As Yet Unknown to Science: 1817 and the Story of the Investigation Into the Gloucester Sea Serpent

 Located along Massachusetts’ North Shore, on the banks of Cape Ann is the historic port city of Gloucester.

The harbor at Gloucester, Massachusetts was first mapped in 1609 by French explorer Samuel de Champlain and the town itself was first incorporated as a permanent English settlement by the Massachusetts Bay Colony less than forty years later in 1642.

Gloucester is the oldest continuously operating fishing port in the United States, and for well over 400 years the Cape Ann area of Massachusetts’ North Shore has had a mysterious and haunted history.

In 1638 English traveler and writer John Josselyn while on a trip to the New World wrote of the local English settlers and indigenous peoples who lived along Massachusetts North Shore that, “They told me of a sea serpent, or snake, that lay coiled up like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann.  A boat passed by with two English on board and two Indians.  They would have shot the serpent, but the Indians dissuaded them saying that if he were killed outright, they would be in danger of their lives.”

John Josselyn’s account is the first written report from North America of any type of a sea serpent sighting in history, but tales and a belief in a mysterious “Sea Dragon” off the waters of Cape Ann had permeated Native American legend and lore for generations going back to time immemorial.

Title Page of the Work of John Josselyn

Then, in August of 1817, the legends and lore of Massachusetts indigenous peoples suddenly became a terrifying reality for the 19th century Americans living in New England.

On a clear and sunny day in calm waters early in August of 1817 a group of five experienced fishermen set off from the port in Gloucester and caught sight of something most unusual.

Witness Solomon Allen III, who had spent a lifetime catching fish at sea later stated that the fishermen saw a creature in the harbor that he, “[S]hould judge to be about 80 or 90 feet in length and about the size of a half-barrel.  His head formed something like the head of a rattle-snake but nearly as large as the head of a horse.”

In the wake of the first sightings of this mysterious sea creature the Essex Register a newspaper based out of Salem, Massachusetts reported, “Yesterday information was received from the town of Gloucester of the appearance of an unusual fish, or serpent, in the harbor…the animal appears in joints like wooden buoys in a net rope.  Two muskets were fired at it and appeared to hit it on the head, but to no effect.”

In the following weeks sightings of this strange, serpentlike creature, quickly spread all across the waters along the New England coast.  

Boston’s leading newspaper the Boston Weekly Messenger ran several articles on what the 19th century broadsheet press quickly dubbed “The Gloucester Sea Serpent” and the paper’s headline for August 21, 1817 simply read: MONSTROUS SERPENT!

Ferry service both to and from Gloucester increased exponentially in the late summer and early autumn of 1817 as tourists flocked by the thousands to the Cape Ann region to try and catch even a mere glimpse of the mysterious creature.

What made the rash of sightings that occurred in the waters off Gloucester in 1817 so remarkable to both the press and public alike was that the vast majority of reports came from many of the nation’s most experienced fishermen and seafarers.

Statue of the Gloucester Sea Serpent of 1817

The Linnaean Society of New England, founded in Boston in 1814 and dedicated to promoting the study of natural history and zoology, was determined to investigate the mystery behind the Gloucester Sea Serpent sightings.

Named for famed 18th century Swedish naturalist and taxidermist Carl Linnaeus, the Linnaean Society of New England, was just one of hundreds of Linnaean Societies that sprang up in towns and cities across both the United States and Europe in the first half of the 1800’s with the express purpose of advancing the study of natural science then called natural history.

At the time of the rash of Gloucester Sea Serpent sightings in 1817, the Linnaean Society of New England was determined to publish its own studies and independent research to prove that American Zoology and Natural History was just as respectable as the scientific work coming from the more established and traditional universities in Europe.

The Society commissioned Judge Lonson Nash of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and former Revolutionary War General David Humphreys to take sworn depositions from as many fishermen as possible that had reported sighting the mysterious serpent.

