BOYHOOD ON A MAINE ISLAND1904 - 1916

by FLOYD T. HUMPHRIES- 1983 -

Prologue Boyhood on Heron Island
A Miscellany of Diverse Facts
Cottages and Cottagers
Acknowledgements
Addendum by Jane Howland

Prologue

The following random memories are like stars seen faintly through a misty sky. They are, furthermore, hard to evoke distinctly from a distant past. In a way, they are reminiscent of the street lights of my boyhood. Men, carrying a ladder, climbed to light the gas which, in turn, illuminated only dimly the old brick sidewalks.

So these pages represent in no sense a history of Heron Island. Only backward glimpses, seen through the eyes of a boy and youth from 1904 up to and including 1916, containing an excess of self-reference. I leave to qualified writers more recent developments and the formation of the Heron Island Land Company, the division into streets and lots of island property, the change of names to the Heron Island Company which issued stock, and the final cession of all its properties to the Heron Island Village Improvement Society.

The era I am talking about must sound, to young people, tame, over-simple, without startling events or vital personalities.

True, neither radios nor television sets were in homes. Still, Marconi had developed wireless telegraphy for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1909.

While remarkable scientific advances have been made in recent years, including among many Dr. Elizabeth Hazen's discovery of an anti-fungal antibiotic; Salk's polio vaccine; Fleming, Chain and Florey's discovery of penicillin produced from antibiotic properties of penicillin. Don't forget the Curies, husband and wife, had discovered radium for which they received a Nobel Prize in 1903.

Astronauts had not begun orbiting the earth. You couldn't jet across the Atlantic but the Wright brothers thrilled the world by making the first airplane flight in 1903.

Famous actresses Katherines Cornell and Hepburn won rather recently the hearts of Broadway theater goers. Think though of the immortals, John and Ethel Barrymore, Sarah Bernhardt.

Americans hadn't discovered first hand and by foot the craters of the moon. On the other hand, Perry discovered the North Pole in 1909 to the wonderment and acclaim of everyone; Amundsen, the South Pole in 1911.

Sure enough, some of today's motorists ride in Sevilles, Coupes de Ville, Lincolns, Oldsmobiles, Chrylser Imperials, Mercedes Benzes. I ask you to look in on an antique auto show. See the old Peerless, the Pierce Arrow, the Packard, the Locomobile, the Stutz Bearcat and others that drove the horse and buggy from our "highways". True, indeed, modern cars are equipped with radial tires, power steering and brakes, windows that open and close at the push of a button, directional signals, heaters, air conditioning and many other fine inventions. All the same, many people judge the automotive styling, the solid construction, the genuine brass and leather of old cars to be superior to anything found in automobiles manufactured today.

Mohammed Ali was not around. His forerunner, Jack Johnson captured the news in 1905 by taking the heavyweight title from Jim Jeffries.

Andrew Wyeth's future lay ahead. However Winslow Homer had not laid down his brush.

Women in the U.S.A. hadn't voting rights. ERA did not exist. But Susan B. Anthony was leading suffragettes to ever increasing numbers.

Chemical warfare was not in preparation but the Germans had used poison gas in World War 1.

Pearl Harbor was yet to come, but Sarajevo made the headlines in August of 1914.

Mutiny on the Bounty; Hemingway's The Old Man of the Sea; Jaws were still in the wings. Very much on stage were Conrad's "Under Western Eyes" and Pooles' "Sailing Alone around the World". Also Hardy made a final revision of his novels in 1912.

Sartre's development of existentialism was unknown though William James' pragmatism had found many adherents.

Arthur Rubinstein, until very recently, performed, so to speak, the Steinway. He was its adoptive parent. Leonard Bernstein still charms, especially his audiences of children. Kreisler, Paderewski, Caruso and Galli Curci more or less bridged the past and present periods, while all four leaned toward earlier days.

Barnum had done his act as showman. Buffalo Bill, on the other hand, was going strong during the first decade and a half of the century. Dog and pony shows were the vogue. More especially, people awaited the arrival of Ringling Brothers; the circus that staked huge tents on the edge of town. It is a draw as to who enjoyed the spectacle the more, children or adults who never tired of the high wire, the flying trapeze, the parade of wild animals, clowns and peanuts. Those sorts of entertainment marked the heyday of barkers. Today, for good reason, tents are fewer and smaller.

