Sea Serpent or Shipwreck?

I love to walk, and when I'm walking I carry my cell phone. Sandwich is a beautiful town, and sometimes I snap a few photos. I walk in my neighborhood. I walk along the canal. I walk from the library, past Town Hall, and over to Wing School. And sometimes I park at the Sand Hill School and walk to the boardwalk. Close to the Sand Hill School, Dock Creek flows under Dewey Avenue and meanders through the salt marsh toward Town Neck Beach. High tide regularly floods the marsh. Low tide exposes rotted wooden posts that project from the mud like the skeletal teeth of a long-deceased  sea serpent or the hull of a decaying shipwreck.

Dock Creek at low tide.

Ruling out sea serpent, I wondered if, perhaps, a long time ago, some kind of ship had sunk in the creek.

Recently while reading my emails, I came across an announcement from Bridgewater State University's Cape Cod campus. Dr. Calvin Mires, a marine archaeologist, was coming to speak at the South Yarmouth campus about shoreline shipwrecks. Dr. Mires investigates not only shipwrecks, but also wharves, seaside communities, and maritime landscapes.

Dr. Calvin Mires offers educational and training opportunities to citizen
scientists of all ages in Massachusetts.

Perfect, I thought. Just the man to answer my questions about Dock Creek. But when I checked my calendar, I realized I couldn't go to his talk. So I emailed him instead, attaching my photo of the creek bed along with an aerial photo of the marsh.

Dock Creek appears under the letters www. 

While I waited for Dr. Mires's response, I stopped by the Wing Fort House on Spring Hill Road, another nice place to walk, and talked to caretaker and  archaeologist Dave Wheelock. 

"Some Sandwich natives think those rotting pieces of wood could be the remains of the Sandwich glass museum's dock," Wheelock said. So that could be how the creek earned its name, I realized. "But others think the wooden posts could be what's left of some old fishing shacks," he added. Both explanations made sense. Dock Creek is close to the site of the 19th century glass museum, and fishermen frequent the area.

A couple of weeks passed before Dr. Mires responded to my email, and he seemed quite interested in my photos. He wrote that a friend had mentioned Sandwich's cultural resources, and he had already visited Sandwich to search for possible archeaological sites. But he didn't discover Dock Creek. "Your photos provide wonderful information," he wrote. "I have some immediate thoughts, but honestly with so little uncovered it is premature to say. I would enjoy seeing these features in the near future."

We arranged to meet early on a sunny morning when the tide was low.

Dr. Mires clambered over the guard rail that separates the road from the creek and strode through the marsh in worn sandals. He located a couple of raised areas and kicked at the flattened marsh grass. Underneath were piles of old bricks. He looked around, surveying the area. "This must have been a dock for the glass factory," he decided. "They probably loaded shipping crates onto small boats or barges that carried the crates to deeper water where larger ships were waiting. The rotted wood structures were probably posts or pilings that held up the dock."

As we were leaving, he picked up a rotting board with a metal piece attached to it. "I can tell you with certainty the age of this piece," he said. "The metal was made in the late 1800s. It was probably part of an old bridge."

I thanked Dr. Mires for his visit, and we talked about a project he's involved with now at Pilgrim Hall, the reconstruction of the 1626 Sparrow-Hawk shipwreck, discovered Orleans in 1862.

According to Pilgrim Hall's website, "After being wrecked in 1626, the Sparrow-Hawk was buried in sand and mud in a part of Orleans later known as "Old Ship Harbor." The timbers were visible from time to time until 1862, when they were uncovered in a great storm. The ancient hull was removed and reassembled."

Another quest for another time? Hopefully, yes.