Carl Linnaeus

In total Judge Nash and General Humphreys accumulated eleven depositions from witnesses who claimed to have seen the sea monster first hand.  All of the witnesses that gave depositions were either experienced fishermen, merchant sailors, ship’s captains or carpenters who were each sworn in under oath.

Nash and Humphreys asked each witness twenty-five standard questions regarding their encounter with the sea serpent such as: At what distance was the creature?  How did it move?  What was the size and shape of its head?  Have you ever seen any other sea serpent lookalikes such as a pod of dolphins swimming in a line or a group of migrating whales while at sea before?

The scientific findings of the Linnaean Society of New England concluded after thoroughly examining each witness that:

“In the month of August 1817, it was currently reported on various authorities, that an animal of very singular appearance had been recently and repeatedly seen in the harbor of Gloucester, Cape Ann, about 30 miles distant from Boston.  It was said to resemble a serpent in its general form and motions, to be of immense size, and to move with wonderful rapidity; to appear on the surface of the water only in calm and bright weather; and to seem joined or like a number of buoys or casks following each other in a line.”

Their report went on for hundreds of pages and determined that each of the witnesses was indeed telling the truth and that the Sea Serpent of Gloucester, Massachusetts belonged to a species of sea creature that was, as yet, unknown to science.

The Linnaean Society of New England concluded its report with a detailed ‘scientific’ artist's rendering from the testimony of the witnesses, a five page foldout sketch of the sea serpent.

Sometime just after the rash of sea serpent sightings off the coast of Gloucester in 1817, the carcass of a sea snake measuring about five feet in length washed ashore on the beaches along Cape Ann.  The body of this sea snake was determined by locals, and the press to be, in fact, the offspring of the Gloucester Sea Serpent and it is believed that The Linnaean Society of New England modeled its sketch after the body of the sea snake that washed ashore.

The Linnaean Society of New England Sketch

Although the Linnaean Society of New England would cease to exist sometime in the year 1822, as such gentlemen’s clubs of amateur scientists began more and more to replaced by standardized university Natural History departments in the United States as the 19th century progressed, the work that they did in their investigation regarding the Gloucester Sea Serpent remained influential long after the Linnaean Society of New England itself was gone.

Evidence of this can be seen in the work of respected English geologist Robert Bakewell who when speculating on the nature of animal extinction in his book entitled Introduction to Geology in 1833 wrote of the Gloucester Sea Serpent that, “I am inclined to believe that the ichthyosaurus, or some species of similar genus, is still existing in the present seas.”

To substantiate his belief that a prehistoric dinosaur still resided in the oceans as recently as 1833 Bakewell pointed to the work of the Linnaean Society of New England and wrote that, “About sixteen years, since, a large animal was seen for several summers in the Atlantic, near the coast of the United States, and was called the great sea serpent.  Its appearance was frequently announced in public journals.”

Perhaps, the Gloucester Sea Serpent was nothing more than a school of dolphins, or a group of migrating whales, or simply the result of a form of hysteria generated by the runaway imaginations of New England sailors who had spent too many days alone at sea.  Who knows?

Sporadic sightings of “Sea Serpents” off the coast of New England, in and around the waters near Gloucester, Massachusetts continue to this very day.  As recently as 1997 there were a rash of very credible and unexplainable sightings in and around the area of Cape Ann.

Maybe the existence of a sea serpent is nothing more than the work of a fanciful imagination or the misidentification of an inexperienced eye; no more tangibly real than the generations old legends and lore of Massachusetts indigenous peoples that spoke of the existence of Sea Dragons.

Only time, science and belief can really tell what lies beneath the earth’s vast oceans, but one thing is definitely for certain.  Thanks to the pioneering, yet quaintly amateurish scientific work of the Linnaean Society of New England way back in 1817, tales of the Sea Serpent of Gloucester are likely to remain with us for time immemorial.