The Frog Marks the Spot!

A Mystery Man

Though a Pirate he be

Loved his Ship and the Stormy Sea

All was lost on the Bounding Main

Where the Frog Rock looks Across to Spain.

The Happy Hollisters believe this inscription on a tombstone near Sea Gull Beach is the final clue in their hunt to find the long-lost treasure that sank with the pirate ship, Mystery. [Chapter 14] Young readers have wondered for many years whether the Happy Hollisters adventures were based on true stories, and if so, where did Andrew Svenson get the idea for a frog-shaped rock marking the way to a treasure? Based on clues left behind in his family photos and letters, we’ve finally pieced together a plausible explanation!

In the summer of 1950, Walt Disney Pictures released its first fully live action movie, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 classic, Treasure Island. The movie starred Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins and Robert Newton as Long John Silver. Newton’s distinctive portrayal of Silver popularized the pirate patois and buccaneer bravado that has become traditional for on-screen pirates into the 21^st century.

Andrew Svenson’s four older children would have seen Treasure Island at the Royal Theater near their home in Bloomfield, New Jersey. His adventurous pre-teen boys, Andy Jr. and Eric, were the prime age to dream of swashbuckling and searching for treasure like Jim Hawkins. How excited all the children must have been when their father announced that their 1952 summer vacation would take them to Wellfleet, Cape Cod!

Mr. Hollister tells his children, as they set out from Shoreham, that the drive to Sea Gull Beach will take about “a day and a half.” [Chapter 4] Assuming that fictional Shoreham was located near Bloomfield or somewhere in neighboring Pennsylvania, a pre-interstate-highway drive to Massachusetts could easily have taken that long. Roundabout lunchtime, as they meandered down Route 44 in eastern Connecticut, the Svensons might have stopped for a picnic lunch in Eastford—at the popular Frog Rock Rest Area.

This scenic stop marked by a huge glacial boulder has been a roadside attraction since it was first painted to look like a frog by state legislator Thomas J. Thurber in 1881! It is easy to see how Svenson might have used a bit of creative license to move this quirky landmark 150 miles to the east to become Frog Rock of Sea Gull Beach! [Chapter 16]

Once they arrived at Wellfleet on Cape Cod, the Svenson children enjoyed exploring the seashore and climbing the sandy dunes. Mr. Svenson later wrote to a friend that his sons spent many hours on the waterfront that summer, listening to the “old codgers” spinning yarns about their younger days as oystermen and fishermen.

Through those old codgers, Andy Jr. and Eric may have heard talk of the sinking of the Whydah Gally and the bits of treasure that gradually washed ashore over the years. The Whydah Gally was originally a slave ship, recommissioned as a pirate ship by Captain Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. The pirate flagship, loaded with loot pillaged from other ships, was claimed by the Atlantic Ocean during a violent storm off the Cape in 1717.

In The Happy Hollisters at Sea Gull Beach, a kindly old treasure hunter named Scowbanger shows the children some of the artifacts he has found washed up on the coast. He tells them, “I let the sea work for me. When she’s ready to give up her treasures, she’ll do it, but not a second before.” [Chapter 7] The Svenson children, like their namesakes, the Hollisters, spent sunny days that summer sifting through the sandy dunes with their little shovels, hoping to find some small trinkets the sea has given up.