.

Bristol County, 548,225

New Bedford, 95,315 (2018 estimate)

Fall River, 89,661

Taunton, 57,296

Attleboro, 45,117

Dartmouth, 34,032 (2010 census)

North Attleboro, 28,712 (2000 census)

Mansfield, 23,184 (2010)

Easton, 23,112

Norton, 19,031

Somerset, 18,165

Fairhaven, 15,873

Swansea, 15,865

Westport, 15,532

Seekonk, 14,371

Raynham, 13,383

Rehoboth, 11,608

Acushnet, 10,303

Freetown, 8,870

Dighton, 7,086

Berkley, 6,411

NOTES

-Westport had a population of 4100 in 1940. One baby boom later, they had 13000 and change by 1980.

- Swansea had a similar boom, but the greatest (69%) population increase they ever had was from 1920-1930. They added 1600 people to a town of 2300 people.

- Somerset net-lost 700 people between 1980 and 2010.

- The last decade where Seekonk failed to show a population gain was during the Civil War. Route 195's construction figures into this.

- Since 1900, Rehoboth has had positive population growth. They have doubled in size since 1965, not that unusual on the South Shore where people were fleeing Boston, but most of the growth in Rehoboth was post 1980. That is quite different from the South Shore.

- Raynham tripled in size since 1960, but unlike Rehoboth, most of her growth happened between 1960 and 1970.

- Norton doubled in size between 1960 and 1986, with very South Shore-styled post 1970 expansion.

- North Attleboro had her largest population growth by percentage between 1900 and 1910

- Mansfield has had double digit population growth almost every decade of her existence. The only off decades were the Great Depression, WWII and the Bush Recession.

- Freetown has quadrupled in size since 1950, and that is with negative population growth between 2000 and 2010. They lost 50 people during that time.

- Fairhaven has 500 less people now than they did in 1970.

- Easton is ten times more populated than they were in 1850.

- It would take about 9 Dightons to fill every seat in Gillette Stadium.

- Dartmouth fits her population into the third largest land area for a town in Massachusetts. She is 16 miles wide from Freetown to Buzzards Bay. Only Plymouth and Middleboro have more land.

- Berkley is the smallest town by population in Bristol County, although she is not the smallest in SE Massachusetts. She is bigger than Plympton, Marion, Rochester, and Mattapoisett. She is also larger than winter versions of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham.

- Acushnet had two decades of 30-35% population growth between 1950 and 1970, and still only had 7700 people.

- The baby boom skipped Taunton, which only gained 3000 people to a town of 43000 between 1940 and 1960. Easton, by contrast, almost tripled in size during the same period.

- Fall River had 90% population growth between 1860 and 1870, during the Industrial Revolution. They presently have less people than they did in 1895.

- Attleboro is 20 times more populated than it was in 1790.

- New Bedford net-lost 26,000 people between 1920 and 2018.

- Bristol County has never posted decade-to-decade population loss. Her greatest rate of growth was between 1870 and 1900, when she tripled in size.

Brady, Massachusetts

New England Patriots QB Tom Brady has indicated that he is likely going to play next season. That's OK, because it will probably take a year to hammer out the small details.

Small details regarding what?

Why, renaming one of our towns after Tom Brady, of course!

Sports enjoy outsized significance in Massachusetts. Sports are entertainment, not that important in the great scheme of things. Many practitioners of more important jobs- soldiers, teachers, doctors, activists- deserve a town name, but that is fodder for some other article on some other website written by some other author.

We're focused on Tom Brady.

Champagne Tom has won 6 Super Bowls. The Pats were generally a laughingstock before Tommy Cool arrived, but that all got kicked to the curb once Brady started winning titles and wading through various actresses and supermodels.

Those titles brought great joy to New England. The first Super Bowl, won shortly after 9/11, added a cool element to being a Patriot. He revitalized Foxboro... do you think there would be a Patriot Place plaza if Andy Dalton was QBing the Pats to a series of 4-12 campaigns?

Tom has also done this without beating women, molesting children, getting caught with cocaine or murdering a street rival. They don't make 'em like Tom anymore.

So, let's do the right thing and re-name one of our towns "Brady."

Please don't think I am exercising bias towards a race, a sport or ESL things. I believe there should also be Massachusetts towns named Orr, Russell and Big Papi.

