Deep-water Anchorages near the Head of Tide, Salmon Falls River, 1600s and 1700s

The early English ships came about ten miles up the Piscataqua/Salmon Falls Rivers to the present location of the Hamilton House in South Berwick.  Deep-water anchorages there fostered a profitable ship building industry.

 

This point of land eventually became known as the Lower Landing or Pipe Stave Landing. Sailors dubbed the anchorage to the west of the landing “Deep Hole.” Just a bit upstream, just off the Rollinsford, New Hampshire, shore, was another anchorage, called Hobbs’ Hole.