Green Jacket Shoal

Green Jacket Shoal is a shoal and ship graveyard in Providence River, between the cities of East Providence and Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It contains a large amount of debris from a century of abandoned and wrecked ships, destroyed docks, pilings, and other remnants of the area's industrial past. India Point, on the Providence side, was the city's first port, which remained active from 1680 until the Great Depression in the early 20th century. Bold Point, on the East Providence side, was home to a dry dock and other maritime businesses.

India Point and Bold Point were later turned into parks. Due to the dangers posed by the debris, as well as the changing character of the cities and increased public recreational use of the parks, a cleanup effort began in 2015 with federal, state, and non-governmental funding. An analysis of the shoal conducted before a cleanup found it to be Rhode Island's largest ship graveyard, with 29 separate vessels having accumulated over the years. The discovery has led marine archaeologists to call for the area's protection as a cultural heritage site.

Geography

Green Jacket Shoal is a 33-acre area of the Providence River in Providence Harbor. It sits between the Fox Point neighborhood of Providence on the north and northwest and the Riverside section of East Providence to the east and southeast. The Seekonk River, a tidal extension of the Providence River, continues to the northeast, and is flanked by India Point on the north side and Bold Point on the south side.

History

Green Jacket Shoal has been an important part of the Providence waterfront since the city's first port was established in 1680 at India Point. India Point, on the Providence side, was a busy and prosperous waterfront area, taking its name from its trade connections with the East and West Indies. Its success was in part due to the large trading businesses of John Brown and his partner, John Francis, who set up in Providence in 1787. Brown, the namesake of Brown University, was active in the slave trade. He, his brother, his sons, and others in his family line brought slave ships to Providence as part of the Atlantic triangle trade. In the late 1800s, the steamships that regularly came through the shoal to India Point carried immigrants to Rhode Island from Ireland, Cape Verde, the Azores, and Portugal.

Bold Point, on the East Providence side of the shoal, was home to maritime businesses including Providence Dry Dock and Marine Railway Co., which operated two patent slips and the first floating dry dock in Narragansett Bay, used to repair and maintain ships. According to ''The Providence Journal'', from 1884 to 1919, it "was the main ship repair facility in Providence. Green Jacket Shoal was its parking lot."

Green Jacket Shoal takes its name from the thick, green eelgrass