Halibut Point crowns Cape Ann which "extends like a
fist into the sea" in the dramatic geography of Paul St. Germain, author
of the newly published Sandy Bay National
Harbor of Refuge and the Navy.
 |
Map of Cape Ann in
1776
Library of Congress |
Jutting out into the coastal shipping lanes while curling
around the deep waters of Sandy Bay, Cape Ann became the locus for a great
notion of improvement to maritime safety in nineteenth-century America, a
Harbor of Refuge where sailing ships might ride out North Atlantic storms. Interest
sharpened in the 1880s as the number of vessels passing Sandy Bay annually
exceeded 70,000. The preceding fifty years had seen almost 700 shipwrecks or
partial wrecks between the ports of Boston and Portsmouth.
 |
Paul St. Germain at
the breakwater remnant
Bill Whiting
photo |
In his new book St. Germain brings to light the effort to
create off our shore the second-largest (after Cherbourg, France) man-made
harbor in the world. A remnant of the breakwater today piques the curiosity of
anyone looking outward from Rockport's North Village coastline.
 |
|
The breakwater in
Sandy Bay, 1915 |
Construction began in 1885 on a V-shaped granite wall that
would enclose 1,664 acres affording anchorage to 5,000 ships, with entry at
either end. It proceeded in fits and starts over the next thirty years as Congressional
budgetary authorizations permitted.
 |
|
A cross-section of
the breakwater |
The project was breathtaking: amassing, a mile offshore, enough
stone to withstand nor'easters in waters averaging 60 feet deep, over a span of
almost two miles. That it "got off the ground" was due to the
proximity of a granite industry along the coast. The foundation of the
breakwater absorbed an immense amount of the waste stone that ordinarily clogged
quarry operations. Superlatives of engineering ingenuity and tenacity are
detailed in the book.
 |
Enlarging the wharf
at Folly Cove for Halibut Point granite exports
Postcard view courtesy of Bob Ambrogi, Vintagerockport.com |
As soon as Edwin Canney's development of the Babson Farm
Quarry in 1894 showed productive potential the Rockport Granite Company
acquired its Halibut Point acreage for integration into the vast enterprise.
 |
Babson Farm Quarry,
1909Charles Cleaves photo
Barbara Erkkila Collection, Cape Ann Museum |
From deep below the surface Halibut Point provided large
smooth-grained blocks to cap the Sandy Bay Breakwater. They were shuttled by
rail down to the Folly Cove Pier and loaded onto barges.
 |
Placing 20-ton
capstones on the breakwater
Sandy Bay Historical Society photo |
But the massive stones by themselves would not be enough to
resist the power of ocean storms. They were pinned to each other with two-inch
iron dowels and iron straps.
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|
Battleships of The
Great White Fleet seen from Pigeon Hill, 1906 |
The westward expansion of the United States during the nineteenth
century burst into the Pacific with the annexation of Hawaii and the
Philippines in 1898. Exuberant passions of Manifest Destiny helped sustain funding
for construction of the Sandy Bay Harbor of Refuge. When he became President
former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt commissioned a
formidable new fleet that toured the globe to serve notice of American potency.
Many of the battleships built in East Coast shipyards performed their sea
trials off Cape Ann before an enthralled citizenry.
The son of Charlestown (Boston) Shipyard's chief naval
architect, Paul St. Germain provides a richly illustrated tribute to the
ascendancy of the naval force that bolstered American commercial and cultural
enterprise around the world.
Implicit in the transformation of shipping from wind to
steam power was a diminished need for a harbor of refuge. Engine-driven vessels
could better ride out storms or run for port. The final Congressional
appropriation for Sandy Bay came in 1915. Only 900 of the intended 9,000 feet
of breakwater was completed, leaving the unsecured ends vulnerable in ensuing
decades to de-construction by the sea.
Two million tons of granite extracted from the core of Cape
Ann were deposited for the quixotic
breakwater that might have converted Sandy Bay into a primary port facility. In
that case the un-utilized lowest Exit designations for Rte 128 might have come
into play for an extension of the highway to the center of Rockport.
Instead we have a Town of Refuge.
