The Florence tribune., 1899-04-01
MADE IN ONE NIGHT.
How the Harbor of Marshfeld, Cape
 Cod Bay, Was Formed.
A Northeast Gale Piled Up the sand and Created a Valuable AT-
 choraRe for the Coaat
Shipping.


 Years ago Marshfield, situated on Cape Cod bay, about half way between Cohasset and Plymouth, was bus ting little coast town, and was in fact one of the shipbuilding towns of note in the country's earliest history. The famous trading brig Columbia, after which the Columbia river was named, was built here. as were also several yes sells used as privateers in the war of 1872. If it had been allowed to work out its own destiny, Marsbfield might even now be a thriving town like Es- sex, which is known for its honest and thorough ship-building wherever the fishermen of New England guide their restless keels. But nature interyened, and walled the town up in prison, the like of which may be seen at many places on sandy Cape Cod.
 Originally the mouth of the river was at point nearly opposite the towny but gradually, as the soil washed down by the river and the sand worked up by the seat met, a bar formed extend- ing from the north side Of the rivers mouth across it, thus stopping the swift, direct flow which had always kept the channel free and clear. Then the river turned south, and the sandbar followed it, growing in size as the flow of the river decreased, until it had become q goed-sized promontory inside of which the river flowed, with an outlet far to the southward of the original one opposite the town. Being turned out of it's regular channel in this way. the river also broadened and shall lowed. The current slaekened, and the deposit. carried down by it were 5r0pped inside, instead of outside, the mouth. while throughout the little rnaaztesd inside the old mouth isleis formed, so that thera were few good places Tor a boat to lie, even if any- thing more than the shoalest draught could have got in over the bars at the mouth
 So Marshfield remained behind it's barrier of sand and peat until the night of November 26, when the big storm set in. All night long the fierce north east gale piled the water up against the outside of the promontory, and on the following day, in conjunction with the gale, came one of the highest tides of the year. The water rose until at length it broke clear over low place in tie promontery, between what are known as third and fourth cliffs, and swept up into the river with all the power of the high tide and hurricane at it's back The river was filled until the water rose over the bridge and up into the street at Marshfield, and hun dreds of acres of the big marshes ly- ing to the southeast of the town, and from which it takes its name, were covered several feet with water.
 When all this immense body of water started on its return to the sea with the falling tide, it was impossible for it to get out quickly enough by the shallow and devious way through the mouth of the river, so it went out in the way most of it had come in, by the break made by the sea over the promontory, and the securing of this strong tide undid in a single night the work of many years. When the Marshfield folk visited the place the next day they found, where there had been solid ! ground 4s hours before, a clean-cut {. channel, 250 feet wide and 13 feet deep for it's full width, through which the tide ran like millraee, while in the older mouth of the river there was 1 hardly and movement. For a mile or more outside of the cut the water was discolored by the dirt and refuse which were being carried out by the l current, and even then it was evident the bars and islets which had filled the harbor were being washed away.
 The work that began then has been going steadily on ever since. Many of 1 the little islets which had formed in the harbor have entirely disappeared. | and others are growing smaller every day. There is a straight, free entrance | to the sea, which is in more direct line with the flow of the river than even the old mouth of years ago, and through which goodsized vessel can enter at any stage of the tide. Inside of it is harbor large enough for quite a fleet to anchor, with good holding ground and from 90 to 40 feet of water in most places, while the rush of the tide appears 10 be deepening both chan mel and roadstead.
 If matters continue as favorably as they have begun, the harbor thus strangely created will be very val uable one, not only to Marshfeld itself, bu. to our coast shipping, and even more to our yachtsmen. Up to now there has not been single good harbor on the south shore, as the outer harboI of Plymouth is not a safe anchorage