But which town should change?

I'm going to list a few towns, but before I do... understand that there is nothing wrong with these towns. Mattapoisett is on this list, and I love Mattapoisett. I go there to check out the sea, I nearly married one of her children and I have written about her lighthouse before.

But she's on the list. She should think of it as an honor to be in consideration.

Here are some others.

FOXBORO

Foxy Bro is where Tom put in work. Tom's success trickled down to the town. Anyone who owns a restaurant or a gas station will tell you that it is very good to have 70,000 people driving by on a Sunday.

There would have been football here 8 weeks a year if Matt Hasslebeck (he's bringing hassle beck) was quarterbacking the Patriots, but the 70,000 people crowds and the inevitable home playoff games over two decades probably wasn't going to be happening.

Foxboro is actually a pretty cool name, but that matters not.

Foxboro owes Tom Brady.


MARBLEHEAD

Marblehead was named by European settlers who mistook granite for marble. Her former name was something like Massebequash, which-if kept- also would have got them on the list.

The town name is unintentionally pejorative. It is a ready-made insult to any resident. Naming the town after Tom Brady would wipe that off the table.


ASSONET

Assonet is one of the two villages which make up Freetown. The name is Wampanoag, and it means either/both "place of rocks" and/or "song of praise." It is ridiculous, it sounds like a crude name for a hammock or pantyhose, and they should be happy to change it to "Brady."

Tom deserves a whole town rather than a village, but this is a special case and I like to think that Tom would agree with me.


WAREHAM

There is nothing wrong with the name "Wareham." It's just that, far away, there is a town named "Ware." One of them has to go.

Ware is too much fun to change.

"What town are you from?"

"Ware."

"Where?"

"Precisely."


GAY HEAD

There's nothing wrong with being gay, and there's nothing wrong with head. It's just that, together, it sounds like a sex act.

Again, there's nothing wrong with Gay Head. Who hasn't had a little tranny indiscretion, right? Wink wink nudge nudge... Oh, not many of you? My bad.

The town itself voted (79-21) to change the name to Aquinnah in 1997. Aquinnah also sucks.

Gay Head/Aquinnah comes up whenever talk turns to renaming a town "Amity."


BELCHERTOWN

This town name makes me want to chug Pepsi and burp. In fact, I did just that the last time I was invited to Belchertown... about 45 years ago, now that I think of it.

Unless they host the annual Loudest Belch contest, they should be psyched to ditch this name.


BOURNE

This one hurts because I live in Bourne, but it merits consideration.

Mostly, the fact that children from this town go to Bourne High is motivating Bourne's inclusion on this list. Even potheads like me feel that Bourne High sends out a bad message.


SOMERSET/SOMERVILLE

Any town that has snow shouldn't have "summer" in the name, even phonetically. That's why there isn't a Blizzard, Alabama.

Ironically, Somerville happens to be where Winter Hill is located.


MATTAPOISETT

Mattapoisett is Wampanoag for "place of resting." I have already apologized for including the Poi on this list.

A change to Brady would also allow them to change the name of Old Rochester Regional High School. There is nothing wrong with Old Rochester except that isn't in Rochester.


FLORIDA

When you are 2000 feet up in the Berkshires, hiking through snow, you immediately think "Florida." Originally named Bernardston, it was changed to Florida for reasons which are lost to history.

They realize their error and have fun with it. The "WELCOME TO FLORIDA" signs in town have little palm trees on them. They are primed for a change.


ATHOL

If you have other ideas, hit us up in the comments.

Sea Glass In Massachusetts

Who doesn't love Sea Glass?

Sea Glass is made when regular glass gets into the ocean. While finding a whole bottle may be preferable, one generally works with shards of broken glass. They wash into the sea, bang around for a few decades, and gradually 1) get the edges rounded off, and 2) acquire a frosted appearance.

Voila! Sea Glass!

The hunter/gatherer of Sea Glass is someone who finds use for a Cape Cod beach in February. Other than aesthetics, beaches aren't really good for much between October and May. You can surf, but that requires the acquisition of a skill, a wetsuit and a car big enough to carry a surfboard. Even then, you have to wait for days where the waves are large, and- even more then- a shark might eat you. Funk that.

