Norman's Woe is a rock reef on Cape Ann in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about 500 feet offshore.
It has been the site of a number of ship wrecks including the Rebecca Ann in March, 1823 during a snowstorm. Another was the wreck of the schooner Favorite out of Wiscasset, Maine, in December 1839.
It is the subject of an 1872 painting Off Norman's Woe, by Edward Moran.[1]
In fiction, it is the site of "The Wreck of the Hesperus", a narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.[2]
Its maximum elevation is 23abbr=offNaNabbr=off, but at high tide much of the reef is awash and so is concealed. This may have contributed to the number of wrecks at the site. A bell buoy is placed about 1000 feet ESE of the rock.