A sea of change is creeping up on our community like a high run tide that leaves the dark line of driftwood and kelp farther up the shoreline than ever before.

It’s something you don’t notice at first, the tide so full you find yourself walking level along the ramp to the town float rather than down the slippery slope. It doesn’t register at first glimpse that the water is lapping the beach stones, out of which wild roses grow, and reaching with each wave higher toward the road bank itself.

The change has been so gradual, in fact, that it’s easy to forget where the mean watermark is, where the normal row of seaweed rests after the tide recedes.

Perhaps it’s even easy to forget what the town used to look like with its saltbox homes, its fish houses lining the coves, its various stores, inns and steamboat wharf. Except for old photographs, all that remains of some of those old structures are faint outlines of cellar foundations or retaining walls of old roads.

There are several of the older – mid- to late 1800s – houses still perched on hillsides throughout the town, twin chimneys poking through rooftops, or one-story ells that once were used as summer kitchens, jutting out from one side or the other.

But many – far too many – of the original buildings that hugged the roadways and dotted the landscape of our com-

munity are gone. Most were lost to fire, but in recent years, others have fallen victim to new owners who have razed them without turning for a backward glance.

Only the old-timers in town have sadly stood and watched as wrecking machines reduced the familiar structures to piles of splintered wood. They watched as new buildings rose out of the footprints, and they shook their heads. What a shame, they said, the old place couldn’t be saved.

What changes, they lamented, to the character of the community.

John, Viscount Morley of Blackburn never saw our town. But he could have been describing it in 1881 when he wrote this:

“Great economic and social forces flow with a tidal sweep over communities that are only half conscious of that which is befalling them. Wise statesmen are those who foresee what time is thus bringing, and endeavor to shape institutions and to mold men’s thought and purpose in accordance with the change that is silently surrounding them.”

Actually, Morley could have repeated those words this very week when another historical building is destined for demolition. Its doors have been stripped away and its windowpanes carefully removed.

Empty and open to the wind and snow, the old house waits. Its peaks resemble raised eyebrows as if in disbelief over its fate.