You can still saddle up a surfboard, but you can also walk along the shore for free and keep your eyes looking down. You'll eventually gather up a nice pile of colored, frosted glass, which can be used for various artistic projects.

The hunt can be as nice as the meal with Sea Glass, as- even if you strike out- you still get in a nice beach walk. Other than a greatly-increased risk of toe-stubbing, there's really no downside to Sea Glass Collecting.

This is stuff that you probably knew before reading this article, so what I need to do is some lengthy thinkin' on how sea glass is made, and where someone would be best sent to gather some.

As we noted before, the short answer to the How Is Sea Glass Made question is "glass falls in the ocean, et cetera." However, there are a few things that you should know beyond that.

One, there is some snobbery in the game. "Beach Glass" sounds just like sea glass, but it is not the same, and people will clown on you if you think that it is. Beach Glass is either made in rivers or- for the love of Mary- factories. This stuff is the Poor Man of the artsy glass movement, and a resident of (or a resident with access to) coastal Massachusetts need not worry about it.

Two, sea glass takes 20-30 years to round into shape. You can't smash a bottle today, walk down the beach a few hundred yards tomorrow, and find a frosted version of the bottle you broke. Nope. You have to wait, for decades in some cases. Certain kinds of sea glass (I'm not sure what kinds, I'm assuming thick glass or something) take up to 50 years before they're display-worthy.

In the 1980s or so, they passed numerous Bottle Bill laws, and those empties are worth a nickel each now... nothing to sneeze at when you drink to the degree that I drink, player. People started returning bottles rather than chucking them, and poor folks would eventually gather up any leftover cold-soldiers to make a nickel per. 

Right around the same time, those tree-huggin' liberals forced many industries to move away from glass bottles towards the non-sea-glass-makin' plastic bottling. While the beer companies held out, even the drinkers picked up some love-thy-planet stuff from the more conscientious people, and are presently less likely to smash bottles when drinking outdoors.

All of the stuff in the previous two paragraphs means that there is less glass being dumped in the ocean, which means that the sea glass talent pool has thinned out substantially. Population growth cancels it out somewhat, but not nearly enough. The person saying "There was more and better seaglass when I was a kid," is correct, not fooled by nostalgia.

Three, the motion of the ocean is important not only for making the glass, but for moving it about. If glass stayed where you broke it, my local pharmacy would have no Noxema, and I'd have a lamp full of cool blue sea glass culled from my just-offshore stash spot. If you're serious about collecting sea glass- and your author is, at least this morning- you have to research where the currents run, where the rivers empty, where the population centers are, seabed sediment redistribution... and numerous other factors, trust me.

Fourth, know that one piece of glass is not of the same value as others. Typical colors include white, brown and green, the colors of the beer and soda bottles. Lesser-known colors include yellow and blue. Experts can look at a piece of glass and tell you what kind of bottle it came from, and from which era.

Basically, clear = beer, faint green = Coca-Cola, darker green = Sprite, and blue means that not only did someone drink Milk Of Magnesia at a beach, but that they enjoyed it so much that they smashed the bottle in celebration when they finished, like Gronk.

Fifth, you need a combination of timing and luck. Sea glass doesn't weigh much, but it weighs a lot more than sand does. Sand washes around more, and eventually will cover up sea glass. There are some tricks you can do to up your odds, but "needle in a haystack" is actually too conservative a measure for what a glass hunter is doing.

If you can go hunting after a storm, do so. Everything gets turned over, and new stuff is cast forth from the sea.

Finally, much like a mating leopard, you have to pick your spots. Location is everything. You need to identify and exploit certain natural features which are distinct to the local geography. That's where we're headed now.

I was just kidding about Gronk smashing Vap-O-Rub bottles at the beach. Most of our sea glass comes from inland flooding. Rivers rise up, find bottles, wash them downstream, smash them up a bit, and send them out of their mouth into open ocean. The lucky pieces make it back to the beach. The coastal people smash bottles too, but their numbers don't match up with everyone inland.

So, your search should start with a river mouth that empties into Cape Cod Bay or the open Atlantic. The North River, the Taunton River, the the Charles River, the Mystic River, the Green Harbor River, and even the Hudson River will spit out glass that you can eventually collect. Glass can wash a long way from where it started.

