By Jean Perry

On Sunday, September 4, Mattapoisett Harbor was bustling with people out enjoying the cooler, crisp air as an eastern breeze blew off hats and flapped flags, while some scurried to remove their boats from the water in anticipation of what was shaping up to be Tropical Storm Hermine.

The National Weather Service had already upgraded the Southcoast alert from a tropical storm watch to a tropical storm warning, and with the threat of a slow-moving storm system meandering its way past us over the course of a few rough days of wind and waves, local harbormasters and boaters took the “rather safe than sorry” approach.

However, mid-day on Tuesday, September 6, the NWS canceled its tropical storm warning and downgraded it to a gale warning for the immediate coast.

With maximum sustained winds at 60 miles-per-hour at press time, now dubbed “Post-Tropical Storm Hermine” was still about two days away from its closest approach to Southeastern Massachusetts – forecast for Thursday, September 8 around 8:00 am– when the NWS predicts winds will decrease to less than 39 mph. A tropical storm warning remained in effect for Long Island, New York.

None of the three towns reported any substantial damage from the storm, with only scattered tree limbs reported down in Rochester and Mattapoisett.

“No real storm news, which is a good thing,” said Rochester Police Chief Paul Magee.

Mattapoisett Harbormaster Jill Simmons said the harbor itself remained relatively at ease, although parts near Connett Point and outside the harbor itself got “kicked around” a bit, as Simmons put it.

“Nothing sank,” said Simmons frankly. “Nothing really much happened.”

She reported that most boats over 25 feet in length remained in the water, but a significant number of smaller boats were pulled out by their owners on Sunday morning and afternoon while the storm threat was highest.

The storm was not a significant rainmaker, although the potential for scattered showers remained in the forecast until Thursday.

By Jean Perry

For years, decades, centuries, maybe millennia and perhaps even eons, generations of diamond-backed terrapins have arrived and returned to the shores of Hammetts Cove in Marion to mate and lay their eggs, just as their ancestors before them did, forever imprinted with the place of their birth, the place where they themselves will nest to bring forth the next generation of terrapins into the world.

Enter humans onto the scene in 1998 with the development and inhabitation of the development known as The Cove. Sandy, dry, upland vegetated areas that had forever been occupied by clutches of terrapin eggs were suddenly gone, filled in with housing foundations, covered by gravel walkways, paved with asphalt, and replaced with rows of sod and bark mulched flower beds.

Diamond-backed terrapins face this fate all along the coastline from New England south to Florida as terrapin habitats are converted into housing developments, threatening the very existence of the terrapins. The population was nearly eliminated by the turn of the 20^th century, having been considered a gourmet delicacy, ultimately landing terrapins on the threatened species list in Massachusetts.

In 2015, residents of Jenney Lane – concerned about terrapins they witnessed struggling to nest in places that were then inhospitable to the terrapin mothers and their clutches – teamed up with local turtle expert Don “Turtle Guy” Lewis and his wife, Sue Weiber Nourse, and concocted a plan to create a “turtle garden” on the Hammetts Cove shore off Jenney Lane, an enclosed, protective, restored habitat for the terrapins to nest. In this safe, sandy spot, the turtles would be monitored, eggs protected from the myriad of predators, and welcomed to return unfettered to restore the local population of terrapins and, thus, the balance of nature at Hammetts Cove.

The project was a success, leading to the safe release of 120 baby terrapins into the wild. With only one in 350 baby terrapins surviving into adulthood, Lewis, Nourse, and Jenney Lane residents helped increase those odds to about a one-in-ten chance at survival for dozens more terrapin eggs and the resulting babies.

This year, the project has seen further success to everyone’s delight and surprise.

“The turtle garden at The Cove off Hammetts Creek in Marion has transformed that area into a veritable terrapin ‘Field of Dreams,’” said Lewis, who recently moved to Florida with his wife Nourse. “If you build it, they will come,” he added. “Its success as a turtle sanctuary has exceeded all expectations and predictions.”

Lewis and Nourse left Jenney Lane resident Landis Major in charge after they relocated, which is something Major never expected in life – not just that he would become a turtle garden leader, but that it would become a passion that would change him into what he is today, which is a self-proclaimed “turtle person.”

“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” said Major as he donned a rain jacket and made his way down the street in the middle of a tropical storm just as it began to rain to check-in on the turtle nests. He calls his turtle duty his “summer job,” averaging an extra four to five miles a day of walking just from stepping out his door for the short walk to the restored turtle habitat every hour or two.

Major keeps an eye out for nesting terrapin mothers and then fortifies the nests with those sticks used to mark the boundaries of driveways for snow plows. They are staked deep into the sand around the nest in a teepee-like formation to keep the foxes from digging them up. They are then reinforced by chicken wire walls in a cage-like structure to make it even more difficult to penetrate.

Major may have been left in charge of the project, but this is definitely not a one-man job.

Cove resident Debbie Ewing and her husband Michael Machen have also become turtle people that Hammetts Cove terrapins can count on to mind their precious eggs, protect them from predators and chase off foxes and coyotes, and accompany their hatchlings to the safety of the marsh’s mud.

“Debbie’s my right-hand person,” said Major. Ewing met Major at her doorstep, excited that one of the terrapin eggs she had safely incubated in a bucket in her home had just that moment hatched.

