THE EVOLUTION OF MAGAZINE BEACH AND THE CHARLES RIVER BASIN AS A RESULT OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES

The Charles River estuary in Massachusetts has undergone major modifications throughout the period since the first English settlement in Boston in 1630. In addition to extensive land making, the river was also dammed in 1910, transforming a wide tidal basin into a freshwater reservoir. Much of the human-made land has been heavily settled and therefore has limited potential for preservation and study of the pre-colonial landscape and colonial-era structures.

Magazine Beach is a public park on the bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At the center of the park is a former gunpowder magazine built just after the War of 1812 and used until after the Civil War, but is currently in need of repair. There are no other buildings in the park today, but 19th century maps show additional buildings as well as a wall surrounding the magazine, and a wharf on the riverbank. There is also some evidence that a small earthen cannon position may have been located on the island during the first year of the American Revolution, although the location is uncertain.

A ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey was carried out in the park in April 2012 to determine the profile and extent of the salt marsh landscape as it was before European colonization, as well as to locate remnants of any historical structures which may have once stood on the island. In addition, a detailed GIS analysis of the Charles River basin and its surroundings has been carried out in order to study the anthropogenic changes which have transformed the former estuary into the highly urbanized river environment it is today.

Preliminary results indicate that approximately 4.5 square kilometers of salt marsh upstream of the original 1910 Charles River dam have been destroyed by human action since 1847. In addition to more quantitative data, the output of this project will include detailed 2D digitized maps of the area as it was in 1630 and 1847, and as it is today, as well as 3D renderings of the maps to better visualize the landscape changes. These large scale changes will then be examined in closer detail using the GPR data from the Magazine Beach survey. In addition to the possibility of discovering the locations of historical structures within the park, this study may produce a better understanding of the human activities that shaped the park and the Charles River basin as a whole.