Once you have that part done, you have to look at currents. Currents wash the glass to wherever it is going to end up... well, currents and waves, of course. You need to imagine the glass washing into the sea and being directed somewhere by the local currents... currents which, thanks to this handy map, you are now familiar with.

So, you have a glass source, the general direction from the source where the glass went, and now you need to guess where it ended up. This is where I have to invent a geographical term. A "basin beach" is something that sticks out into the sea a bit and collects whatever flotsam and jetsam the sea has to offer. Think of the basin beach as being a big first baseman's mitt, working the current.

Once you're on that beach, look for the area where everything washes up. If a beach has a sandy part and a rocky part, go to the rocky part. Work the fringes of the pile, or go All In and start digging in the rockpile itself.

I actually suck at the collecting, myself. I'm a tall man, and I have terrible eyesight. That's a bad combo to call in on a job where you are looking for tiny bits of glass on a beach, and that's before you factor in the ADHD and the often copious drug usage. What I am good for is helping you skip some of those steps I listed by pointing out local beaches which fit the criteria for a sea glass hot-spot.

Horse Neck Beach, Westport

The Gulf Stream current pushes right up into the body of water known as Buzzards Bay. America's east coast most certainly coughs up a lot of sea glass. Most of it goes out to sea, some of it ends up on Lon-Guy-Land, Rhodey takes her share, but that still leaves a lot of Niceness washing into Bee Bay 

HNB is well-positioned to get a cut of that action. I suppose that a lot of New York glass washes over here, which should help your numbers out some with ol' Lady Luck.

HNB is also close enough and yet far enough to/from the Taunton River to guarantee a nice flow of glass.

More glass probably goes to the Elizabeth Islands, but mining that involves you getting a boat and stuff. Remember, you're putting broken glass in a jar... let's not ring up any silly expenses.

Speaking of which, the two best spots to capitalize on the Gulf Stream current- Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard- are also eliminated for needs-a-boat reasons.



Old Silver Beach, Falmouth MA

On the other side of Buzzards Bay, we have the town of Falmouth. In the town of Falmouth, we have Old Silver Beach.

I like more rocks on a beach when I hunt, but OSB is very well positioned to get washashore sea glass. If you can get up by Crow Point, do so. It's rockier there.

You may end up in someone's front yard, so be careful. I grew up on a beach and live on one now, so I tend to be a bit unaware of beach restrictions in other towns.

If you find some silver there, even better. Just don't be, like, taking it out of people's beach houses or anything, friends.


Craigville Beach, Centerville MA

Cape Cod, which is a barrier beach for Massachusetts, is also protected by a pair of barrier islands known as Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, as well as the Elizabeth Islands. These islands, and the multitude of jetties and groynes along the coast (Dennis Port has so many groynes and jetties along the shoreline, it looks like a zipper when viewed from space) interfere with the glass gathering process.

The islands, at a sharp corner of the Gulf Stream, also have odd currents. They sink ships, which is why they dug the Cape Cod Canal. It also messes with the sea glass distribution.

Even if they don't stop the flow of sea glass entirely, the process becomes somewhat unpredictable. We'll give you a southern Cape location to check, but don't say that we didn't warn you.

Craigville sits in a gap between Martha and ACK, and is a nice base from which to operate. She is also basin-shaped, which should act like a catcher's mitt and trap seaglass.

Remember, since you aren't too far from the Kennedy Compound, you might get some high-pedigree glass. I know a guy who lives near Chappaquidick who claims to have red sea glass from Ted Kennedy's brake lights.

Coast Guard Beach, Eastham, MA

Cape Cod is several different beasts as far as sea glass collecting goes. Buzzards Bay is well-positioned, while the south-facing Cape isn't. Once you turn the corner at Chatham, however, it's a whole new ball game.

I like east-facing Atlantic beaches. A very determined piece of European or African sea glass may have fought her way to America against the Gulf Stream. Who knows? It may have once been Queen Isabella's compact, or Napoleon's Courvoisier bottle, or John Bonham's headlights, or Idi Amin's coke mirror. You never know, stuff like that gets tossed around all the time.

Park and walk north (left) once you hit the beach, to get yourself past the sandbars.


