Notes from an Environmentalist
Choate Island, In a Pig's Eye
Proctor Barn, Choate Island
Don Paquin, “Mr Fix It” Regales visitors about Choate Island. 2018
Choate Island
In A Pig’s Eye
September 28, 2024
I just finished a wonderful memoir about growing up on Choate Island. It was particularly poignant to me because I grew up in a similar situation.
Like the Choates, I spent long sun-drenched days exploring the creeks, marshes and sand flats of Cape Cod’s Pleasant Bay.
But I do have a very minor quibble. I grew up looking down the bay at Hog Island and the Choates had a Hog Island, a Bull Island, and a Corn Island.
Most colonial New England towns had similar common islands; Corn Island where you could grow corn, Deer Island where you could hunt deer, and Hog Island where you would fatten your pigs on common acorns.
Choate family lore has it that their island was named Hog Island because the island’s glacially sculptured shape looked like the back of a pig.
My question is, what was going on Hog Island from 1638 to 1667 before the Choates’ owned the island and it was considered common land. We know that during this time Ipswich, then Chebacco, farmers were driving their cattle to the Great Neck and Little Neck common lands.
Far be it for me to go against 357 years of Choate family lore, but isn’t it just possible that Hog Island was named Hog Island because that was where you could fatten your hogs, not because the island looked like the back of a pig?
As much as I’m drawn to the logic and picturesquely illegible handwriting of the famous Whig Senator Rufus Choate, I find Hog Island a more romantic reminder of a simpler more agrarian time than its present moniker.
Despite my minor quibble this is a wonderful book evocative of the rugged and carefree life on the island. It is noteworthy that the book never mentions greenheads, not because the vicious Tabanids weren’t present, but because the Choates were made of tougher stuff than us modern visitors.
We remain grateful that the Choates, the Cranes and the Trustees had the foresight to preserve this island for the future.
So read “Downriver, A Choate Island Memoir” and celebrate Choate Island Day.