Billy Sunday, baseball player turned evangelist, had Americans - later than 1916 as well - hitting the sawdust trail. Billy Graham now attracts crowds in countries the world over.

Boyhood on Heron Island

Heron was, in the early years of the century, a place where, and in a region where, little boys had no need of reading or being told about Indians, steamboats, ice houses, outhouses, lobster bakes, oxen, an old fashioned Casino, rowboats - not skiffs - porch hammocks and rocking chairs, lobstermen off Heron at four o'clock in the morning upright in dories, rowing by pushing forward on creaking sweeps in the thole pins. Lobsters selling three for a quarter. Little boys and girls saw, smelled, heard - in short experienced - the simple but thrilling life of coastal Maine on an island.

A family Of Indians spent summers in tents off John's Bay curve in Christmas Cove. They came to Heron several times during the season, in birch bark canoes, to sell hand-crafted sweet grass baskets, toy canoes and tomahawks carved of wood, delicate canoes fashioned in birch bark, sturdy ash and birch bark "boxes" useful by the hearth.

Two young men of the tribe chose the roughest days, wind hard-blowing from the southwest, to test their mettle, strength and skill by paddling out of sight around Green Island in a birch bark canoe of their own making. We watched, marveling. Indians were, in our eyes, people to admire. Perhaps we failed to appreciate as they [did] the star flowers of late spring, a fringed orchid in early August and the first purple aster. But we loved the mystery of the island forest, the silence broken only by, overhead, a sharp whistle of our island osprey or the caw of a crow surprised by a crackling twig.

At any rate, we boys, Ralph and Edmund Damon, Romilly and Floyd Humphries played Indians - not cowboys and Indians. That game was to come later inspired by Westerns popular on the movie screen at home and abroad. We played Indians. We were Indians. Faces painted, wearing a multi-colored, feathered headdress, an Indian suit, carrying a strong bow with spare arrows in a quiver!

Thus equipped we filed barefoot on callous soles through the deep woods. War whoops echoed among the trees. We paired off into enemy camps - Ralph and I against Rom and Ed - hunting each other, eluding each other, hiding behind among others, the great silver birch, ultimately to find each other and smoke, symbolically, the pipe of peace. Adults were kind. They allowed us to live in the once-in-a-lifetime, wonderful world of illusion and fantasy. Up went their hands in surrender when we set, without aiming, arrow to bow.

One hot July day the four of us crept stealthily behind the hotel in the area of ice boxes and cool storage. There we held up the chef, demanding refreshment. Out walked the owner/manager, Arthur Race. Instead of threatening us with condign punishment, what did he do? He presented to each of the perspiring and besmirched urchins a luscious slice of cold watermelon. Arthur Race was that kind of man.

At a still earlier age we made little boats out of driftwood, took them to a pool far over the rocks on the southwest shore, there to spend mornings of make believe. The pool became the Damariscotta River. Our boats, in imitation of the steamer, Newcastle, stopped at Poole's Landing, Clark's Cove, East Boothbay and South Bristol before heading to Heron and finally berthing for the night in Christmas Cove. Pebbles for cargo and mail bags we found at hand.

Smell of coal smoke from the stacks of steamboats blew onto the island from east, north and west, sometimes south. The Nahanada and Wiwurna - later replaced by the less graceful Eastport and Westport - made daily runs from Bath to Pemaquid Harbor. They stopped at Heron on signal, or if freight, passengers were on board to land. Coming down river from Damariscotta, every day except Sunday, the Newcastle, Captain Gamage, steamed out to Heron carrying passengers, freight and mail. Sometimes the mail boat and a Bath boat arrived simultaneously. After an exchange of whistles, one idled at a distance while the other approached the large wharf, with a freight house built on its north end. The wharf ran, then, parallel to and well beyond the reef, giving to steamers, at least, a good three fathoms at neap tide. Still another steamer, the rolling Enterprise - built in Baltimore - captained by Arthur Race's father, paid a weekly visit to Heron Island, Christmas Cove, East Boothbay and South Bristol after putting in first at Boothbay Harbor. Portland was her home port. She was primarily a freighter but had comfortable deck space for passengers willing to risk sea sickness. After having learned to swim and, therefore, allowed unattended on the wharf, what a sense of importance, of nigh indispensability we felt catching the coiled line thrown by a deck hand, hauling in as fast as possible the hawser to put its loop over a piling.

