A Short Summary of Heron Island History

By Pete Signell, 2007

Native Americans left plenty of evidence of their pre-colonial visits on other islands, but no such evidence has been found on Heron. If they gave Heron a name it has been lost.

The name "Heron Island" labels the island in a pre-revolutionary British map of 1772 and that map accurately shows the island and all of the navigational hazards around it.

One Boothbay man had already, in 1770, received money from another Boothbay man for the presumed purchase of "Hearne Island," although there is no record of the first man having acquired the island. Then 81 years later, in 1872, a Bristol real-estate agent, with no recorded title to the island, received money from another man for its purchase. At this point the state of Maine stepped in and declared itself to still be the true owner. It put the island up for sale and on April 26, 1884, the state's Land Agent sold it to Boston entrepreneur James Dockray, who had apparently summered in Christmas Cove.

Just prior to James Dockray's purchase, the island had no sheep and was apparently uninhabited but was occasionally visited by Christmas Cove people. The North end of the island was only bushes and stumps but the main part was heavily forested. There was a spring in the little ravine where there is now the well belonging to the Stevenson Red House. There were barely discernable remains of some kind of shelter near the site of the present Bennett Cottage.

Nine months after Dockray bought the island he sold a half share to Richard Nicols of Boston and the other half share to Lewis Perrin of Brookline, who was apparently another Christmas Cove summerer. A year and three months later Nicols sold his half to Perrin who, on the same date, transferred the whole island, including "the building now on said island" (now part of the Bennett Cottage) back to Dockray for a loan of money. Apparently Perrin and Dockray stayed in the building together.

Two months later, on May 14, ten people from the Boston area and two from Greenfield (with one representing nine others) met in Bowdoin Parker's Boston office and decided to form a stock company called The New England Land Company to purchase and develop Inner Heron Island. Two Trustees would hold title to the property and sell lots by a bid process following decisions of a Board of Directors. The Trustees were named as Louis Perrin of Boston and Francis M. Thompson of Greenfield. The next day Perrin sold the island to Bowdoin Parker, who had been elected Treasurer and Secretary of the new Company. Three days later, on May 18, repayment of Dockray's loan to Perrin was certified in Wiscasset (legalizing Perrin's sale to Parker) and the same day Parker sold the island to the two Company Trustees.

Louis Perrin represented the Company on the Island and over the next three months supervised, according to Bowdoin Parker, "building a road through the centre of the Island, North and South, with a nice path all around the outer edge and several cross paths; the digging of two good wells; the building of a substantial wharf; removing stones from the beach and from other places, grading, etc. The new Club House, with 20 rooms was substantially finished, and furnished with all improvements suited to the purposes intended." The Club House was built by Jeff L. Coburn & Co with a cost overrun.

Parker says that at the formal opening of the Club House on Saturday evening, August 14, 1886, there were "a large number of visitors and guests from Christmas Cove, Boothbay, Squirrel and Mouse Islands. The principle festivities ... consisted of music, dancing, games, fire works, bond fires, illuminations, and refreshments. The Club House was tastefully trimmed and decorated by the ladies. The house was filled with members as permanent guests of the house and the fullest success and enjoyment attended the opening."

Two days after the gala opening of the Club House, at a Special Meeting of the Stockholders in the Club House, "on motion of Eben A. Hall it was voted that the name of the new Club House be, "Modockawando Lodge." At the end of the meeting, "Great satisfaction was expressed by the several stockholders, at the improvements made upon the Island and gratification at the elegant, convenient and commodious Club House." A Mr. W.H. Brewer was hired to spend the winter on the Island as "the Steward" and Louis Perrin was contracted for "stoning up and curbing the new well near the wharf."

