| Gloucester We left after b'fast to the town which is also known as a fisherman village. There's a movie based on true story called Gloucester (starring: George Clooney) took setting in this village. Rockport We stopped for lunch at a seafood restaurant, the food was ok! After that, we took a walk along the beach while feed the geese and seagulls, it was so fun!!!! Halibut Point State Park Looking seaward, the view stretches from Crane Beach in Ipswich to Mount Agamenticus in Maine and the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire. Is made of sheets of 440 million year-old granite that now descend from a rocky headland to the tidal pools below. As a result of the shallow soil, constant exposure to onshore winds, and a history of frequent fires, the vegetation includes few trees. The area was first used by groups of Pawtucket Indians who migrated seasonally to the coast to harvest its pentiful supply of wild fruits, fish and game. With the arrival of the first settlers late in the 17th-century, the shallow soil was used for farming and cattle grazing. Samuel Gott, a weaver, was the area's first resident. His home, built in 1702 still stands. Beginning in the 1840s, granite was quarried from this area, first on a small scale and primarily along the coast, and then on a much larger scale when the Rockport Granite Company acquired the Babson Farm Quarry and expanded its operation. Shortly after the Cape Ann granite industry collapsed in 1929, 17 acres on the eastern side of the quarry were purchased and given to the Trustees of Reservations. The remainder of the area sat unused until late in World War II when a fire control tower (now the Visitor Center) was constructed to provide aiming information to the crews of the massive guns that protected Boston and Portsmouth from attack by sea. Following the war, basic research conducted here by MIT's Lincoln Labs contribution to the development of radar. Halibut Point fell into private hands in 1956 and was operated as a private park for one season. After several attempts to develop the area as an exclusive residential community, local pressure led to the purchase of 56 acres by the state and the opening of Halibut Point State Park in 1981. Babson Farm Quarry (about 60 feet deep) Offering self-guided walking tour which is has stops 1 through 9 that marked by numbers, painted on granite blocks along the trail. Many of the vessels that tied their lines onto granite bollards carried Cape Ann granite along the coast and throughout the hemisphere for use in constructing bridges, tunnels, buildings, warehouses and monuments, as well as to pave thousands of city streets as far away as Havana-Cuba, and Valparaiso-Chile. Beautiful sunset on the sky accompanied us along the way home. |
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| Gloucester & Rockport Massachusetts U S A |
| September 3, 2000 |
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| Babson Quarry |
| Rockport |