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HISTORICAL CABLE LOCATING (PART 3)
BY PHILIP PILGRIM
INTRODUCTION
This is the third and final article is a series that offers encouragement and guidance for you to spend time at a coastline and hunt down a submarine cable. In this issue, my good friends Chris Janson and Kyle Hollasch, provide accounts and background on cables they each found on the shores of New England.
SPOTTING THE FRENCH CABLE - CHRIS JANSON, NOKIA
On a cold winter morning, I was walking the beach in Eastham (Cape Cod), Massachusetts and noticed something sticking out of the dune,
Figure 2: Segment of 1891 cable at Eastham, Mass
protruding back into the sand towards the water’s edge. Taking a closer look, I thought it could be a water pipe uncovered by recent storms. But then it occurred to me that I was standing near the point where an old submarine telegraph cable between France and the United States made landfall. This stretch of beach is constantly changing, with sand washing out sections of dunes as winter storms pound the fragile coastline. Lighthouses, buildings, parking lots, anything manmade have all fallen to the Atlantic’s battering. Yet this cable was prominently obvious, looking as though a construction crew recently left it. It looked old yet in remarkably good condition.
THE FRENCH CABLE
For sure, this was part of the French Cable. The French transatlantic telegraph cable was built in 1879,
Figure 1: Cable Landings Found by Kyle Hollasch (1875) and Chris Janson (1879)
stretching from Brest, France to North Eastham, Massachusetts (US). Around 1891, the US landing site was moved to a more accessible location in Orleans, requiring a several mile-long connecting cable directly over where I stood in Eastham. The connection was built safely away from the ocean dune at the time, running parallel to the shore for a mile before veering inland, across the Nauset Marsh and Orleans town cove, coming ashore at a present-day town boat ramp adjacent to the cable landing station, now a museum. This cable was in-service until 1959, operated by La Compagnie Française du Télégraphe (i.e., The French Cable Co.), offering telegraph services spanning 5,878 km.
By today’s standards, the French cable offered impossibly slow capacity. But consider that 131 years ago, we had no internet, smart phones, voice phones, TV or radio. Wireless radio transmission was just an idea in the minds of Tesla and Marconi. Information transmitted faster than a steamship would prove remarkable, with profound economic effect. By 1890, telegraph cable transmission speeds had improved through various compensation techniques. But it would take a long time to reach speeds approaching just 100 words per minute.
The location where my dog Kai and I accidentally spotted the cable is at Coast Guard Beach within the Cape Cod National Seashore. It is named for the nearby coast guard station, long out of service, perched atop the dune near where the cable protrudes. Writings from the Eastham historical society indicate that the existing structure was built long after the 1891 cable landing station relocation and addition of the Eastham-Orleans connecting cable. It is likely that the cable is placed very close to this newer structure as it makes its way from the now exposed ocean beach to the Nauset Marsh and on down to Orleans.
This beach has been battered since the dawn of time. Locals know that the ocean here takes several feet of sand each year in winter Nor’easters. The most notable here was during the great storm of 1978, when an entire parking lot, access road and several structures were destroyed in a matter of days. At that time, the connector cable would have been safely 50-100 feet back from the dune. But by 2021, when we spotted the cable, it was exposed just a few feet above the high tide line. It is fascinating to me to witness this seemingly simple piece of metal placed here over 130 years ago and used for decades to help the world communicate. To see this right at that point where the ocean meets the land, subjected to the fury of our climate, makes one contemplate how small we are in this world.
Figure 3: 1891 Cable Route
Figure 4: 1891 cable on display at Orleans cable station museum
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REFERENCES:
https://atlantic-cable.com/Article/ FrenchCableStation/ https://www.easthamhistoricalsociety.org/coast-guard-life-saving-station
FINAL THOUGHTS
Chris and I spent many hours discussing his find and pouring over historical charts, photos, and records to better understand what was found, and to differentiate it from other cable landings in the area. It was a rewarding exercise as we learned that Chris also spent time where the 1869 cable landed in Duxbury, Mass. I am sure he will investigate this site now that he has “bagged” one cable find! Chris and Bill Burns (Atlantic-Cable.com) also schooled me: there is another extension of the 1869 French Cable that landed in Nova Scotia close to where I am located. That place is called Big Lorraine near the French settlement of Louisburg. Janet and I had a wonderful day exploring the eastern half of that bay this past spring but with no luck. Another trip is planned and hopefully we can “bag” a French cable too.
When Chis sent me his article, he included this wonderful note that must be shared: “A kind of funny related anecdote—back in the late 70’s my Dad bought a small power boat. On one of our first outings with the new boat, we launched at the Orleans town cove ramp, directly where I know that cable came ashore. Now, my Dad was not too familiar with
Town Cove or his new boat at the time. Turns out we were launching at dead low tide and yeah… we ran aground as skipper Dad tried, eventually successfully, to free us by driving his new motor through the sand. We easily could have hit the cable unless it was buried several feet down. Memories!”
Figure 5: Station at Coast Guard Beach
Figure 6: Coast guard beach bathhouse during Storm of ‘78 (Cape Cod National Seashore)
Now there must be a pun in this somewhere as a tiller is what turns a boat, and a tiller is also what turns soil.
THE ISLE OF SHOALS CABLE KYLE HOLLASCH, CIGNAL AI
When one thinks of the state of
New Hampshire, perhaps they think of its colorful fall foliage, its rugged mountains, or its equally rugged state motto “Live Free or Die”. What they probably do not think of is the beach. But unbeknownst to many, New Hampshire has a coastline. Tucked between Massachusetts and Maine, the Granite State kisses the Atlantic for twenty-nine mostly rocky, occasionally sandy, kilometers.