“It’s very, very exciting. It’s even hard to express,” said Ewing. The pair were happy to report that this year there was an abundance of new terrapin nests – scores more than last year. There were actually many more than they anticipated, and many more than they were able to save. If the terrapin mom isn’t caught in the act of laying the eggs, Major said, then the nest is covered up without a trace. The only evidence of an existing nest would come later, with a small indentation in the sand and scattered eggshells left behind by a hungry fox.

“We’re all in a learning phase,” said Major. “And we’ll only get better,” added Ewing.

Ewing describes the experience as a terrapin caretaker as “the pinnacle of life.” She has always loved nature, but she never imagined starring in her very own personal “Animal Planet episode,” as she described it.

As a former elementary school teacher, Ewing said she would enjoy getting local students somehow involved in the terrapin rescue efforts. Major said his grandchildren have certainly enjoyed assisting in the caring of the turtles.

“That’s the best part,” said Machen, “teaching the next generation.”

Ewing said Major was the right guy for the job, and residents, confident in his leadership abilities, even recently elected him as president of the homeowner’s association for The Cove.

“Landis and his team have made miracles happen for the terrapins of Sippican Harbor,” said Lewis.

No one knows for sure just how long those turtles have been coming to the cove, but Major and Ewing are committed to ensuring their return for many years to come.

“We’re turtle people,” said Ewing as she, Machen, and Major stood in the kitchen, leaning over a yellow bucket containing five baby terrapins that hatched only moments before – and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

By Jean Perry

On August 23, local historian Seth Mendell gave the second of five lectures in his series on the “Great War” – World War I. The lectures are a joint venture between the Mattapoisett Public Library and the Mattapoisett Historical Society Museum.

As he adjusted the microphone in the library’s meeting room, Mendell said with a sly smile, “I’m used to speaking to teenagers whose hearing is good.” The nearly full-to-capacity room responded with groans and chuckles. “As I have aged, so has my audience,” he responded. Mendell is a retired educator who taught for many years at Avon Old Farms School in Connecticut.

In his first lecture, Mendell laid the groundwork for the war that quickly found all of Europe rallying allegiances and arming soldiers from England to Russia. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo is the well-known tipping point. What Mendell adds to the names, dates, and places is a deeper insight into the why of it all.

After the duke’s murder, countries throughout Europe grouped into two alliances – the Central Powers comprised of Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Turkey against the Allies comprised of France, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan. It wasn’t until 1917 that the United States entered.

The back-story goes like this: Serbia wanted to gain control of Austria-Hungry. The head of military intelligence for Serbia, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, deployed Gavrilo Princip to do the deadly deed of assassinating Ferdinand and his wife as they toured the region. Although warned of the impending assault by an insider, Ferdinand either did not believe it would happen or completely misunderstood the magnitude of the missive he received. Either way, he and she were cruelly dispatched.

This act, Mendell pointed out, was what caused a “tumble” into war.

Then Austria attacked Russia in a plan to free ‘slavs.’ Germany, who was tied to Austria, then came into the conflict against Russia. Because France had a treaty with Russia, they were drawn in and then came England. “It was a house of cards,” Mendell said, “It was a war that no one had expected.”

On the Eastern Front, Germany planned to attack France in a “sweeping” military maneuver that, unfortunately for them, failed. “The officers couldn’t communicate with one another…” across a vast 400-mile long front, Mendell explained.

Germany made other critical errors. They believed Belgium would stay neutral. They did not. They believed they could keep England out of France. They could not. And thinking the Western Front needed more troops than the Eastern Front, Germany repositioned nearly a half million soldiers to Russia.

Mendell also explained that during this time, military equipment evolved as a direct result of a new type of warfare: trench warfare.

The machine gun used by both sides was able to fire repeatedly at the top of the trench affording maximum protection to the soldiers operating it from the depths. And then there were the dirty weapons.

Germany used poison gas that floated across the militarized zone of the Eastern Front seeping into the trenches. Although the allied forces had gas masks, “They didn’t know when they were supposed to put them on,” Mendell said. It was the fleeing rodents that flooded into the waste-filled troughs that sounded the alarm that gas was on the way. There, in those reeking trenches, man and animal alike sought to survive. Adding to the ‘evil’ weaponry of the Germans was the flame-thrower.

Mendell added an aside to his commentary that gave WWI local context. He said that the Acushnet Rubber Company business “really got going” because it was making gas masks.

As the war dragged on, Germany’s use of submarines would, in part, draw the United States into the theater of war.

The sinking of the Lusitania, Mendell stated, was not the prime reason the U.S. entered the war, but it did contribute to President Wilson finally breaking all ties with Germany and joining the allies in 1917.

Regarding the Lusitania, Mendell had one more anecdotal story to share. Avon Old Farms had been designed by one of the survivors – Theodate Pope Riddle, the first female architect in Connecticut to receive a license in this primarily all-male profession.

Mendell read from Riddle’s letter to her mother describing the horrors she witnessed as she floated among the ship’s debris along with the living and the dead. As Mendell read her words, the audience was transfixed.

Although everyone knows how this chapter in history ends, Mendell’s re-telling and ability to weave the seemingly disparate details into a cohesive story is more than educational, it’s entertaining.

Subsequent lectures will be held in the Mattapoisett Library’s meeting room at 7:00 pm on September 6, United States Entry and the finale on September 13, Ploughboys and Doughboys. The third lecture on The Middle Phases was held on August 30.

Mendell will also give a lecture – sponsored by the Mattapoisett Historical Museum – on September 4 in Shipyard Park on the history of Naushon Island.

By Marilou Newell