Gehrels (1999) employed two different methods to reconstruct a 6000-year sea-level history for Machiasport, Maine, USA.  The first method established the mean trend over the entire period by dating the base of the local saltmarsh peat that overlies a Pleistocene substrate, while the second method relied upon detailed analyses of the foraminiferal stratigraphy of two saltmarsh peat cores to quantify fluctuations superimposed on the long-term trend.

For the first 4500 years of the record, the mean rate of sea-level rise was determined to be 0.75 mm/yr; while for the final 1500 years, it averaged only 0.43 mm/yr.  Over the last 300 years, however, the mean rate-of-rise rose to a value of 1.67 mm/yr; and since 1930 it has averaged 2.2 mm/yr, as measured by a local tide gauge.

Much like what we are being told relative to surface air temperature change, Gehrels notes that the high rate of rise of the sea level since 1930 "is unprecedented in the past two millennia."  However, he tempers the implications of this statement by adding that "the rapid rise has been ongoing since before industrial times and must therefore contain a natural component."

Two thoughts come to mind with respect to these observations.  First, the 1930-present tide gauge readings may be erroneously yielding a rate of sea-level rise that is much too great, as is implied by Ekman (1999), who openly states that "values of present secular sea level rise approaching 2 mm/yr, suggested by some authors, are unlikely."  Second, since the "unprecedented" rate of sea-level rise began "before industrial times," most of it must be of natural or non-anthropogenic origin.

On the other side of the continent, Jordan and Mason (1999) determined long-term sea-level changes along a 140-km stretch of the southern Chukchi Sea in northwest Alaska from analyses of interbedded sequences of marsh peat and coastal flood deposits at 23 radiocarbon-dated sites on barrier islands and estuaries.  Their work indicated that mean sea-level rose only 0.28 mm/yr over the last 5000 years.

In a follow-up study, Mason and Jordan (2002) analyzed numerous depositional environments along the tectonically stable, unglaciated eastern Chuckchi Sea coast that stretches across northwest Alaska, deriving a 6000-year record of sea level change, while simultaneously learning some interesting things about the correlation between storminess and climate in that part of the world.  Their reconstructed sea level history was suggestive of a modest mean rate of sea level rise on the order of 0.25 mm/yr over the past 6000 years, which was interspersed with several periods of more rapid fluctuations of a decadal or centennial nature.  They also learned that "in the Chukchi Sea, storm frequency is correlated with colder rather than warmer climatic conditions."  Hence, they report that their data "do not therefore support predictions of more frequent or intense coastal storms associated with atmospheric warming for this region."

The story these data tell is pretty much the same as that coming out of Europe: modest long-term sea level rise with shorter periods of both greater and lesser rates of rise, along with evidence that suggests a decrease in storminess in response to warming.

References
Ekman, M.  1999.  Climate changes detected through the world's longest sea level series.  Global and Planetary Change 21: 215-224.

Gehrels, W.R.  1999.  Middle and late Holocene sea-level changes in eastern Maine reconstructed from foraminiferal saltmarsh stratigraphy and AMS ¹⁴C dates on basal peat.  Quaternary Research 52: 350-359.

Jordan, J.W. and Mason, O.K.  1999.  A 5000 year record of intertidal peat stratigraphy and sea level change from northwest Alaska.  Quaternary International 60: 37-47.

Mason, O.W. and Jordan, J.W.  2002.  Minimal late Holocene sea level rise in the Chukchi Sea: Arctic insensitivity to global change?  Global and Planetary Changes 32: 13-23.