Peddocks is a stone's throw from Hull in Hingham Bay. Oddly, though, the only consistent public ferry service to Peddocks departs from Long Wharf in Boston more than 7 miles away. The trip costs $12 and requires a transfer to the small inter-island shuttle at Georges Island. Last week a special legislative Beaches Commission met at Hull High School and heard ideas for better ferry service from the South Shore. But the service from downtown should be improved as well.
Unfortunately, the water transport companies plying the route now are trapped in a vicious cycle: There aren't enough visitors to the outer islands to sustain frequent ferry service, but the demand will never rise to a profitable level while the service remains so erratic. The island's managers -- the National Park Service and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation -- ought to find a way to enhance public access, at least on weekends.
Peddocks is unique among the Harbor Islands for its collection of about 30 private seasonal homes -- a cluster of sagging wooden cabins in the Middle Hill section and others closer to shore. Most of the primitive houses -- with no electricity and no running water -- were built early in the 1900s by Portuguese fishermen and occupied by their descendants, or sometimes by military personnel stationed at Fort Andrews, which ceased operation in 1957.
In 1970, the state seized the island and turned over its operation to the Metropolitan District Commission, a forerunner of the DCR. In the 1980s, the MDC threatened to evict the residents, many of whom had camped on Peddocks for generations. Some of the island old-timers sold their cottages to the state, which sadly left them to decay. Others were torn down. The DCR even today owns a handful of vacant cabins it is not maintaining properly. An uneasy compromise allows the families to keep their cottages until they revert to the state upon the owner's death.