Remember, in those days - remember is ill chosen - know that freight came in heavy crates, huge wooden boxes - supplies chiefly for the hotel. Passengers packed for travel great trunks. A gangway, part of the wharf, operated by hand, was lowered or raised, in accordance with the tide, to the level of the steamer's first deck from which all luggage and freight was rolled onto the wharf by dolly. Frequently, from the Bath boat there trooped off the gang plank a score of tourists to walk to the south shore for a picnic lunch on the rocks looking toward Portugal, returning in the afternoon to where they came from. They paid due respect to the "Do Not Pick or Scatter" signs then posted on trees.

Arthur Race was one of the four owners of the Madockawanda Lodge whose names I recall. The others are Mr. & Mrs. E.I. Gamage, Mrs. Butler and Mr. Buchman. Mrs. Butler likewise owned, at one time, the cottage bought by Miss Louisa and Miss Lucy Stevenson. Mr. Buchman was manager of the hotel when it burned to the ground along with the Annex, at the end of the summer of 1917. All the guests had left.

Under Mr. Race's management, the hotel flourished with guests from New York and Boston. Professor Wicks led the New York team against rival Boston in both ten pins and candle pins. Two bowling alleys extended south from the post office-store toward the ice house. They exploded with spirit and excitement, especially on rainy days. Upstairs, the less boisterous chalked cues to gather round the pool table. Legislation had not yet banned child labor, so we boys, having outgrown Indian suits, set up pins leaping for safety to a seat on the wall before an eager bowler let fly the ball. In payment of a morning's work, the men emptied their pockets of a paltry fifteen cents.

"Old" Judge Thompson cultivated a garden to the west of Alpha. Meadow mice fed on any greens that broke the surface. So the Judge offered a penny per mouse tail which he scrutinized before parting with the Indian Head. Another source of copper to save for a glass of Moxie.

Other guests at the hotel - I knew few - besides an uncle, aunt and two cousins - the Rowleys from Hartford - Mr. & Mrs. Burrell and a niece, Adrianne Sanchez, New Yorkers. Mr. Burrell, short of stature, slight of build, was nevertheless sinewy, of boundless energy, like a civet loosed from its cage. Fond of youngsters, he organized, in 1908, a tennis tournament for boys, the winner to receive a jackknife offered by my grandfather. All this after Mr. Burrell had spent patient hours encouraging and teaching us to play the game on the old "grass" court. Vain struggle for yours, truly heartbroken. Scott Keith carried off victory and prize. Then, with ax, saw and hatchet, Mr. Burrell cut and cleared single-handed off the west shore path where we boys had dug for Captain Kidd's treasure, what came promptly to be know as Burrell Grove, a bower cooled by the prevailing southwest breeze. Now gone, with the breeze.

It must be recorded that local option obtained in Maine during those early days to slake, with something more authoritative than Moxie, the thirst of a few of his guests as well as of at least one highly respected cottager, Mr. Race had shipped, by train and boat from Boston, a case or two of spirits. Wickedly exciting to me whose curiosity had begun and ended by peeping under the swinging doors of a saloon, while walking to school in Baltimore. Unrelated to Mr. Race's much appreciated bit of pre-prohibition era bootlegging, a picture comes to mind. Standing on the float, I watched nervously as Mr. Race picked up Mr. Burrell, held him momentarily by the ankles over the water, dunked his head, then stood him upright on the raft. Good-natured guffawing all around. After having served a sort of apprenticeship at the Madockawando Lodge, Mr. Race went on to manage the Copley Plaza hotel in Boston.

