| In 1871, a
breakthrough in North Beach opposite the twin lighthouse
foreshadowed events more than 100 years in the future, when
another break, in the same location, would throw the town of
Chatham into turmoil. Within a few years, the 1871 break claimed
the two lighthouses and the keeper’s house, and forced many
village homeowners to relocate farther away from the water. When
the 1987 break struck, homeowners were not able to be as
flexible, and eventually nine houses were sacrificed to the
encroaching sea.
BREAKTHROUGH: THE STORY OF
CHATHAM’S NORTH BEACH is the story of the three century-long
relationship between the people of Chatham and the barrier beach
that alternatively protects them and lets the ocean ravages the
tender shoreline.
The book is both social history
and geological primer. It explores the physical factors that
cause the beach to lengthen, breach, break apart and grow again,
a cycle of approximately 150 years that has been observed and
documented by scientists for two centuries. Observations by
explorers show how the beach’s rapidly shifting sands made it
both a place to fear and a shelter from savage storms.
Historical accounts from contemporary newspapers and authors
such as Joseph C. Lincoln detail the beach’s breaching in the
19th century and the response of the small village of
Chatham. The responses changed as the 20th century
dawned and residents fought the rising tides, rather than live
with nature’s ebbs and flows. Attempts to control the cycle
either failed or never got off the ground.
And then the 1987 storm struck,
and Chatham found itself at war with the sea. Neighbors battled
neighbors, coalitions of shorefront homeowners fought the town
and state, and the ocean inflicted its wrath both on the
physical shoreline and the psyches of the townspeople.
BREAKTHROUGH was first published
in 1988. Written by Timothy J. Wood, at the time a reporter
covering Chatham for the weekly Cape Cod Chronicle, it went
through five editions before going out of print in 1998. Now the
author, now editor of The Chronicle, has complete revised the
text, tracked down new photographs and added a chapter to bring
the story up to the present day. At 120 pages, with 25 photos
and illustrations, it is more than half again as long as the
original edition, with a recent cover aerial photograph of the
break by well-known photographer Spencer Kennard.
Read an
excerpt from BREAKTHROUGH
Order
BREAKTHROUGH on-line
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Cod area store selling BREAKTHROUGH
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