The Bartholomew Gosnold Monument is not an easy place to visit. Bike through swamp and thick woods. Hike along very rocky beach Then swim through a marsh. Climb up on Gosnold Island. And there it is. Gosnold discover the island of Cuttyhunk in 1602 and then went on to visit Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and eventually up to Maine. Many historians say that when he landed on Cuttyhunk he was the first European to build a house in New England. Also had the first settlement, but that lasted only a few weeks. Like Adrien Block, not much is really known about Gosnold but but all accounts he was an extremely eccentric, bizarre, but adventurous individual. 1902 marked the three hundredth anniversary of his landing so some nice, but obviously loony folks on the island decided to build him a monument. It’s just a rough stoned tower about seventy feet high with a few windows and door. It was sealed long ago and you can no longer enter it. The question is, why did they decide to built the monument on an island, in a swamp, in the most inaccessible part of Cuttyhunk where no one can get to it? I have heard various stories. One local guy told me it was because the spot was a sacred and haunted spot for the local Wampanoags. Maybe. Another story I heard was that the monument was actually much higher but sunk into the ground. Unlikely. And yet another story I got was that this god forsaken spot was the conjectured location of Gosnold’s first house or fort. That one sounds like it might be true. To visit the monument you have to first get out to the island of Cuttyhunk. Then mountain bike through miles of small, steep trails. Then hike along a very rocky beach. And lastly swim the finally hundred yards through a marsh, climb up a small hill filled with poison ivy, thorns and infested with ticks, and there it is. You then get to see what is basically a pile of stones. Is the effort worth it? Definitely.