A short distance beyond the end of the bowling alleys stood an ice house and nearly opposite the ice house, across the road, a stable for the island horse. Filled in the spring from Thompson's ice house in South Bristol with 100 pound cakes, carried by barge to Heron, the island ice house supplied the needs of hotel, store and cottages. About once a week, Frank and Wellie Jordan drove the nag hitched to an old underslung Maine wagon to deliver ice. Each cottage, or many cottages, had a large, handmade, zinc-lined, rectangular ice box. The store and hotel, huge, perpendicular "boughten" refrigerators. To us lads, the trick was irresistible. Mischievous, perhaps, mean really. When Frank or Wellie left the horse to graze on the center path while delivering with tongs a cake of ice to, for example, the Damons, a couple of us brats hopped in the wagon, drove it 500 yards north, then escaped in the woods to watch patient Frank walk to his abandoned four-wheeler cart.

Mrs. L. J. (Alice) Gunn was the czarina of Heron Island, most notably of the Casino. If a couple of boys thought they could get away with being hauled, in turn, full speed on a wide brush over the polished hardwood floor, they misjudged the Empress's hearing. She was at the door in a trice, giving us a dressing down and shooing us forthwith from the building.

The Casino served many purposes. Not included - rumpus or gambling. The large, high-ceilinged, many-windowed hall was well equipped, never abused. Chairs lined either side. Sewing tables - for card playing - lay stacked on the curtained stage. Handsome kerosene lamps sat in brackets between windows on both sides. Others hung overhead, suspended from the tie-down rods. Shelves contained a library and hymn books. A well-tuned grand piano, for adult musicians only, graced the southeast corner. Stairs led down to two dressing rooms.

Looking in the window of an afternoon you might see a sedate whist party; in the evening dances, charades, plays expertly coached for some years by Mrs. (Ethel) Howland. Masquerades delighted young and old. I recall two prize winners: Mr. W. C. Damon, garbed in rock-weed, as Neptune, god of the sea; the other, Mrs. Fielitz, as a washerwoman ballooned with a pillow, carrying a wash tub and scrub board and prices of laundry items inked on her dress.

Resident clergymen, particularly Dr. Bennett, Senior, and my father, conducted every Sunday in the Casino a service of sermon, prayers and hymn singing. Visiting preachers occasionally filled in, including Heron's Professor Leroy Howland. Boys and girls arranged the chairs in double rows with an aisle between. Boys wore stiff buster brown collars, white shirts, ties, suits - and shoes. Girls came to church in pretty, starched dresses. My mother usually played the piano, spelled once in awhile by Grace Manning, an accomplished musician. Mrs. W. C. Damon sang solos in her soft contralto.

The Casino Association, made up of ladies of the island, governed not only the Casino but also the tennis court, charging for its use nominal single or family fees.

Four or five bath houses lay hidden under the post office/store porch. We boys used to change as rapidly as possible into a bathing suit, then to the "black rock" to see who could first hit the water. With the aid of water wings, we taught ourselves to "swim" - the old breast stroke. After that, as I have said, we had parental permission to go alone on the wharf and to dive and swim from both wharf and float.

How did adults pass the time of day and of evening besides bowl and shoot pool? They danced, took part in plays, costumed themselves for masquerades, swam, played tennis, went sailing, chopped and sawed wood, fished, worked with tools, played cards.

The four bridge players I best remember were Professor Crawley, Mrs. Foster, Professor Howland and my father. Professor Crawley was chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. He smoked Imperial Cube Cut in beautifully grained, straight stemmed pipes. Mrs. Foster, Lucy Pond's aunt from Greenfield, did not smoke. Professor Howland, chairman of the Department of Mathematics, later Dean of the Faculty and acting president of Wesleyan University, had a preference for cigarettes - perhaps Chesterfields. My father, an Episcopal rector, mixed to taste various tobaccos which he smoked in every sort and shape of old pipe except meerschaum, burning as he puffed not only the weed but also his clothes. Those four played together enthusiastically at least once a week, in turn at each other's cottage, changing partners regularly. Professor Crawley kept score, tracing figures with exemplary precision. When play was at the Humphries, my mother, who refused to learn the game, served a punch of fruit juice and ginger ale. I listened from an upstairs bedroom.

