The North East Flats - II

30 November 2013

The Susquehanna Flats were famous throughout the late 19th century and through the first half of the 20th as one of the locations for the greatest gatherings of ducks, geese, and other water birds in the world.  Closer to hand at the little town of North East were their own local flats (and at that time the river exited through what was known in my youth as the 'old channel' with extensive flooding marshes on either side).  Today - as above - there are some ducks and geese but the greater flocks are the ubiquitous Sea Gull that spend most of their day at the river but on high tide depart to forage at the great landfill located on Beacon Hill, and the old and new channels are merged into one large man-made body of water with attendant marinas and shore developments that have destroyed forever any vestige of the appealing rural peninsula jutting into the bay.  

Beacon Hill, so named for the ancient signal fires that indigenous Indian tribes fired to pass signals up and down the coast to other 'beacon hills' both north and south, later became a modern 'Beacon Hill with a small tower light to guide the early planes in their flight.  This later was bowdlerized to 'Bacon Hill' with its' own legend of feral pigs etc.