Old Stone Dock Destroyed – 200 Years Ago
an article published in the Falmouth Enterprise 08-07-15
The Old Stone Dock, known to generations of beach-goers as the “Kiddie Pool” at Surf Drive Beach, originally built in 1806, was destroyed by hurricane force winds and tides in 1815. The “Great September Gale of 1815” slammed ashore about 10:00am on September 23rd, with 135 mph winds and a 16 foot tidal surge in Buzzards Bay. Over 500 homes were destroyed in the path of the storm and 38 deaths were reported.
The word “hurricane” was not yet in use. In fact, scientists up until that time were not aware of the circular motion of hurricane winds. Harvard Professor John Farrar researched the phenomenon from 1807 to 1817 and advanced the theory of a “moving vortex” to explain how the winds from the same storm could move in so many directions.
The Gale of 1815 was the first major hurricane to hit the Cape Cod coast in 180 years. The next one of significant consequence to Falmouth wouldn’t hit again until the Hurricane of 1938 which followed an almost identical path with very similar destruction. By then hurricanes were identified as such, but were not given names as they are today. That practice started in 1953. Only women’s names were used until 1979 when the National Weather Service began alternating men’s and women’s names.
The dock at the end of Shore Street was the hub of commerce for Falmouth throughout colonial times. The Surf Drive Beach area was the site of the British bombardment of Falmouth during the American Revolution. Major Joseph Dimmock and 50 Falmouth militiamen defended the beachhead from a long trench in the sand, and prevented the British Regulars from landing. The cannonade continued from the ships anchored offshore from noon until 5:00pm on April 3, 1779. A rendering of the action can be seen in a painting done by Karen Rinaldo that hangs in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room at Town Hall.
The dock was also the site of the British attack on Falmouth during the War of 1812. James Madison was President of the United States when the town was bombarded for most of the afternoon by His Majesty’s Ship Nimrod on January 28, 1814. There are several historical homes in the area that bear the scars or even the cannon balls from that shelling. Of course, the war ended after the final British defeat in the Battle of New Orleans in January and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in February 1815.
So it was left to Mother Nature to do what battle couldn’t accomplish: batter the dock to the point it had to be replaced. After the Great September Gale of 1815, the dock was re-built through the year of 1816 and was finally back in service in 1817. The new dock used Falmouth granite as a base for a wood-plank deck supported by tree trunk pilings. Early photographs bear this out. Subsequent storms have splintered the wooden framework and shaken the granite from its rigid alignment.
Perhaps the greatest reason for the current state of the dock is that the new “Inner Harbor” was created in 1908 when a cut was made in Clinton Avenue to open Deacon’s Pond to the waters of Vineyard Sound. This created Falmouth Harbor as we know it today. The Old Stone Dock had lost its purpose as the center of commerce. Shifting sand has built up the shoreline and filled the interior space so it is now a shallow wading pool instead of a boat basin. But its presence is yet another reminder of Falmouth’s illustrious maritime heritage.
Kevin M. Doyle, President, Old Stone Dock Association, 2015