To resume, Mr. Gunn owned a boat sailed by Captain Hysom. The Gunns generously invited islanders for day-long sails. Individuals chartered for the day another sailboat with equally spacious cockpit whose Captain Poole lived aboard her in Christmas Cove. With the advent of single cylinder make-and-break marine engines, some islanders began to own motor boats - Lucy Pond among them.

Who were some of the adults? There were, besides hotel guests, professional men and women, businessmen, others. I shall try later to recall people whose names are associated with various cottages as owners or occupants. First, the professional members of the community who, often with family, spent whole summers on the island, during the years 1904 through 1916. I have already mentioned Dr. Bennett, Senior, a Presbyterian minister and family; Professor Crawley and family; Professor Howland and family; my father and his family. Add Judge Thompson, Senior, and his son, Judge Francis Thompson - not for the entire season; Dr. Roberts, a cousin of Judge Francis Thompson, Professor of Chemistry at Wellesley College; Dr. Eddy of Columbia; Miss Clara Burt and Mrs. Fielitz, both teachers in New York City. Also on the island were the Knights, Butlers, Ponds, Gunns, Stoddards - visits - Brownings, Harpers, Kahlbacks, Warners, Foxes, Damons, Mannings, Miss Marion Allen, The Humphries, McClaves and no doubt others - yes, the Fellows.

The McClave family counted ten children - one or two sets of twins. Mr. McClave owned a lumber business in New Jersey. He sent by barge enough high quality cut oak to build on the east shore the island's largest cottage which the family occupied only a few years. Allegory tells of their packing up one morning, eating breakfast, leaving the unwashed dishes on the table, then departing suddenly like birds in migration. At any rate, unoccupied for forty odd years, the cottage became the "haunted" house - also called by malevolent tongues, the bedbug cottage, broken into and thoroughly explored by the young and not so young. An heir finally sold it for $500.00.

Returning from an early morning spent a mile or so off shore hand lining, a native fisherman peddled perhaps once a week all over the island, his catch of cod, haddock and hake, dressed or whole. Heron fisherman also dropped lines in the deep sea. The most inveterate and successful were Professor Howland and Mr. Fellows. Others, young and older, fished at high tide from the south rocks. They used long bamboo poles - no reels - clams or snails for bait, to land whopping cunners, pollock and rock cod which were then abundant. From the wharf, too, by hand line, one could pull up any day along with sculpin, those tasty cunners, hard to skin but easy to scale.

Islanders of all ages bundled up once a summer for the moonlight sail scheduled when the heavenly disk was fully illuminated to cast a glade on the dark, inscrutable waters. The young huddled close, pretending they were not seen. Someone started a song. All joined in. Harmony or cacophony; it made no difference. Others, on a similar romantic ride, passed in the night, running lights fore and aft.

Mouths watered in anticipation of the clambakes held one or twice a summer, not on the west or north shore rocks but in the center of the island. Trees covered much less of Heron except for towering firs and spruce closing off the sky on the center path south of McClave road. Frank Jordan and his helpers dug a hole in the ground, a sort of imu [luau underground oven]. Instead of dropping in a pig to roast as at a luau, they tossed in seaweed, clams, lobsters, eggs and corn and more seaweed. The bake began. Islanders sat on benches and ate at tables long since built for the purpose. They stood on the east side of the road slightly south of what became in 1903 the Humphries' cottage.

One recreation, in the fresh scented Maine air, took adults and children to croquet grounds. For adults, the set lay on the east side of the main road along a boardwalk leading to the Annex. From old blue or gray square camera shots you can picture the ladies, in merry widow hats, bustles and ankle-length dresses, some carrying parasols; men in white flannels, sporting a snappy panama or a conventional boater. Mrs. Gunn kindly set aside, for children, a relatively even terrain between her boardwalk on Crescent Road and an old dory planted with a thousand geraniums. Tree-covered now, the area is hard to imagine with wickets, boys and girls, mallet in hand, knocking balls all over the place. Two seesaws added precarious fun to the playground. We returned scrupulously to their boxes mallets and balls, once the game was over. Croquet was a source of much laughter, keen competition, and not a little palpable cheating. Evenings, at eight, a whistle from my father signaled bedtime.

