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Cape Cod Canal
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The Cape Cod Canal is a man-made waterway traversing the narrow neck of land that joins Cape Cod to mainland Massachusetts.
Part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the canal is roughly 17.4 miles long (approximately 7 of which are cut through land) and connects Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south. The 540-foot width of the canal is spanned by the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge and two highway bridges -- the Bourne and the Sagamore.
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Encyclopedia
The Cape Cod Canal is a man-made waterway traversing the narrow neck of land that joins Cape Cod to mainland Massachusetts.
Part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the canal is roughly 17.4 miles long (approximately 7 of which are cut through land) and connects Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south. The 540-foot width of the canal is spanned by the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge and two highway bridges -- the Bourne and the Sagamore. Traffic lights govern the approach of vessels over 65 feet, and are located at either end of the canal.
Early history
The idea of constructing such a canal was first considered by Miles Standish of the Plymouth Colony in 1623, and Pilgrims scouted the low-lying stretch of land between the Manomet and the Scusset rivers for potential routes. William Bradford established the trading post of Aptuxcet in 1627 at the portage between the rivers. Trade with the Native Americans of Narragansett Bay and the Dutch of New Netherlands prospered and was a major factor enabling the Pilgrims to pay off their indebtedness. In 1697 the General Court of Massachusetts considered the first formal proposal to build the canal, but apparently took no action. More energetic planning with surveys took place repeatedly in 1776 (by George Washington), 1791, 1803, 1818, 1824-1830, and 1860. None of these efforts came to fruition. The first attempts at actually building a canal did not take place until the late 19th century; earlier planners either ran out of money or were overwhelmed by the project's size.
The engineers finally decided which route through the hillsides to take by connecting and widening the Manomet and Scusset Rivers.
Digging the canal
On June 22, 1909, construction finally began for a working canal under the direction of August Belmont, Jr's Boston, Cape Cod & New York Canal Company, using designs by engineer William Barclay Parsons. There were many problems that the engineers of the canal encountered. One was mammoth boulders left by the retreat of Ice Age glaciers. Divers were hired to blow them up, but the effort slowed dredging. Another problem was cold winter storms, which forced the engineers to stop dredging altogether and wait for spring. Nevertheless, the canal opened, on a limited basis, in 1914, and it was completed in 1916. The privately-owned toll canal had a maximum width of one hundred feet (30 m), a maximum depth of 25 feet, and took a somewhat difficult route from Phinney Harbor at the head of Buzzards Bay. Due to the narrow channel and navigation difficulty, several accidents occurred which limited traffic and blackened the canal's reputation. As a result, toll revenues failed to meet investors' expectations.
A German U-boat, the U-156, surfaced three miles off Orleans, on July 21, 1918 and shelled the tug Perth Amboy and her string of four barges. The Director General of the United States Railroad Administration took over jurisdiction and operation of the canal four days later under a presidential proclamation. The United States Army Corps of Engineers re-dredged the channel to 25 feet deep while it remained under government control until 1920. In 1928, the government purchased the canal for use as a free public waterway. The purchase price was $11,400,000, and $21,000,000 was spent between 1935 to 1940 increasing the canal's width to 480 feet, and its depth to 32 feet. As a result, the canal became the widest in the world. The southern entrance to the canal was rebuilt for direct access from Buzzards Bay rather than through Phinney Harbor.
During World War II, shipping again used the canal to avoid U-boats patrolling offshore. The canal was protected from coastal batteries at Sagamore Hill Military Reservation. The Mystic Steamship Company's collier Stephen R. Jones was grounded and sank in the canal on June 28, 1942. Shipping was routed around Cape Cod, and the SS Alexander Macomb was torpedoed on July 3 with the loss of 10 lives. The canal reopened on July 31, after the wrecked Stephen R. Jones was removed with the help of 17 tons of dynamite.
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