Barnstable Man Discovers Message in a Bottle Dated 1944 by Prisoner of War
Thanks to a local landscaper’s curiosity, an incredible discovery was made near Point Isabella in Cotuit. When Shane Adams unearthed a glass wine bottle with messages inside, he knew he found something worth sharing.
Barnstable resident Shane Adams was having a typical day on the job when he decided to check out the beach that was by his job site.
“I decided to head down the hill to check out the tide,” he said. “If I’m not working, I’m fishing and I wanted to see if anything was jumping."
As he traveled down the hill to the shore, he spotted something shiny poking out of the ground.
“It looked old, so I pulled it out and it was a glass wine bottle,” he said.
Inside, Adams found messages scribbled on the back of a Quaker Rice Flakes box.
“I saw the date 1944 and (the note) said it was from a POW (prisoner of war),” shared Adams.
Adams is a self-proclaimed history buff and spent a lot of time participating in historical Viking reenactments with the Jumsborg Viking Army. He could have easily kept the bottle, but instead, he called the Historical Society of Santuit and Cotuit, which was thrilled about the discovery.
“From what we can make out, the messages are dated from 1944 and appear to be names of former German POWs from Camp Edwards,” the historical society said.
The society spoke with Joe Yukna of the Cape Cod Military Museum, and he believes it was a time capsule buried in the hill as opposed to a typical message in a bottle floating out at sea.
“We are so thankful that Shane saw the importance of the bottle as a historic artifact,” the society said.
History lives all around us, and if you look closely, you just might find it.