Salty the Seahorse

For drivers heading to Cape Cod, Salty has long been a sign that the Cape is close. This fiberglass seahorse stands at the crossroads of North Street and Route 6 in Mattapoisett, and the Land Trust's operations manager called it "sort of an icon" in 2025.

According to Sippican Week in 2025, the statue dates from the 1950s, when Route 6 was the main road to Cape Cod, and Henry Dunseith commissioned it to draw passing tourists to his gift shop. Seth Mendell of the Mattapoisett Historical Society told The Wanderer that families in traffic would wake children in the back seat to see the seahorse, a sign they were nearly on the Cape. Once the interstate opened, the shop lost business. The Land Trust says it received the property, Dunseith Gardens, in 1988 under Dunseith's will, and describes it as a former gift shop turned into a public park. The old house and shop were later torn down.