Natural Resources

Native peoples, English colonists, and their descendants all took advantage of the shoreline’s abundance, supplementing their diets with fishing, oystering, and coastal clamming. Salt marshes provided feed for livestock, areas for fishing, eeling, and crabbing, and grasses used in making furniture, baskets, and other household items. Farmers carted seaweed to use for insulation, mulch, and fertilizer, and harvested salt marsh peat to dry for fuel. They also relied on the rising and falling of the tides to power the mills that ground their grain.