ORI Partner: Stellwagen Alive!

Coast Survey Steamer Bibb, Henry Stellwagen, Captain

Overview
Stellwagen Alive!’s and NOAA’s constituency-building dialogue defines emerging management goals, addresses collaborative research needs, coordinates Sanctuary education & outreach efforts, and the development of a stewardship ethic essential for ocean life.

I consider I have made an important discovery in the location of a 15 fathom bank lying in a line between Cape Cod and Cape Ann -- with 40 and 50 fathoms inside and to northward of it and 35 fathoms just outside it. It is not on any chart I have been able to procure. We have traced nearly five miles in width and over six miles in length, it no doubt extending much further.

--Navy Lt. Commander Henry Stellwagen, 1854

The hydrographer in Massachusetts Bay had been rewarded for his labors by the discovery in the entrance of an extensive bank, of which he had given the position and defined the limits, with from ten and a half to fourteen and a half fathoms on it, lying across the entrance, and serving thus as an excellent mark for navigators entering this important bay. I propose to call this, from the name if its discoverer, Stellwagen's Bank.

--Alexander Bache, Superintendent of the Coast Survey

Location: Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts Bay

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