NAHANT — As spring carries on and the weather continues to warm, beware the sea serpent that is sometimes said to reside off the Nahant Shores. While the last sighting was in the mid-20th century, you never know what might be lurking beneath the water’s surface.
“Is it a myth or did a 70-foot sea creature actually cruise the waters of the North Shore? There are lots of theories, but nothing can discount the fact that many affidavits have been published from boaters and fishermen [as] well as from spectators on shore attesting to his (or her) existence,” the “Monstrous Sea Serpent” exhibit at the Nahant Historical Society said.
These sightings go back centuries. The society says the first sighting of the serpent was in 1638 at Cape Ann.
According to “Some Annals of Nahant, Massachusetts” by Fred A. Wilson, one early recount of, in his words, “the friendly serpent” comes from Nahanter Obadiah Turner. The following excerpt comes from Turner’s journal entry on September 5, 1641.
“…thereon by ye mightie storm did spy a most wonderful serpent a shorte way off from ye shore,” Turner wrote. “He was big round in ye thickest part as a wine pipe. A most wonderful tale. But ye witness be credible, and it would be of no account to them to tell an untrue tale.”
Turner went on to write how he had heard of sightings at Cape Ann and Nahant’s Egg Rock.
According to Wilson, a popular year for serpent sightings was 1819. This is apparent in a list of sightings the Nahant Historical Society has — there were seven that year, mostly in August. Of those seven, three were in Nahant.
“It was said to be from fifty to seventy feet long and as large as a barrel, moving swiftly through the water with head up,” Wilson wrote.
Nahant’s summer resident Samuel Cabot, of the famous Cabot Family and a great-grandfather of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, said he was there when large crowds gathered to see the serpent that August. The crowds were at Long Beach in Gloucester.
“As my curiosity was directed toward the boats, to ascertain the course they were taking, my attention was suddenly arrested by an object emerging from the water at the distance of about one hundred and fifty yards, which gave to my mind at the first glance, the idea of a horse’s head,” Cabot wrote in a letter to Colonel T.H. Perkins on August 19, 1819.
After continuing to look, he was “satisfied that the sea serpent was before” him.
Then in 1849 Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-American scientist a professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, said he had questioned whether the sea serpent exists.
“There are many who will doubt the existence of such a creature until it can be brought under the dissecting knife; but it has been seen by so many on whom we rely, it is wrong to doubt any longer,” Agassiz said.
He compared the serpent to a plesiosaurus, an extinct large marine reptile.
“I still consider it probable that it will be the good fortune of some person on the coast of Norway or North America to find a living representative of this type of reptile,” Agassiz said.
In July 1902, the Daily Evening Item published an article titled “Sea serpent seen off Nahant” with the subhead “Mrs. Laura Wagniere catches a glimpse of the monster of the deep.”
“The sea serpent has again reared its horrid head off Nahant, and its inhabitants are nervously on the lookout for another glimpse of the monster of the deep,” the article said.
Wagniere, her husband, and several of their friends said they saw it on a Friday evening that July. Another person named Eugene Brann and two of his friends said they saw it the following Monday morning.
“It was seen in repose, moving its enormous and slimy bulk through the water with dignity of age and reputation,” the article said.
Julie Tarmy, the executive director of the historical society, said many think it might be an oarfish, which can grow to 35 feet long.
Over the years books, cartoons, postcards, and articles have been dedicated to the serpent, and the Nahant Historical Society has all of it archived. So if you want to learn more about the serpent that lurks in North Shore waters before you take a swim this summer, stop by the historical society.