Another activity, more muscle-building, for the boys to whom I have referred so often, found us in the rowboats of old; round bottomed, easy-rowing, seaworthy. When steamers came up river along Linekin, out we rowed to ride their wake. Also, on windy days we headed south along the east shore to pitch in rough seas. Then, too, the Damons raced the Humphries round the island. In separate boats, Ralph and Rom stroked on the after thwart; Ed and I forward trying to keep the beat. The Damons always won. My slight frame added little to power or speed. Trying to be smart, feathering the blades of the oars, I caught crabs.

We - the boys again - looked upon George Warner as something of a hero. He slugged to more than one victory the Heron Island-Christmas Cove baseball team against its arch rivals in the very minor bush league - South Bristol, Squirrel Island and Boothbay Harbor. He also swam easily to and from the then red buoy off the north shore. But lo! About the year 1912, a Miss Coyle - hotel? - knocked George off the pedestal. She really brought distinction to Heron Island, while giving a hint of things to come in feminine athletic prowess. The first person ever to swim float to float from Heron to Christmas Cove.

By the following year - indeed starting in 1912 - croquet had begun to pall. Rowing continued. Tennis jumped enormously in interest as we improved our game, in spite of no professional instruction in stroke or serve. Most important, perhaps, we began to abandon our male chauvinism. To recognize girls as companions. As tennis players most worthy of the name Peggy Allen, later Mrs. William Howe, carried her partner - me - in 1912 to the Heron Island mixed doubles championship. As dancing partners in the Casino to such records, played on the victrola, as "Avalon," the "Bull Frog Blues," "Mighty Like a Rose," "Peg o' My Heart." Professor Crawley's younger daughter, Marion, invited for visits other pretty girls from Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. Miss Marion Allen had as guests for several weeks a nephew and two nieces - Peggy Allen, Scott and Marion Keith. We all paired off more or less. Soon to take, as darkness fell, a stroll to the south rocks. Each pair in a special nook, often seeing off shore the Rockland steamer ablaze with lights. We returned home, on pain of excruciation, by 10 p.m. sharp. We boys had put on the toga virilis.

Still other incidents come to mind. Forget chronology. Let's go back for a second to 1908. One of us four hit upon the idea of smoking. Not tobacco! Let him remain anonymous. Practice took place in a cleft rock carved by the ocean on the west shore. We were hidden from view. The clandestine pastime went by the cabalistic name of "electricity". We made our own pipes, bowl from cork, stem from a slender stalk of sumac. What filled the bowl? Nothing was more abundant and handy than crushed pine needles except, occasionally, ground coffee beans. Both bit our tongues in a way similar to that of spruce sap scraped off trees for gum. We dropped the habit before it became an addiction.

Jumping to 1915, let's witness the voluntary abolition of outhouses. Save for one holdout, the vote "aye" expressed unanimity. Before going "urban", Heron prided itself on many small structures that surpassed in architectural design the cottages to which they belonged. Camouflaged by trees, they - some - were as invisible as a snowy owl immobile against a birch. I was not privy to the interior of all homes. Yet to my knowledge, one cottage only - the green Cutler cottage - in addition to the hotel, boasted a flush toilet. The laying of sewer pipes began. Professor Howland, next door, and my father, for example, obtained from the Heron Island Company an easement of six feet running to the east shore. I was old enough to help lay the pipes. Forming a Y to start with, they joined as one the rest of the way to the ocean. By the summer of 1916, pipes looked, from a distance, like so many dikes in the rocks on east, west and south shores. We had become a modern, civilized community.

Heron had and still has, for drinking water, only two public dug wells. Unique on the island is the Damon artesian well which they have always shared willingly with whoever lived nearby. Other wells existed. None, aside from the Thompson's - and possibly the Gunn's - had potable water. The rest served to replenish tanks in times of drought. The hotel naturally needed a steady supply of water to fill and keep filled their huge wooden tanks. A windmill, located close to a well west of the public center well answered such a need - vanes whirring in the prevailing southwest breeze. Both island wells, through 1916 at least, operated with old oaken buckets. You hauled up on a chain through a wheel a full bucket while the empty one descended into the water. The up and down motion continued for as many pails as you wanted to fill. Sanitary? Consider little boys' hands. The wells were roofed over and housed in, waist-high.

