“Salisbury Beach’s Original South End”

I wouldn’t be so foolish as to say that Salisbury, as Massachusetts’ northern-most coastal community, is too popular as a summer destination, but I would allow that the slower, calmer pace of the off-season can be equally appealing.  It’s a contrast that evokes sharper awareness of nature’s offerings; one is more attuned to the behaviors of wildlife, less so, social behaviors.  

Although it takes a bit of extra work to ready myself (and the pups) for nature’s side of my front door in the middle of winter, it’s worth it.  Walking in my neighborhood is pleasant; as the oldest established neighborhood in Salisbury, it has great history – lots of Buswells, Stevenses and Pikes settled on the “Circular Road”, and family drama – rife with Hatfield and McCoy-like feuds – ruled the day.  Several homes still exist that once were occupied by descendants of our town’s first division settlers; also to be appreciated is a handful of ancient and towering trees that allow me to imagine their spindly forms from earlier times when they optimistically stretched skyward in front of or beside those homes with intriguing histories.  (I’m always fascinated by trees, especially ones that have so obviously been around for a long time, and Massachusetts is still counted among the states with the oldest tree populations.)

 

Even more pleasant for walking in our town is Salisbury Beach State Reservation.  Massachusetts’ Department of Conservation and Recreation does a fine job of keeping the beach groomed in the summer, and an equally fine job of clearing snow in the winter.  As the years have rolled by, the “season” (by which I mean, that period of time when the Rez plays host to a diverse panoply of visitors) has become longer and longer and characterized by, well, even greater diversity.  It is especially evident this year that our Reservation’s charms can be fully appreciated in the cold months, too.  Of course you won’t see RV caravans, school busses, or back-to-back traffic on the road in; instead, you’ll see solitary figures walking on the beach or dog walkers on the river or a boat here and there bobbing along on Black Rock Creek.  For sure, you’ll see birders – alone, in pairs, or in small clusters (and lately, a good-sized cluster of Mass. Audubon birders).  

 

Over the years I’ve learned some bits and pieces about the Rez’s history.  To begin, one should embrace the idea that the area was long referred to more generally as Black Rocks.  Right now is a good moment to reflect on an aspect of Salisbury Beach’s history, or more broadly, our coast.  Long before access was thought of in terms of Beach Road from Salisbury Square, people arrived via the Merrimack River – by curraghs, sailing ships, ferry boats, and later by steamboats.  It takes some work of the imagination, moreover, to visualize a much earlier time when the area featured a broad expanse of tall pine trees nuzzling the water’s edge. Dare to go back even further – thousands of years to an era when glaciers characterized New England and before the dramatic alterations wrought by the Fundian Fault, which caused our region’s land surface to become a “drowned coastline”; back then – as hard as it is to imagine – our coastline was several miles east of where it now lies.  

 

We’re more interested, though, in the modern landscape.  Today’s topography presents beleaguered dunes and marsh surrounding a flat, methodically gridded one-mile square of sandy campground with sites that are perfectly spaced apart.  Each site is adorned with a precisely placed scrub pine, the most meager bit of shade or privacy that the camper can expect.  (Truth be told, campers who stay at Salisbury Beach State Reservation don’t come for a woodsy, frontier-like experience; they come for the unrivaled enjoyment of the alluring beaches that are mere steps away). When you’re able to observe the mostly-dormant campground in the winter, the little pines tell their own stories.  When taken as a whole, their comically irregular and contorted stems lend a dynamic quality to the campground. Many of the crouching trees lean westward as if succumbing to relentless east winds, while others incline in random directions in droll defiance. 

 

One would think that this original “South End” always played second fiddle to what we view as the heart of Salisbury Beach.  However, it was a true hub “back in the day”, by which I mean from the latter half of the 1800’s up until its twilight era from the late 1920’s to the early 1930’s. Ferry passenger service from Plum Island and Newburyport proper, as well as regular steamboat service from up-river livened both the waters and the landscape around Salisbury Point and Black Rocks.  To bridge the transportation gap between Black Rocks and what we know as the Beach Center, a horse-car line was installed, later replaced by a steam “dummy” line, called the Seaside Railway but just as often simply referred to as "the dummy", which itself was subsequently upgraded to the “electric”.  In contrast with the current state road that runs a straight course from Beach Road to the river, riding high above the marshes, it more closely hugged the shore, running from Salisbury Point, the tip of land from which the jetty extends, to Broadway.  Such knowledge explains why we have Railroad Avenue; no physical evidence remains, however, to signal that we once had rail service along the ocean between the beach center and the south end of the beach. The gradual waning in popularity of the electric in the 1920’s can be attributed, not immediately to private automobiles, but to bus (or “jitney”) service.  And, of course, automobiles supplanted all other modes of transportation.

