Stellwagen: The Making and Unmaking of a National Marine Sanctuary

1: Middle Bank

Chapter 1 Middle Bank On October 22, 1854, Navy Lieutenant Henry S. Stellwagen, commander of the Coast Survey Steamer Bibb, reported: I consider I have made an important discovery in the location of a 15 fathom bank lying in a line between Cape Cod and Cape Ann—with 40 and 50 fathoms inside and 35 fathoms outside it. It is not on any chart I have been able to procure. We have traced nearly five miles in width and over six miles in length, it no doubt extending much further.1 The Coast Survey Atthetimeofhis“discovery,”StellwagenwasonloantotheCoastSurvey(the earliest forerunner of today’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ) and assigned to mapping the entrance to Massachusetts Bay. While Massachusetts Bay may not seem like a particularly treacherous body of water when viewed from an airplane window or ferry, the rocky, island-studded entrance to Boston Harbor is tricky to navigate in a boat even in fair weather. Add a stiff wind or one of New England’s famous nor’easters and poor visibility and you have the makings of a shipwreck. To this day, should you be so lucky as to be in the vicinity, the best refuge for fishing vessels , tankers, and even military vessels is Provincetown Harbor. Stellwagen went on to report that: knowledge of it [Middle Bank] will highly benefit commanders of vessels bound in during thick weather by day or night. By it they can not only ascertain their distance to the eastward of the coast, but by attention to the lead after passing inside, a good idea of latitude may be obtained.2 4 D I S C O v E r y By “attention to the lead,” Stellwagen was referring to the practice of taking soundings or measurements of the depth of water by lowering overboard lead weights attached to a long marked line. In recognition of the navigational importance of the survey and thoroughness and dedication of Stellwagen ’s work under adverse conditions, Alexander Bache, superintendent of the Coast Survey at the time, named it Stellwagen’s Bank. Over time, it simply became Stellwagen Bank. TheadverseconditionsaboutwhichBachereceivedregularreportsmostly had to do with the Bibb, one of the first in a series of steam cutters built in the 1840s for government survey and revenue work. During its initial sea trials, the Bibb took on water so rapidly that it had to be run aground to prevent it from sinking.3 It was beset with mechanical problems throughout its relatively short commission. Originally designed to use a steam-driven horizontal paddle wheel and sails, it was soon refitted with a more efficient side-wheel propulsion system. Stellwagen’s talents as a hydrographer extended to inventing a sounding device equipped with a steel cup for collecting sediment samples. The invention , called a Stellwagen Cup, won him the Scott Premium Medal from the Franklin Institute. Following his successful survey of Massachusetts Bay, Stellwagen resumed his military career in 1856, advancing to the rank of captain in 1862 and playing a significant role in the Civil War. A New York Times obituary on July 20, 1866, noted that while in command of the Mercedita, Captain Stellwagen had made some of the most important captures of the war during the Southern Blockade . His capture of Fort White, which guarded the entrance to Winyah Bay leading into Georgetown, South Carolina, helped secure the coast for Sherman ’s crushing March to the Sea. Throughout his adventuresome career, which included assignments in the Mediterranean in pursuit of pirates, along the African coast to help control the slave trade, and in Mexico where he fought under Commodore Perry at the fall of Vera Cruz during the Mexican War, Stellwagen made drawings and watercolor sketches of historic if not artistic interest. Cyprian Southack While history has recognized Stellwagen’s claim to Middle Bank, the work of another naval cartographer by the name of Captain Cyprian Southack Middle Bank 5 (1662–1745) deserves some attention. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the primary concern of the English Admiralty in North America was holding the French in check. For this, the English required accurate maps of English and French settlements and military outposts, as well as detailed charts of the coasts of New England, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick . To fulfill this need, William Fisher and John Thornton published the first English atlas of charts and sailing instructions in 1689, called The English Pilot...