Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts 1913: [Elizabeth Islands]

Details:
black and white lithograph, red color highlights
condition: professionally conserved, paper toned and overall clean and in good condition

Description:
This large scale U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts was prepared to be used on board a ship for navigation. The chart shows depth soundings throughout Vineyard Sound and Buzzards's Bay, including right to the shoreline. This chart is a black and white lithograph and at this scale provides detailed topographical and nautical information graphically. Grey tones are employed to show water depths and topographic features. The graphic quality of the chart is crisp. Tides and magnetic variations are presented in charts. Buoys are shown in red.

The chart features the Elizabeth Islands, a chain that includes Cuttyhunk and the five private islands in this island chain lying between Buzzard's Bay and Vineyard Sound. The West End of Cuttyhunk has a small fresh water pond labeled West End Pond that itself holds a small inner island. This locus is the site of Gosnold's Monument, the 1902 beach rock column that commemorates the early 17th century landing by Englishman and explorer Bartholomew Gosnold and a small crew at the West End of Cuttyhunk. Their landing and encampment constitute an early English exploration and claim to this island. Sailing due West from the Azores, Gosnold landed first in Maine, sailed south into Provincetown Harbor. He named the area Cape Cod due to the plentiful fish. Sailing south again, Gosnold landed on the island he named after his deceased young daughter Martha. Sailing west from Martha's Vineyard a short distance Gosnold landed on Cuttyhunk. The island was thickly wooded and also had stands of sassafras, at the time a valued medicinal plant. Today no sassafras remains on Cuttyhunk, much having been harvested in the 17th c. The West End Pond has for several years been breached and is now a salt water pond.

The Cape Cod Canal is shown on the chart. The southeast coast of Massachusetts is also drawn in great detail, providing both the topographic features of this dynamic coastline of harbors and points and the ocean conditions for navigation. New Bedford is shown in grid format as a densely developed port city.

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