It was on one of these sandy stretches in the town of Rye that I (along with my loyal companion Titus), stumbled across a small piece of telecommunications history. Thanks to the tutelage of co-worker and cable historian extraordinaire Philip Pilgrim, I knew immediately what I was looking at.
Protruding from a bank of boulders and a bit thicker than a garden hose, the cable was exposed for about three meters before diving beneath the sand and heading out to sea. It was undoubtedly very old - a twisting, rusting braid of iron cables protecting the conductors within, its rubbery outer sheathing long gone.
My heart momentarily raced - could this be the
Figure 8: Titus “Cable Pointer” Figure 7: Town Cove Landing, Orleans
Figure 9: Something spotted while walking
Figure 10: A cable on the foreshore for sure
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famous Direct Cable? Entering service in 1875, the first direct trans-Atlantic cable between Europe and America terminated in Ballinskelligs, Ireland and Rye, New Hampshire (briefly touching land in Tor Bay, Nova Scotia) - a journey of 5,743 km. Previous cables landed in Newfoundland, their messages requiring a slow and expensive relay over terrestrial telegraph service enroute to the USA. In addition to its record distance, the Direct Cable introduced innovations such as full-duplex communication and was a critical link during World War 1 until its decommissioning in 1921.
But alas, the Direct Cable landed a few miles to the south on a spot now aptly known to locals as Cable beach. So, then what was this cable I found? Most likely it provided service to the Isles of Shoals, a cluster of small, ragged islands ten kilometers from the mainland and directly to my east. In the late 19th century one of the islands was home to a massive hotel which catered to prominent literary and artistic figures of the time. Like many of us today, they wanted to escape the city and be immersed in natural beauty - but not entirely disconnected from civilization.
It was a thrill to find a small piece of telecommunications history that morning on the beach, even if that particular cable only traversed ten kilometers of ocean. But now I have caught the bug, and I’m determined to locate the 1875 Direct Cable. The landing station still stands and is now a private residence. But the cable itself, and the Sunken Forest of ancient cedar stumps it snakes through as it approaches land, will prove more challenging. They are reportedly only visible when just the right seasonal and tidal conditions are met - much like those ancient shipwrecks that reappear from time to time. Whenever that occurs again, I will be ready.
FINAL THOUGHTS AND LAST-MINUTE RESEARCH
Back in July 2019, Kyle sent me an email with incredible pictures of his cable find on a beach. He found it early in the morning while walking his dog. Due to the proximity of the Rye
Figure 11: Scale
cable station and a road called “Cable Road,” we first thought perhaps it was the 1875 Direct Cable, but Kyle’s cable was a few kilometers to the north near Wallis Sands Beach. This is a bit too far to travel by storm so there is a slim possibility that it could be a re-purposed and re-routed 1875 cable; but there are no records and parts of that cable worked into the 1950’s so it would have been obsolete to reroute.
In final preparations of this article, and a big thanks to SubTel Forum’s Wayne Nielsen’s enduring patience for our late submission, we had another look at what this cable could be just last night. Kyle is currently at a conference, so he is busy all day. We ended up exchanging emails well past midnight to complete this final push. Checking the wonderful iBoating. com online chart site showed no cables in the area. A deeper search revealed the chart below shows a “Cable Area” connecting Wallis Sands to the Isles
Figure 14: Kyle’s Cable Location
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of Shoals and Appledore Island. This cable may be an abandoned telegraph, telephone, or even a power cable.
Online research helps to form a better idea of possible dates and functions: “The company’s (Stone Telegraph and Telephone Company) first commercial radiotelegraph link was between the Isle of Shoals and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which operated during the summer of 1905, replacing a failed
Western Union telegraph cable.”
So, it seems Kyle’s cable could be a telegraph cable prior to 1905.
Dr. Richard Walding’s wonderful IndicatorLoops.com website shows the area to be a hot spot for World War II submarine detecting arrays. This overlays nicely with the chart above.
So, Kyle’s cable may have had a military purpose? But this is it? Google Books to the Rescue: The Electrical Engineer A Weekly Review of Theoretical and Applied Electricity · Volume 16 and it mentions a cable landing at Wallis Sands Beach in August 1893.
So, to confirm if this is the 1893 “Safety Cable”, we will need Kyle to revisit the site and count the number of armouring wires. Most telegrapgh cables made in the UK had even numbers of armour wires. Typical counts are 10,12,14, and 16. This “made in USA” cable has 15! It should be easy to identify.
A quick and crude check gives us hope that it could be 15 (or 14 or 16). Looking at half the cable in a photo
Figure 16: Dr. Richard Walding’s Drawing (IndicatorLoops.com)
and counting the visible wires in a crosssection shows more than 7 but less than 8:
Kyle mentioned his last walk in this area has the cable now buried under a metre or more of sand, so he will have to suffer many more pleasant beach walks before we can identify this cable.
REFERENCES:
https://atlantic-cable.com/Article/ FrenchCableStation/ https://www.indicatorloops.com https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_Everybody_s_Hand_ book_of_Electri/WSgyAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA125
CONCLUSION:
I hope that these three articles on finding cables, and the wonderful accounts of Chris and Kyle (along with Kai and Titus) encourage you to spend an enjoyable day at the coastline. Just explore like a child and maybe you will discover more of our past. When you look out at the sea and wonder what lays beyond the horizon, think of these wonderful cables and how the have brought the world together! S TF
PHILIP PILGRIM is the Subsea Business Development Leader for Nokia's North American Region. 2021 marks his is 30th year working in the subsea sector. His hobbies include "Subsea Archaeology" and locating the long lost subsea cable and telegraph routes (and infrastructure). Philip is based in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Figure 18: The 1893 Isle of Shoals Cable
Figure 19: 14, 15, or 16 wires?