The Thompsons moved over to the Modockawando Lodge from Christmas Cove and Thompson was appointed to supervise operations, including the Lodge, as well as to supervise surveyor C.A. Corliss who had been hired to map the island and lay out a plan of streets and lots during the summer and fall. On Jan. 22, 1887, the Directors, hence the Company, officially adopted what might be called "Corliss Plan #1" with 252 lots. The only lot shown North of "A" St. (the present East-West path in front of the Gunn Cottage) was #252, the Alpha lot (the rest was marked "Reservation," "Snow Reservation" and "Store Lot"). Parker reports that "It (was) the sense of those present (at the meeting) that the evaluation (of the individual lots by Mr. Corliss) was very unequal!" The Directors also decided that deeds will be restricted so that "the general public shall have free access to and from the street and shore at all points, and at all times."

On May 11 the Directors "voted that the Company convey to the Syndicate who are to build the 'Annex' to the clubhouse ... lot No. 254 in consideration of one dollar."

That summer, 1887, the first four cottages were erected by Jeff Coburn & Co. for the Thompsons, Gunns, Halls, and Snows (present-day Alpha, Gunn, Barnacle, and Igloo) and the Thompsons immediately moved into their Alpha and the Snows into their cottage. The Modockawando Lodge became a Hotel and had a succession of lessee/managers. It was mortgaged in the early years to Esther Gunn and then to George Rogers and Levi Gunn. Land was sold to individuals and cottages were built. Nearly all of the people were from Thompson's Greenfield; Perrin, from Boston, dropped out.

Payment of bills required the company to continually borrow money from various people, add and sell stock, etc. By 1888 bill payments had become so troublesome for the Company that it offered to sell all its assets on Heron Island to any person or corporation that would pay its debts. No one took them up on this so in 1892 at a Special Company Meeting "On motion of Mr. Thompson it was unanimously voted that the Directors & Trustees be instructed to make conveyance for a nominal sum of all the property and interest (of the New England Land Co.) ... to The Heron Island Company" and that "when the conveyance is completed, the New England Land Company is dissolved without further action." Thompson and Hall, as the New England Land Company's current trustees, carried out those instructions. The new Heron Island Company had thirteen stockholders that included Thompson, Hall, Levi Gunn, Francis N. Thompson (Francis M.'s son), George Rogers, Franklin Snow, and Walter Snow (Franklin's son). Thompson was apparently the driving force behind the new company. On Oct. 28, 1892, the new company adopted what might be called "Corliss Plan #2" with 10 new lots that divided up the North area Reservations, with the Company retaining the roads, the wharf, the Hotel and Annex property, and the present-day Shop property. The former "Store Lot" land, with its Gamage-run store, had been deeded over to the Bennetts.

More property was sold to individuals, mainly family and friends. More cottages were erected, and many cottages changed hands. Coastal steamships brought owners, guests, supplies, and mail to the island twice daily.

In 1901 Levi J. Gunn offered the cash-starved Company, to which he was forever lending money, $200 if they would get the Annex out of the view North from his porch for a period of ten years. The Directors considered moving the Annex to the West of the hotel "with its present East side facing South" but in the end took no action.

The Hotel had a number of different managers/lessees. Then, in 1917, with the Hotel under new management, a fire started in the Hotel kitchen and the Hotel and its Annex burned to the ground. The horse and two cows left and did not return. Coastal steamships stopped coming to the island, although Damariscotta River ones continued for awhile. The wood lanes of the bowling alley moved uphill to become the Hill House floor.

A cottage owners' association, The Heron Island Village Improvement Society, was formed to be a more democratic governing institution: this is detailed elsewhere. When Judge Thompson died and his daughter Mary applied for Alpha Cottage membership in HIVIS, almost completing the membership, the HIVIS members gave a standing ovation. The Heron Island Company had little income so it fell on hard times. Finally, on December 4, 1958, John Howland and Ed Damon, then the chief officers of the Company, transferred all of the company's assets to HIVIS.

Editor's Note: All deed transfers cited above came from official Lincoln County records. All other information was inferred from the notes and recollections of F.N. Thompson, Henry Seaver, John Howland, Russ Alexander, and Jim Barker, the investigations reported in Charles B. McLane's Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast, co-published by The Island Institute, Rockland, ME, and Tilbury House Publishers, Gardiner, ME, 1994, and from the minutes of meetings of the two companies.. The "store," horse and cows pictures are from the collection of Russ Alexander.