In 1955, Ed Conathan made the decision of a lifetime. After serving on a supply ship in the Pacific during World War II, he had returned home to the South Shore, took a job with Regal Shoe Company in Whitman, got married, and started a family. By 1955, he and his wife Helen had six children; the oldest 11, the youngest just one.
Ed aspired to have a beach cottage, one his children could enjoy, just as he had enjoyed a family cottage on the Cape as a child. When he learned that the Town of Plymouth was auctioning off small lots on Saquish taken for non-payment of taxes, Ed bought one for the munificent sum of $50. With the help of a Hanover neighbor who was a carpenter, he constructed a simple cottage, one of the earlier dwellings on Saquish. It’s still owned and used by his descendants.
A few months ago, shortly after moving to Plymouth, I became fascinated by Saquish when I spotted it on a map. A geographic anomaly, it’s separated from the rest of Plymouth. By land, you must drive through Kingston and Duxbury to reach it at the southern tip of the Duxbury Beach peninsula.
Readers of this column may recall that my effort in February to drive out to Saquish was thwarted by a Duxbury Beach Ranger. Saquish is the private property of the landowners. In summer, a manned gate assures the curious tourist can’t pay an impromptu visit. You need an invitation or an escort.
Thanks to Barabara Chandler, a reader and Pinehills neighbor, I was introduced to Peter Conathan, an attorney who lives in Sandwich and is one of Ed Conathan’s four sons. On a beautiful mid-May evening, Peter, his wife Carol, Barbara and I paid a visit to the Conathan cottage.
After my previous aborted attempt to reach Saquish, I’d been told such a trip in a small sports car – which I was going to attempt before being stopped – was ill-advised. Sandy, deeply rutted roads made it essential to go in an all-wheel drive vehicle such as Peter’s 4×4 Toyota Tacoma pick-up. While most of the roads – a warren of sand pathways no wider than a car – that criss-cross Saquish, would indeed be a trap for an ordinary car, the main road down the length of the peninsula, while unpaved and rough, is passable.
It took 50 minutes to reach the Duxbury-Plymouth line from the Pinehills. There’s no “Welcome to Plymouth” sign, just a small stone marker, about three feet high, obscured by brush, to mark the spot where you re-enter Plymouth. I’d never have noticed it unless Peter had pointed it out. He said tradition requires that Duxbury and Plymouth select board members meet at the marker every year to verify the boundary between. I wondered: is that a legend or is it true?
The next day I stopped by Plymouth Town Hall to try and find out. As luck would have it, I ran into Select Board Chair Dick Quintal in the elevator. He told me in his 20 years on the Board he’s never attended such a meeting, nor has he heard of one. “But that doesn’t mean it’s never happened,” he added.
Just before you reach Saquish, the road rises a bit to a cluster of handsome homes on the drumlin known as the Gurnet, the location of Plymouth Light (also known as Gurnet Light), before dropping back to nearly sea level. A short distance past The Gurnet is Saquish, an island back in the 1600s when the boundaries of Plymouth were established, but now, thanks to time and tides, connected to the mainland.
The cottages here are decidedly modest, and because there are no public utilities, homeowners must improvise. Solar panels provide electricity to the Conathan cottage, and a well supplies water.
There isn’t a retail outlet of any kind on Saquish or the Gurnet. You can’t buy an ice cream cone, a T-shirt, or a postage stamp. But what Saquish does offer is a trip back in time, simplicity, and solitude.
When Peter Conathan was a boy, the shoe business in New England was ailing, so his father took a job in Missouri for a couple of years before returning to Massachusetts. Still, Saquish was where they spent summers.
“In June, my parents, the six kids, and our golden retriever, would pile into a 1957 Ford Country Squire and we’d drive from Missouri to Hanover where my Dad kept a Willys Jeep,” Peter told me. Willys-Overland Motors was an American car company that made the classic military Jeep used during World War II, as well as a civilian version. “Then we’d all cram into the Jeep for the drive out to Saquish. It wasn’t really safe.”
His father would stay for a couple of weeks before returning to work. His wife and the kids spent all summer on Saquish. The four boys shared a tiny bedroom with two pair of bunkbeds, the girls had a bedroom, and all shared a small bathroom with no bath or shower. They bathed in the ocean.
“There were other kids around and we just spent days on the beach or walking up to the creek where the water was warmer,” Peter recalls. “We all became good friends and spent time at each other’s houses.”
When they needed groceries, Helen would drive the Jeep into Duxbury while the kids enjoyed unfettered freedom.
Just before sunset, we walked the surprisingly expansive beach on the bay side which offers sweeping view of the Gurnet and, to the south, Manomet Point. For about 70 years, this utterly unpretentious place has been a haven for Peter, his siblings, and their families. But time brings change. Sea level rise is evident and anyone undertaking a major renovation of a home now must raise it on piers. The natural accretion and erosion along the shoreline continually reshape the beach.
Few cottages are ever sold on Saquish; they tend to stay within the families that built them. the only amenities and frills are those provided by nature: sunrises over the bay, sunsets behind Plymouth Harbor, bird songs, the lapping of water against the shore and, in summer, the shrieks and laughter of children at play on the beach. Saquish: so close, yet so far away.
Peter Zheutlin – a freelance journalist who has written frequently for The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications – brings the perspective of a Plymouth newcomer to the Independent. He is the author or co-author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller “Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs, and a Million Miles on the Last Hope Highway.” Zheutlin can be reached at pzheutlin@gmail.com.