HAULOVER BREAK 511 



A vague tradition comes to the writer that at one time it was possible 

 to sail from the town of Nantucket up the harbor and then go around 

 Wauwinet and Squam head into Squam and Sachacha ponds " without 

 going out into the open ocean." This could only be possible if the 

 tombolo was first built as a bar offshore outside of Squam head. The 

 writer has failed to find any confirmation of this tradition. It is quite 

 possible that it was so, but as far as the present studies of this region 

 have been carried there is no proof of its truth. Of course, it is possible 

 that there might have been an opening in the tombolo north of Wauwinet 

 through which a sailboat could go, and that there was another opening 

 in the bar which now closes the east side of Sachacha pond into which 

 the boat may then have sailed. A third possibility is that the tradition 

 may refer to a trip made in a dory which was hauled across the tombolo 

 at the " Haulover " north of Wauwinet, and thence proceeded through 

 the open ocean outside of Squam head and into Sachacha pond. 



For two or three years previous to 1896, according to Captain Chase, 

 who was stationed at the Coskata Life Saving station at the time, the 

 waves broke over the tombolo between Wauwinet and Coskata in any 

 heav} r easterly gale. During the fall of 1896 there were several unu- 

 sually heavy storms, and finally, on December 17, 1896* the sea cut a 

 narrow channel across the tombolo at a point which had been used by 

 the fishermen for many years as a place for hauling small boats from 

 the head of the harbor to the open ocean. 



This stage is represented in the second diagram of the series of draw- 

 ings on plate 50, showing the progressive changes in the form of the 

 tombolo from 1896 to 1903. The drawing marked 1890 is from the 

 Coast Survey planetable sheets surveyed in 1888 and 1890 and gives the 

 form of the inner and outer shorelines as well as the fathom lines east 

 and west of the tombolo (plate 50, figure 2). This condition remained 

 practically the same until the fall of 1896. The second drawing is based 

 on the preceding and altered according to sketches made by Captain 

 Sidney Fisher a few weeks after the break occurred (plate 50, figure 3). 

 The third drawing, marked April, 1897, is also made from drawings 

 made by Captain Fisher (plate 50, figure 4). Both of these drawings 

 show that at first there was a decided turning in of both ends of the 

 tombolo at the break, leaving a shallow body of water between the two 

 hooked spits. 



A good deal of sand must have been carried in through this opening 

 and deposited in the deep water at the head of the harbor, for we find 

 in the hydrographic survey made by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Sur- 

 vey, October 4-11, 1897, from which the fourth drawing in the series 



*H. S. Wyer : Sea-girt Nantucket, p. 18. 



