-13- 



"It consists of yellow sand, thrown up by 

 the wind into fantastic hillocks, and 

 bearing scarcely any vegetation except 

 thickets of juniper and the plum, from which 

 it derives its name, a very small part of it 

 being capable of cultivation." 



Thoreau visited the island in 1839 at the completion of 

 a trip down the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. He provides a 

 similar view of the island at that time: 



"There are but half a dozen houses on it, 

 and it is almost without a tree, or a sod or 

 any green thing with which a countryman is 

 familiar. The thin vegetation stands half 

 buried in sand, as drifting snow. The only 

 shrub, the beach plum, which gives the 

 island its name, grows but a few feet 

 high..." (Thoreau, 1867, p. 261) 



This passage, as well as other comments, suggest the island 

 was virtually devoid of trees with only a sparse covering of 

 vegetation, most of which was beach plum. Similarly, 

 Currier provides the following description of the island as 

 it appeared in the late 1890 's: 



"... a few straggling bushes, with thin 

 patches of coarse grass scattered here and 

 there and a narrow strip of soft yielding 

 sand washed by the waters of the Atlantic, 

 are the distinctive features and prominent 

 characteristics of Plum Island." (Currier, 

 1896, p. 212) 



It appears that sometime after 1791 the pine forest 

 that once extended down the island disappeared. The exact 

 cause for its destruction is not known for there is no 

 account of it in the literature. It seems reasonable to 

 conclude that the pine forest was either eliminated by 

 natural causes, e.g. a violent storm, or was cut by the 

 inhabitants. It is very possible that the pines were 

 destroyed by the terrible winter storm of 1839, which was 

 the worst storm in the history of the island. According to 

 Smith (1854) , the entire eastern end of the island was 

 covered with water: 



"The hotel nearer the bridge was also 

 surrounded with water, while sandhills 

 twenty feet high were washed away, and 

 others formed, the eastern shore being 

 reduced by the action of the waves, many 

 rods." (Smith, 1854, p. 274) 



There is really no satisfactory explanation for the 