 

In the same way that evolving needs and desires - and nature’s forces – will re-shape the appearance and designs of a landscape, Black Rocks underwent its own metamorphosis.  Its transformation has at times been gradual and subtle; the River’s ever-shifting channel, for example, reminds one of the fickleness of nature. Likewise, the first wave of cottagers who craved the closeness of the water were – cyclically, it seemed – urged to move their structures back from the edge, especially after the most powerful storms.  Years would pass, complacency would set in, and the cottages would once again be lifted off their pilings and moved closer to water’s edge.  And so it went, at least until the ominous arrival of the Salisbury Beach Associates (SBA), aka “The Three Associates”.

 

Transformation of the Black Rocks section of the Beach at other times has been – arguably – more consequential.  Thus, as the Beach Center drew ever-growing numbers of day-trippers, weekenders, and other folks who craved the shinier enticements that imaginative business entrepreneurs were dreaming up at a staggering rate, Black Rocks gradually lost its appeal as the nucleus of seaside escape and revelry. The1930’s marked its grimmest period of deterioration, and the local citizenry recognized the peril that sustained neglect would occasion.  It was a very difficult moment of reckoning for the Salisbury community, and it was precisely at that historical juncture when it ceased to be just a local concern or a source of worry for Salisbury’s self-styled benefactors, the Salisbury Beach Associates, who still held the lion’s share of deeds for much of the beach area.  In reaching out to the Commonwealth, local politicians framed their arguments as messianic proposals to “clean up Salisbury Beach”.  The tactic of couching their appeals for appropriations and labor in a way that made transparent what was wrong with our beach had the predictable yet unfortunate effect of causing immense shame.

 

The event that would, in my opinion, most dramatically transform the space in both appearance and purpose was born out of this perceived crisis.  First, in 1933, the state acquired the 4.5 mile stretch of beachfront (a steal at under $30,000!); a mere 2 years later, the town ceded (according to a Boston Globe article dated 23, April, 1950) an additional “520 barren treeless acres” to the state.  (Fifteen years later, in 1950, people still bemoaned the absence of trees.) With this new and enduring arrangement, the town was able to benefit, if indirectly, from the grand designs of the state.  And this is the part of the Rez’s story that will have the ring of familiarity, for the state proposed a park that would draw visitors, not just from the customary upriver places such as Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill, but from the western part of the state, as well as from bordering states.  (It was everyone’s good fortune that, through chance timing, much of the labor was funded through Works Progress Administration ((WPA)), Civil Conservation Corps ((CCC)), and Federal Emergency Relief Administration funds made available as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sweeping New Deal programs, and in each case administered by the state.)

 

Throughout Salisbury’s history there has been strong evidence to show our community’s sense of team play and good will.  It was true in 1812, 1863, and 1942 when the federal government established military installations at Black Rocks.  It has been true, also, whenever common interests summon cooperation – such as concerns, for example, the welfare of our shared Merrimack River.  In many ways, as hard as it sometimes is to reconcile that so much of Salisbury’s cherished beach was surrendered to the Commonwealth, the symbiotic nature of the relationship really does work in the favor of Salisbury’s citizens.  Each year (with perhaps the exception of 2020) the Reservation employs local people, as well as attracts countless visitors happy to spend in our stores, restaurants, etc. We still are able, too, – at any time of the year – to frolic in the ferocious surf (but only if one is insane), do some beachcombing, launch a boat for a day’s or just a morning’s fishing, marvel at the beautiful scenery, raise a pricey monocular to site the perennial snowy owl or the harbor seals that have hauled out on Badger’s Rocks, enjoy a picnic, cast a line from the river’s edge, fly a kite. . . need I go on?  

 

As someone whose formative years were (relatively) far from the ocean, I regard Salisbury Beach State Reservation as a blessing. . . a gift.  In my mind, to really appreciate its charms, you have to be able to measure it against places that don’t have a long stretch of beautiful ocean (and, of course, river).  Sure, I still consider myself a bit of a rookie even though my husband and I moved here with our 2 young daughters “way back” in 1985.  I’m trying to fit together all the historical moments that have shaped its present character.  One day I imagine I’ll be able to declare, aHA!  It all makes perfect sense now.  I have still so much to learn.