Race Point, Provincetown, MA

RP is one of those gold mine spots. She's also the first beach on our list that isn't getting Gulf Stream in her mix. Most of her sea glass is coming from the north.

People who study currents are already saying "By George! The West Maine Coastal Current aims right at Race Point!" You can't sneak anything up on those people. RP gets stuff from Maine and New Hampshire all the time, including sea glass.Throw in whatever Boston glass washes out that far, and you have a hot spot.

Stellwagen Bank also channels stuff towards Race Point. Note that the Bank, and Cape Cod to a greater extent, slow down waves. This slows down sea glass migration.



Skaket Beach, Orleans, MA

I knew that my kung-fu was superb when my research on which beaches to hit led to a list which matched up with the Sea Glass Ninja Lady from Cape Cast. She admitted that she had no idea why one beach or another yielded better results, but our conclusions match up well.

Inner Cape Cod Bay is a tremendous place to go. It acts as a catch basin for the runoff from the Western Maine Coastal Current. This current is the engine that drives Cape Cod Bay's sea glass movement. Water is pushed along the shore from Maine, past Boston, and into Cape Cod Bay. The fish-hook shape of Cape Cod helps catch the glass as it moves down the line.

Sandy Neck Beach, Barnstable MA

Sandy Neck Beach is a rather long beach, so if you strike out here, you might want to look for easier-spotted things as your next hobby. I'd recommend Lighthouses, it's tough to miss those.

Sandy Neck Beach is a 4700 acre barrier beach, and she is what everything that washes down from Boston eventually bumps into.

You can double up on Sandy Neck Beach. It's where the sand that washes down from Sandwich ends up. Added bonus... when they dredge the Canal, they dump the fill on a beach just west of SNB, and it washes East during storms. Go to Sandy Neck after a full-moon storm, you'll get a lot of Sandwich's sea glass as well.


Scusset Beach, Sandwich MA

The South Shore ends with a THUD as you hit the Scusset Beach jetty. They made the jetty to protect the Canal, but they may as well have made it to catch sea glass.

If Sandwich is being robbed of sea glass, that means someone else is getting extra! Ironically as Hell, I think that this was Mr. Glass' motivation in Unbreakable.

If you want to throw some sand over the jetty towards Sandwich, they'd appreciate it.

Manomet Point, Plymouth MA

Plymouth is somewhat sheltered by Duxbury Beach, and Manomet Point is the part of Plymouth that sticks out the most into the sea. If you follow the current down the South Shore, MP is what you'll eventually run into.

You're not too far downstream from an oceanfront nuclear reactor here, which in theory would make it possible to look for glowing, irradiated sea glass at night.

If you want to be up the river from the plutonium, try the perfect-for-the-job Long Beach part of town.

Duxbury Beach, Duxbury MA

Duxbury Beach is pretty much the exact shape of the Western Maine Coastal Current, and the current repays the favor by giving Duxbury 5 miles of sea glass hunting territory. Nothing on the South Shore sticks further out into the current than Duxbury Beach does.

You get another 5 miles on the bayside, but the big scores are on the oceanside.

Once you commit, you may as well walk down to the uninhabited part. Less people have worked the territory, upping your chances of scoring big.

If you feel really ambitious, dig into one of the huge rockpiles around the crossovers The good stuff is under the rockpile.

Since I am a former Mayor of Duxbury Beach, you have to give me 10% of your haul, or half of any blue glass.

Egypt Beach, Scituate MA

You'll feel like King Tut after you pillage Egypt Beach, wocka wocka wocka...

Scituate has several beach styles, including rocky, sandy, and marshy. Egypt Beach is what Goldilocks would settle on after dissing the other beaches in town for one sea glass-huntin' reason or another.

You can dig in the rockpiles, or you can walk along the perimeter and pick off the strays. It's Scituariffic!


Nantasket Beach, Hull MA

We saved the best for last!

Nantasket represents two things here. She is the end of the South Shore gold mine, and she is where the WMCC loses her power. That's the bad news. Everything else is good news.

Nanny may hold the title for the region, as she is perfectly positioned to get Boston's glass. She also gets the inland glass, when the Charles and Mystic Rivers spit their bounty out into the sea.

Point Allerton is probably a better spot, but Nantasket is more accessible. The area around the high school is productive, as well.

Happy Hunting!