Wayne Soini - Gloucesters Sea Serpent

WAYNE SOINI

WAYNE SOINI

Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net

Copyright 2010 by Wayne Soini

All rights reserved

Front cover image: Courtesy of the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

First published 2010
e-book edition 2011

ISBN 978.1.61423.233.9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Soini, Wayne, 1948
Gloucesters sea serpent / Wayne Soini.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
print edition ISBN 978-1-59629-461-5
1. Sea monsters--Massachusetts--Gloucester--History--19th century. 2. Gloucester
(Mass.)--History--19th century. I. Title.
QL89.2.S4S65 2010
001.944--dc22
2010036878

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To my parents, Waino and Florence Soini;
to the volunteers and staff of the Cape Ann Museum, past and present;
to Gloucester harbor;
and to the sea serpent of 1817, without any of whom, there would be no book!

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet, I. i:16667

Blanche Dubois, who all of her life relied on the kindness of strangers, was only half right; we rely on the kindness of those whom we know, too. In books, as in life, helpful people are half of the time anonymous and half of the time known by name.

Among these latter type saints, I should like to acknowledge Anne, my partner, and children Eric, Heather and Kevin; my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Paul T. Harling, for having introduced me to the sea serpent; John D. Cunningham III, Esq., of Cunningham & Cunningham, who stood with me in Mr. Harlings class in 1958 at the Cape Ann Museum, over which he currently and brilliantly presides; my first English teacherunfortunately, posthumouslyMiss Helen Cohen of the old Central Grammar School, who selected me to be the first class secretary one academic year long ago, and who would certainly have told me of this book, I knew that you could do it!; two timely and exemplary mentors, English professor Charlotte Spivack of the University of MassachusettsAmherst and history professor Julie Winch of the University of MassachusettsBoston; the late Howard V. Doyle, presidentdirector of AFSCME Council 41, AFL-CIO and Angelo A. Amato, Council 41s longtime secretary, who offered me my first paid writing job; the indefatigable Stephanie Buck, archivist and librarian of the Cape Ann Museum; Gloucester salts Peter Prybot, David Rose and his brother, and Gloucester harbormaster Jim Caulkett; Kathryn Glenn, the North Shore coordinator of the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management; my late grandfather, the master mariner and unpublished but prolific poet and author, Captain Chester L. Morrissey; the amiable and generous encourager of authors, Gary K. Wolf, creator of Roger Rabbit; Harvard professor George C. Lodge, whose great-great-great-greatgrandfather was Judge John Davis; the lively Boston chapter of the National Writers Union headed by co-chairs Charles Coe and Barbara Beckwith; the late Fred J. Kyrouz, one of Lonson Nashs successors as Gloucester justice of the peace, unique, personable and charismatic; patient editors Jeffrey Saraceno and Amber Allen and the rest of the staff of The History Press; and, last but not least, the wonderful man who provides my day job, James V. DiPaola, sheriff of Middlesex County.

For those whom Ive named and the many people who helped me anonymously along the way, THANKS is too small a word, even written in capital letters!

This is the story of people who passed the torch of science in their own lifetimes and who, to this day, shed light on another species of life. It recounts how, in frail little crafts made of nothing more than paper and ink, the people of Gloucester in 1817 caught the biggest fish of allthe sea serpent.

Gloucesters sea serpent of 1817 was a puzzle, a project and a flop.

Henone of the Gloucester eyewitnesses called the sea serpent it, but always hewas a puzzle because God made him that way; a project because Judge John Davis wanted his Linnaean Society of New England to have the honor of naming the sea serpent; and a flop because a Loblolly Cove snake distracted and confused the judge and his committee, who then lost their chance at international scientific acclaim.

Puzzle, project or flop, the sea serpent may still be seen in Gloucester.

I first sighted him, and the reader may, too, at the Cape Ann Museum on Pleasant Street in Gloucester, formerly the home of Captain Elias Davis. There, in the large bric-a-brac room on the mansions second floor, a volunteer told us about the mystery.

Looking closely into the upturned faces of the fifth-graders at Mr. Paul T. Harlings Beeman Memorial School on a field tripwith a sustained eye contact that would have been impolite under other circumstancesour volunteer generated suspense as she spoke with a deliberate and delicious slowness. Without a hint that any of this happened earlier than the previous week, she said that many Gloucester people claimed to have seen a sea serpent. After naming people like Amos Story, Mrs. Story, James Mansfield, William Foster and Matthew Gaffney and summarizing their statements, her climax was visual and dramatic. Turning, she pointed out to us the serpentine suspectstill swimming, framed behind glass as a golden dragon with a horn and scales! Well, that was it; when she asked us to raise our hands to vote on whether we thought a sea serpent actually visited Gloucester in 1817, we all voted no.

The Cape Ann Museum, 27 Pleasant Street in Gloucester, formerly the home of Captain Elias Davis and built in 1804, is seen in a photograph circa 1925. Courtesy of the Cape Ann Museum.

The Cape Ann Museum, circa 1980, in a photograph by Jean Baer OGorman. Courtesy of the Cape Ann Museum.

An 1817 engraving of Gloucesters sea serpent. This is only one of several made by imaginative artists at the time that were placed on public display in Boston for an admission fee. The central figure, in fact, bears no resemblance to the sea serpent as described by eyewitnesses. Courtesy of the Cape Ann Museum