Human meddling with marsh goes back centuries

By RYAN BLETHEN, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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SCARBOROUGH MARSH

Maine's Fragile Gem Sprawl and invasive plants threaten Scarborough Marsh and its valuable habitat. But with human vigilance, the marsh may hold its own. Cutting red tape saves marshland Massachusetts offers lessons for the Scarborough Marsh: Conservation groups get help with permitting and funding. Pulling together for marsh Friends of Scarborough Marsh targets trouble spots and get efforts organized. Visit the marsh The Maine Audubon Society operates the Scarborough Marsh Nature Center. You can walk on a self-guided nature trail or canoe through the marsh. For more information visit the Maine Audubon Web site.

SCARBOROUGH — Watching the marsh grass sway in a gentle breeze, a canoeist on the Dunstan River might not realize that tall-masted ships once glided into the river and out to sea.

The Scarborough Marsh, valued today for its tranquil natural beauty, has a history packed with ships, trains and the bustle of human commerce.

The marsh has been altered numerous times for many varied reasons. Its thriving ecosystem was used because of its productivity, yet it has also been viewed as an obstruction that needed to be conquered.

The alterations began with the arrival of European settlers in Scarborough during the 1630s. They found the salt hay that grew on the marsh to be excellent cow feed. Thus began 200 years of haying.

To harvest the salt hay, the marsh farmers had to do something about the boggy surface. Soon the area was marked by drainage ditches.

"The colonists were pretty smart, knowing where to put ditches for maximum draining," said Lois Winter, a conservation biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

To move their huge round piles of harvested hay, farmers trudged horses onto the marsh with carts.

"We always called it the meadow, but it's the marsh now," recalled Margery Fancy. She grew up on the Milliken farm on Payne Road near the marsh and has spent all of her 85 years in Scarborough.

Growing up, she and her brother would ice skate on the marsh after it flooded and froze in the winter. Her brother would rig a sail to a sled and tear around the upper marsh.

	Nelson Harmon of Scarborough holds a forkful of salt hay on Scarborough Marsh circa 1900. With him are two of his sons. European settlers began haying the marsh during the 1630s

Her father also used the marsh. He would harvest salt hay, stacking it on staddles, which were poles stuck in the ground to hold the hay above the high tides.

The sun-bleached remains of some of the staddles can still be seen poking above the grass.

Staddles are not the only visible remnant of another era. From Pine Point Road across the marsh to Dunstan Landing, a long wide channel was cut by ship builders, then widened and deepened by the tide. The channel was used to send vessels from a shipyard at Dunstan Landing to sea.

The channel and shipyard were probably built before the American Revolution. They thrived during the Revolution because it the channel was protected from attacking English ships, said Becky Delaware of the Scarborough Historical Society.

"What was good for it during the Revolution made it not appealing after the Revolution because it was secluded," she said.

After losing business to other Casco Bay area shipyards, Dunstan Landing built its last ship around 1855.

The marsh became another conduit of transportation when the Portsmouth, Saco & Portland Railroad laid rails around 1840. The line eventually became the Eastern Division Railroad. Today it is a nature trail used by joggers, walkers and bird-watchers.

When the economy collapsed during the Great Depression, the federal government eyed marshes around New England as a job source.

From Connecticut to Maine, men were sent into marshes to dig drainage ditches in an attempt to rid the marshes of mosquitoes. Some ditches have been plugged and others have been covered by marsh grasses, Winter said.

"Sometimes the only way to find them is to fall in them," she said.

Since the state finished buying up the marsh a parcel at a time in 1980, the marsh has slowly been righting itself, with some help from people. The tides have returned to the upper marsh, rejuvenating the marsh grasses and making a welcome environment for shore and migratory birds.

"People used to think it was a smelly place with mosquitoes," Winter said. "It's so much more important than that."

Staff Writer Ryan Blethen can be contacted at 791-6329 or at: rblethen@pressherald.com

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