The British ship, Somerset, was wrecked off the northern coast of Truro, almost on the Provincetown line on November 2, 1778. Some of her timbers are still under the sands on Cape Cod National Seashore property while others were removed when the sand was washed away in 1886 and 1973. Who knows when the ocean will shift the sands and once again reveal the “skeleton” of this ship again? The ship played an important role in the American Revolution. The Somerset was involved in the bombardment of Charlestown as well as instrumental in landing British soldiers at Bunker Hill. To this day, there are many facts and myths about this ship and its demise.
The Somerset is immortalized as part of American history since Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described the ship in his famous poem, "Paul Revere’s Ride:"
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British Man-o-War
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar,
Across the moon like a prison bar
A huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
The Somerset met her fate at the Twin Peaks bars. These are a pair of very dangerous sand bars and shoals that caused the ruin of many ships off Truro and Provincetown. Their exact location is constantly shifting with the winds, tides, currents and storms of the North Atlantic.
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