Back barrier coastal lakes can preserve overwash events associated with major storms and hurricanes as distinctive sandy layers between organic mud deposits. Oyster Pond, which is situated on the southern coastline of New England, has a high sedimentation rate and is sensitive to storm surge inundation and has therefore preserved many overwash events.

This paper will present the high resolution results of a study investigating the major storms and hurricanes preserved as overwash layers during the last millennium, based on radiometric dating (optical, radiocarbon, cesium and lead), pollen concentrations and grain size analysis of two sediment cores. There is good agreement for the major hurricanes from the 19^th and 20^th Centuries between the cores and the historical record. However, the Great Colonial Hurricane (AD 1635), which has been interpreted as a major hurricane from historical records, is not clearly present in this record even though this site is very sensitive to washover. Furthermore, this hurricane has been found in many other sites along the southern New England coastline. This paper will address the possible reasons for this discrepancy between records.