Sandy Point State Reservation - Historical Summary

Historical Summary

In the earliest documents concerning the Plum Island region (17th century) the major features are named with their current names. The coastal terrain of the North Shore of Massachusetts is mainly of glacial origin. Moraines and eskers in the wetlands are often called "islands" regardless of whether they are so. Bar Head received its original name of Bar Island from the bar extending from Sandy Point. Bar Head is currently preferred, but that name may also refer to only Bar Head Rocks or only to the cliff facing the sea. In the time of the salt works, a small village was placed there, Bar Island Village. In colonial times as now Bar Island was never an island, even at high tides.

Just to the north of Bar Island is Stage Island, also formerly called "the Bluffs", which is an esker. Early literature refers to it as an upland. These terms are relative to the point of view of a boat on the water, as Stage Island was never an island and the bluffs are only a gentle rise of 10–20 feet off the water, not a bluff or an upland in the usual montane sense of the word. The term stage comes from some sort of stage, unknown now, used for drying fish at that location. Also visible from Sandy Point are Grape Island and Middle Ground, or Middle Island, which are islands in Plum Island Sound, Castle Hill, Little Neck and Jeffrey's or Great Neck. The latter three are divided from the mainland by the wetlands of the Ipswich River and the Essex River. The south end of Plum Island can only be accessed (except along Plum Island Drive) by boat from hills and necks that are far from town and difficult to access themselves.