The Maritime Museum of Dighton Rock!

By Manuel Luciano da Silva, Medical Doctor

The inscriptions engraved on the face of Dighton Rock were made by sailors who courageously crossed the Atlantic Ocean to get to North American shores.

They came looking for natural food resources and  found  an abundance of  codfish  which is the most complete  food in the world for our health.  They were also looking for building materials which they found in  the giant  pines trees of New England and Canada with huge trunks for the construction of  boats and houses.  For a long time these two sources of energy -- codfish and pine trees -- were the predominant energies until the whale oil took over. But after 1860 petroleum started  to dominate the world and still continues to be the primary source of  energy  for all counties.

The Maritime Museum of  Dighton  Rock was inspired  on the achievements of men of the Sea. Motivated by this goal we selected apropos maritime artifacts, such as the model of the “Nau São Gabriel” of Vasco da Gama, the “Caravel  Victória” of Fernão de Magalhães (Magellan) and even a Portuguese Discovery Landmarker.  These three excellent artifacts are the  best representation of  the Great Period of the  Maritime World Discoveries,  five hundred  years ago.

“Sacred Cod” in this Museum

The  Old Codfish under  the Dome in Boston - House of Representatives

Since March 17th, 1784,  as a gift from State Representative John Rowe  a model of a Codfish hangs  in the Capitol in Boston, “as a memorial to the importance of the  Cod-Fishery to the welfare of the Commonwealth”.  

The People of Massachusetts called the Cod “Sacred Cod” in reverence and homage to  its value as a  magnificent  food product.

The Faithful Friend 

The new Codfish inside of the Dighton Rock Musuem

The Portuguese people call the Codfish “Their Faithful Friend”. Why?

Since 1424   (See “The Nautical Chart of 1424”) the Portuguese  People  have had a fleet named  “Codfish Fleet”  or the “White Fleet” because all their boats were painted in white.

For more than 587 years the Portuguese have come to these waters to catch  their  “Faithful Friend!”

For centuries there was no refrigeration to preserve the codfish. It were the Portuguese who  started using the technique of salting the codfish.

So the salty codfish was always ready to be cooked and be eaten and the Portuguese house wives started calling the codfish their "Faithful Friend" because they could always depend on  the codfish  for a meal.  

To this day the Portuguese celebrate Christmas Eve  with a National Supper of Codfish!  The Portuguese people have  today more than one thousand different delicious ways of cooking codfish! 

Today there are only two institutions  in the world that display replicas of a  codfish.  The House of Representatives in Boston and the Maritime Museum of Dighton Rock State Park, in the Town of Berkley, Massachusetts.

Come see and enjoy with your family and friends this  beautiful Museum. It is free.  Take Route 24, exit 10 and follow the signs to the Museum Parking which is also free.

"From Dighton Rock to the Moon"

It was the title that I wanted to give to my first book in 1956, when I was still a medical student at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, because I felt that the Dighton Rock would be the stepping stone for the Americans  to start the Exploration of the Outer Space in a similar way that the  Portuguese Navigators  did with their World Discoveries in the XV and XVI Centuries.

An American Astronaut on the Moon!