Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Celebrates its 20th Anniversary r's been twen ty years since Srellwagen Bank and its surrounding waters off the Massachusetts coast was designated a National Marine Sanctuary. Named for Henry Stellwagen, the US Navy lieutenant who mapped the bankin 1854, the underwa ter plateau has been known to mariners since at least the 1700s, when sections ofir first appear on nautical charts. In 1992 Co ngress designated the area (638 square nauti cal miles) as the co untry's tenth National Marine Sanctuary (NMS). Today, the Office of Natio nal Marine Sanctuaries of the National Oceanic and Atmosp heric Administratio n (NOAA) m anages thirteen National Marine Sanctuaries and one Marine Na ti onal Monument, encompassing more than 150, 000 square
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miles of ocean and Great Lakes waters. The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries serves as the steward for these special underwater places, to conserve, protect, and enhance their biodiversity, ecological integrity Boston G lobe front page,
reporting the loss of the fivemasted schooner Paul Palmer. ~
Office of National Manne Sanctuanes National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admm1strat1on STrI IWAGfN l\A NK NATIO NA i M AR I N I SANCT lJARY
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by Deborah E. Marx
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and cultural legacy. Mankind has h ad a long relationship with the area within the Srellwagen Bank NMS boundaries, li ke ly dating as far back as Native American visitation when lowered sea levels exposed dry gro und fo ll owing the last Ice Age. More recent history includes centuries of fishing, maritime commerce, rum running, and the transition from whale hunting to whale watching. Srellwagen Bank sits at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay between Cape Ann and Cape Cod. Its open ocean scenic beauty obscures shallow banks and deep basins that create varied habitats that support a rich di versity of marine life, including twenty-two species of marine m ammals and more than eighty species offish. More than one million people visit the sanctuary on whale watch trips each year, but there is m uch more to discover below the ocean's surface. The sanctuary's location astride the historic shipp ing routes and fishing grounds for New England's oldest ports also makes it a repository for historic shipwrecks rep resenting several hundred years of m aritime activi ty. Currently six shipwrecks sites (encompassi ng seven vessels) are listed o n the National Register of Historic Places, America's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. These sires are the steam ship Portland, lost with all hands during the famous Portland Gale of 1898; coal sch ooners Frank A. Palmer and Louise B. Crary, which collided and sank in 1902; the unlucky five-masted schooner Paul Palmer, which SEA HISTORY 139, SUMMER 2012