Awash in History

As the tide goes out at Silver Sands State Park, a path of rocks and sediment rises from the floor of Long Island Sound, as if nature itself is building a highway between the Milford shore and Charles Island.

Colloquially, the folks in Milford have long called it the “Charles Island sandbar” but it’s actually a tombolo—an uncommon type of isthmus formed when waves deposit matter in the same area over time. Milford’s tombolo is mainly made up of pebbles and cobble.

According to CT State geologist Meghan Seremet, the tombolo was formed about 17,500 years ago. “It’s similar to a spit or sandbar except it connects to an island and that’s why it’s called a tombolo,” Seremet says. “It’s a unique situation there at the Silver Sands State Park.”

And it’s likely, historians say, that humans have been traversing the tombolo back and forth from Charles Island for thousands of years.

“The Charles Island tombolo is one of relatively few such features in the world,” says Michael C. Dooling, a Connecticut-based historian and author of An Historical Account of Charles Island, who recently released a second, expanded version of the book. “The indigenous peoples who lived in what would become Milford must have been mesmerized by it, as well as the early European settlers in the area.”

In his book, Dooling notes that the native people referred to the island as “Poquahaug.” A small stone carving of a bird discovered on the island in the 1970s remains the most compelling evidence that Native Americans roamed there, Dooling writes.

Tim Chaucer is a local historian who operates the Milford Marine Institute, a summer camp that teaches children about the natural history and ecology of Long Island Sound. It celebrates its 40th anniversary this summer.

Chaucer said he’s seen other evidence of Native American population on Charles Island—shell middens. “A shell midden is where native peoples in coastal areas would deposit their shells over time after eating clams or oysters or scallops,” Chaucer explains. “Over time, those middens get buried with leaves coming down and so forth. Shell does not deteriorate; it stays for thousands of years. So, I have seen evidence of people who have formerly lived out there.”

And those native peoples would have almost certainly used the tombolo’s cobble to make hammerstones and to chip projectile points, Chaucer says. He keeps numerous examples in the Gulf Pond Museum he operates at the former wastewater treatment plant near the Indian River. One such stone clearly has a chip on it. “This is not natural. Quartz is very hard. Nature doesn’t do that, take out a flake like that,” Chaucer says, pointing to the chipped area. “This was done by Native Americans.”

According to Chaucer, that stone was discovered at a Native American village he’s excavating further down the Indian River. “But that’s the kind of thing you find on the tombolo as you go out there,” he says. “If you pick up a cobble, which is a rounded piece, and you see a flake taken out, maybe that flake was used as a hide scraper, or maybe they were going to use it as a projectile, and for whatever reason they just rejected it.”

As the English settled and Charles Island went through a series of ownerships—some 26 owners since the 1600s, according to Dooling—the tombolo continued to serve as a sometimes-treacherous path of access.

Such was so for the ill-fated Elizur E. Prichard, a button manufacturer from Waterbury who purchased Charles Island in 1852 and built a lavish summer home there that later became a resort. “It was Thanksgiving Day in 1860 and he apparently miscalculated the tides and was walking and the tide came in,” Dooling says. “Two duck hunters on the shore saw him struggling and they went out to help him and then he had collapsed on the tombolo and was dead when they got there. It may have been a heart attack.”

Prichard wasn’t the only person to misjudge the tides when attempting to traverse the tombolo. The notoriously dangerous currents and undertow caused by the covering and uncovering of the formation have caused multiple drowning deaths. The most recent was in 2017, when George Swaby, 28, of Bridgeport, was swept off the tombolo.

“Because tombolos are exposed for only a short time at low tide, a person can start walking on it and soon discover it is covered with water,” Dooling explains. “Its curve can also deceive, and when someone starts walking where they think the tombolo is, they can find themselves in deep water fairly quickly.”

Not long after Swaby’s death, the state

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection constructed a sign near the tombolo warning visitors of the dangers of walking on it. It includes a tide chart to help visitors determine the safest times to do so.

The tombolo has snagged boats as well.

One notable incident occurred in 1937 when a barge named the Captain Jim, loaded with scrap metal, broke away from a tugboat and landed on the tombolo. It remained there for two days until the Coast Guard freed it.

—Mike Patrick

Note: In an effort to protect nesting shoreline birds, Charles Island is closed to visitors until September 8th.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about the Milford Marine Institute or Gulf Pond Museum, call 203-874-4000 or email tchaucer@msn.com. An Historical Account of Charles Island is available for purchase at The Canvas Patch, Milford Pharmacy and Home Care, The Ship’s Store, and Milford Historical Society.