15-Minute Field Trip

I was walking by the  Cape Ann Museum when I realized it wouldn't be closing for another 15 minutes, so I ducked in for a quick visit with one of my favorites. 

Sea serpent billet head from the schooner Diadem, built in Essex, 1855.

I learned today that, in 1817, more than 50 people in Gloucester, many of them "prominent members of the community," reported seeing a serpent in the sea off Pavilion Beach. The entire incident was written up in a pamphlet published that year by the Linnaean Society. read it here 

Love those 15-minute field trips!