Merrigan

From P. A6 for this column: “My Marblehead First Time.”

I’m a first-timer, and I own it, from buying swordfish steaks at The Little Harbor Lobster Company (delish!) to navigating the crooked streets of Old Town (confusing!).

I met someone the other day whose family has been in Marblehead for 13 generations. That’s an unthinkably long time in Torrington, where a house built in 1937 is considered “antique.”

Back to the storm. I’ve lived by the ocean before, but those seas were nothing like the one here.

Good local sources tell me that this storm didn’t constitute really bad weather. To which I say: There were waves! Crashing over the causeway! But all right, all right: Perhaps Poseidon wasn’t playing hardball that day. I’ll be sure to write about it when he does.

We crossed back to the mainland just before the police wisely shut down the causeway road. Then I went home and did what anyone would — grabbed

Another way that Marblehead was isolated from Salem was through religious beliefs. Most settlers to Salem were Puritans. They arrived with a clear idea of how they wanted to practice their religion and how they wanted to govern themselves. Settlers to Marblehead had no such plan. They came to fish and make a better life for themselves and their families.

Friction between Marblehead and Salem was inevitable from the start and continued over the next 20 years. Early colonial court records indicate that Marbleheaders were frequently brought into Salem court for offenses such as public my kid and took a walk to the seashore.

The rain had stopped coming down sideways by the time we made it past the Barnacle Restaurant, where I saw another thing for the first time: seawater blasting through a keyhole between two buildings on Front Street. Fascinating. The sea must come up, what, a dozen times a year like this? And knowing this, the builders built these buildings anyway?

Meanwhile, my son did precisely as you might expect a 12-year old to, scampering straight over to dodge the torrent blasting through the keyhole.

I soon made another discovery: My waterproof hiking boots aren’t. They were designed for drizzle in the Rockies, not a surge of Marblehead Harbor sea water.

That’s when I noticed that the locals (I can always tell a local by the way they know what they’re doing) wore knee-high muck boots — except the passel of boys who joined my son at the keyhole. Like most boys of that age, they favored Crocs, which are not quite sandals and not quite shoes and have holes in them for some reason. For my part, I resolved to upgrade my own footwear before the next storm. drunkenness, foul language and not attending church, all

The boy and I sloshed along flooded Front Street to Fort Sewall, where the waves lashed the rocks and the sea wind was Wyoming-esque in strength and stature. Just stood there in that old fort where British and then American troops scanned the watery horizon for the enemy and Old Ironsides was saved.

LETTErS POLIC y

behaviors condemned by the laws of Puritan Salem.

Finally, in 1649 Marblehead separated from Salem to become a separate and independent town, undoubtedly a relief to all. The town prospered and by 1660 the king’s agents declared Marblehead to be “the greatest Towne for fishing in New England.”

The small band of fishermen had grown into a strong community known for its hardworking, hard-living individuals.