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NORTH SHORE BREEZE | 
AND REMINDER 
Vol. XIV 
Manchester, Mass., Friday, August 25, 1916 
No. 34 
‘The Reef of Norman’s Woe’’ : 
Visited by Hundreds of Tour- 
ists Along the North Shore 
LILLIAN McCANN 
ETWEEN Magnolia and 
Gloucester is the “Reet 
of Norman’s Woe,” “that 
poetic sorrow of the coast,” 
visited every year by hun- 
dreds of tourists along the 
North Shore. The History 
of Gloucester, in speaking 
of the islands near the har- 
bor says: “On the westerly 
side of the harbor is Nor- 
mans Oh, .or Woe; a 
large rock, lying a few rods 
from the shore, and connected with it by a reef of 
rocks, which the sea leaves bare at low water. The 
tradition that a man named Norman was shipwrecked 
and lost there, has no other confirmation than that de- 
rived from the name itself. A William Norman was an 
early settler of Manchester; and a Richard Norman is 
shown, by the probate records of Essex County, to have 
sailed on a voyage from which he never returned home, 
sonetime before 1682. The doleful name applied to this 
spot may commemorate a misfortune to one of those 
individuals.” 
The sea still lashes and moans upon these rocks. 
Other ships have been caught by this formidable reef. 
But the schooner “Hesperus” will always live since Long- 
fellow has so pathetically immortalized it in his ballad. 
Nearly every one has wept and shivered over the little 
daughter that the skipper had taken “to bear him com- 
pany” on the wintry sea voyage. They have all admired 
Rafe’s Chasm (at the right) 
“The sea lashes and moans upon these rocks” 
Can you see the “old man’s” face? 
“ = ys , y ” 
The Reef of Norman's Woe bells, the guns and the 
lights; the father’s death; her prayer and her own death 
are dramatic lines known to every school child. 
him when he laughed scorn- 
fully at the old sailor’s plea 
to put into port, for he 
feared a hurricane. Also 
when he soothed the little 
girl’s fright by saying: “‘l 
can weather the roughest 
gale that ever wind did 
blow.” He then tenderly 
wrapped her in his coat and 
bound her to the mast. Her 
questioning about the fog- 
And fast through the midnight dark and drear, 
Through the whistling sleet and snow, 
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept 
Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe. 
And ever the fitful gusts between 
A sound came from the land; 
It was the sound of the trampling surf 
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. 
The breakers were right beneath her bows, 
She drifted a dreary wreck, 
And a whooping billow swept the crew 
Like icicles from her deck. 
