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Boston Harbor is a natural harbor located adjacent ot the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeast.
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History
Since its discovery by European Settlers in the 1630s, Boston Harbor has been an important port in American history. It was the site of the Boston Tea Party as well as almost continuous backfilling of the harbor until the 1800s. More recently, the harbor was the site of a massive cleanup in the 1960s that was the focus of one of the first harbor cleanups in the nation. The water was so polluted that The Standells made a song called Dirty Water. Since the the writing of the song, the harbor quality has significantly improved and the harbor is now clean enough to swim in on occasion.citation needed
Geography
Boston Harbor is a large harbor which constitutes the western extremity of Massachusetts Bay. The harbor is sheltered from Massachusetts Bay and the open Atlantic Ocean by a combination of the Winthrop Peninsula and Deer Island to the north, the hooked Nantasket Peninsula and Point Allerton to the south, and the harbor islands in the middle. The harbor is often described as being split into an inner harbor and an outer harbor.123
Outer harbor
The outer harbor stretches to the south and east of the inner harbor. To its landward side, and moving in an anti-clockwise direction, the harbor is made up of the three large bays of Dorchester Bay, Quincy Bay and Hingham Bay. To seaward, the two deep water anchorages of President Roads and Nantasket Roads are separated by Long Island. The outer harbor is fed by several rivers, including the Neponset River, the Weymouth Fore River, the Weymouth Back River and the Weir River.123
Dredged deep water channels stretch from President Roads to the inner harbor, and from Nantasket Roads to the Weymouth Fore River. Some commercial port facilities are located in the Fore River area, an area which has a history of shipbuilding including the notable Fore River Shipyard.123
Harbor islands
Boston Harbor contains a considerable number of islands, most of which are part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The following islands exist within the harbor:
- Bumpkin Island, Button Island
- Castle Island
- Calf Island
- Gallops Island, Georges Island, Grape Island, Great Brewster Island, Green Island
- Hangman Island
- Langlee Island, Little Brewster Island, Little Calf Island, Long Island, Lovells Island
- Middle Brewster Island
- Moon Island, Nixes Mate
- Outer Brewster Island
- Peddocks Island
- Raccoon Island, Ragged Island, Rainsford Island
- Sarah Island, Shag Rocks, Sheep Island, Slate Island, Snake Island, Spectacle Island, Spinnaker Island
- The Graves, Thompson Island
Two former islands, Castle Island and Deer Island, still exist in a recognizable form. Castle Island was joined to the mainland by land reclamation, whilst Deer Island ceased to be an island when the channel which formerly separated it from the mainland was filled in by a hurricane in 1938.
Two other former islands, Apple Island and Governors Island, have been subsumed into land reclamation for Logan International Airport.
- Further information: List of rivers in Massachusetts
See also
References
- ^ a b c "Boston". GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved on October 12, 2006.
- ^ a b c "Through the Eyes of a Mariner: Touring the Port of Boston". Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management. Retrieved on October 12, 2006.
- ^ a b c "Boston Harbor and Approaches." Coast Pilot 1 - 35th Edition, 2005. NOAA Office of Coast Survey. 35th Edition. May 15, 2005.
External links
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 5 November 2008, at 18:07.
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