Billingsgate Island, also sometimes known as Bellingsgate Island, was an island off Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

 in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 in the United States. Originally settled as a fishing and whaling community as part of the town of Wellfleet, Massachusetts

Wellfleet, Massachusetts

Wellfleet is a New England town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. Located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the town had a population of 2,749 at the 2000 census, which swells nearly sixfold during the summer...

, Billingsgate Island was for a long time the site of a lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

 used as a navigational aid in Cape Cod Bay

Cape Cod Bay

Cape Cod Bay is a large bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Measuring below a line drawn from Brant Rock in Marshfield to Race Point in Provincetown, Massachusetts, it is enclosed by Cape Cod to the south and east, and Plymouth County, Massachusetts, to the west....

. It is sometimes known by local historians as the Atlantis

Atlantis

Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....

 of Cape Cod.

The area, which is just south of Great Island at the mouth of Wellfleet Harbor, is now known as Billingsgate Shoal and is visible from mainland Wellfleet at Jeremy Point at low tide. When exposed it is used as a picnic and shellfishing spot; access is by boat. The shoal is frequented by birds, seals, and anglers.

History

Early European settlers found an abundance of fish in Wellfleet Harbor. They named the area around the harbor Billingsgate after the Billingsgate Fish Market

Billingsgate Fish Market

Situated in East London, Billingsgate Fish Market is the United Kingdom's largest inland fish market. It takes its name from Billingsgate, a ward in the south-east of the City of London, where the riverside market was originally established...

 in London. At that time (the 17th century), Billingsgate Island covered an area of 60 acres (242,811.6 m²).

The Punonakanit people, members of the Wampanoag Federation, lived in the area and coexisted peacefully with European settlers. Their population greatly reduced by smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

, the Punonakanits seem to have died out in the 19th century.

At its height in the early 19th century there were over thirty homes on Billingsgate Island; later it even had its own baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 team. The first lighthouse was built in 1822. After an 1855 storm divided the island in half, a second lighthouse was built on higher ground in 1858. The new structure was made of brick with a granite foundation; the foundation stones and a scattering of bricks can still be found on the shoal.

The island continued to erode away despite the addition of a sea wall in 1888 to protect the lighthouse. Early in the 20th century the last families moved off Billingsgate, leaving only the lighthouse keeper and a man who guarded the shellfish beds. Many of the houses on the island were floated across the harbor to Wellfleet on rafts to prevent their loss. The 1858 lighthouse was abandoned in 1915 and destroyed by a storm in December of the same year. The last light tower was torn down in 1922.

By the late 1930s or early '40s the island had been torn apart by coastal erosion

Coastal erosion

Coastal erosion is the wearing away of land and the removal of beach or dune sediments by wave action, tidal currents, wave currents, or drainage...

. What remains is a sand bar exposed at low tide and littered with large granite blocks, a few bricks, and many shells.

In popular culture

In Billingsgate Shoal (1982), a suspense novel by Rick Boyer

Rick Boyer

Richard Lewis Boyer is an American writer, best known for series of crime novels featuring Charlie "Doc" Adams, a dental surgeon in New England. His novel Billingsgate Shoal received the Edgar Award for best novel in 1983....

, a fishing boat runs aground at Billingsgate and a diver sent to investigate dies mysteriously. Billingsgate Shoal is the first book in Boyer's Doc Adams series; it won an Edgar Award

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 in 1983.

The Disappearing Island (2000), a children's book by Corinne Demas

Corinne Demas

Corinne Demas is the author of three novels, two collections of short stories, a collection of poetry, a memoir, a play, and numerous books for children. She's published more than forty short stories, in a variety of magazines and literary journals...

, describes a visit to Billingsgate at low tide by a little girl and her grandmother.

A number of historical characters in the novel Cape Cod (1991) by William Martin

William Martin (novelist)

William Martin is an American author of historical novels, native of Boston, MA.- Biography :William Martin grew up in West Roxbury and Roslindale, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1972 where he majored in English...

lived on Billingsgate during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

External links

• The Island That Sometimes Is @ outdooreyes.com -- a visit to Billingsgate Shoal by two kayakers
• Short history and directions to the area
• A photo essay of Billingsgate at low tide
• History of Billingsgate Light
• National Park Service pamphlet describing the history and features of Great Island, the peninsula north of Billingsgate
• A complete history of Billingsgate