From South Bristol or Christmas Cove came often or daily in early times, men who contributed in various capacities to the welfare of Heron Island. If memory doesn't betray, Bill Jordan, a master carpenter, shared responsibility for the construction of most of the original cottages. A native of Gloucester, Massachusetts, he was a man to match wits with anyone, in humor and homespun philosophy.

His son, Frank, became the first island caretaker and store keeper, the first and only Heron Island U.S. Postmaster. He inherited his father's skills and inimitable use of repartee, developing in the eyes of islanders a sort of mystique which has lasted to this day. Frank belonged to the New England Society of Craftsmen - or some such. He spent many a cold winter day at home in a stove-heated room carving with patience and precision, inlays for tables of various kinds, chequer boards, letter-holders, etc., all of beautiful craftsmanship. The inlays, he cut from teak, various mahoganies and other specially ordered woods. On the kitchen stove he dried a mixture of Prince Albert and Bull Durham tobaccos - for his constant companion, a pipe. In the island store, Frank stocked the candy case with a wide assortment of Lovell and Covell chocolates. His favorite was a chocolate-covered almond. Sliding the door, he used to reach in, take out a sample, then carefully bite off and spit out the chocolate before eating the almond. Profanation to a chocolate-loving boy. After Frank had married, he lived for one summer above the store with his wife, Helen, and first of four daughters, Catherine. Helen Jordan was a devoted wife and mother, a lovely lady, cultivated in every way.

Wellie, Frank's younger brother, and twin to a sister married to a barber living in Rockland, was Frank's principal helper. A handsome young man with the physique and strength of a gorilla, he could carry alone, if necessary, a heavy trunk up two flights of stairs - for which feat he usually received as pourboire [tip], not a glass of wine, but what the country did not then need - a good five cent cigar. He died of the flu at Fort Devens during the epidemic of 1918. A bronze plaque fixed in a boulder near the Union Church in South Bristol commemorates him. The marker changed the name of the road to Wellington Road. People still call it the Middle Road. Either they never knew or have forgotten.

Scott Gamage, by occupation a fisherman, nevertheless did odd jobs on the island. It seemed that most coastal Mainers could hammer a nail, saw straight and shingle. Captain Poole, I have mentioned. Also Captain Hysom, on hand much of the time ready to take a party out sailing in the Gunn boat. Captain Hysom beguiled the waiting hours whittling with a jackknife miniature rowboats - seats bow and stern, two thwarts, a pair oars - and ladies' high-heeled pumps. Rowboats for the boys. For the girls, pumps dainty enough for the marriage of a dryad in her own sylvan chapel. The artist would hold up to his unerring eye a two inch rowboat to check its symmetry. Sure enough, once completed and launched in a tidal pool, it floated perfectly without a list. We boys sharpened our knives to try copying the master. Some efforts turned out rather well. Our imitations required, of course, an extra shaving or three to make the craft steady on keel. All those men were kindly, helpful, gifted, friendly.

Islanders shopped in excellent markets located in Boothbay Harbor, Perkins Bros.; South Bristol, Littles; East Boothbay, McDougals. Mr. McDougal perhaps belied his clan. When a few bananas on the bunch - bananas sold by the dozen rather than by the pound - became slightly overripe, be darned if he would sell them cheaper and make a dime. Instead, he tossed them into the Damariscotta River. From East Boothbay we walked, carrying baskets, the three mile Indian Trail to Boothbay Harbor. Baskets became heavy on return. But how quickly we forgot fatigue, muscle strain and heat in a cool ice cream parlor where there was also a spring. The parlor, closed long since, stood at hill top in East Boothbay just before you descended to the bridge and the old saw mill to which logs were floated by the tide up Linekin Bay.

In a word, we thought life on Heron in early, if not the earliest days, busy and exciting. We had no inclination to question or rebel against parental discipline. Chores we accepted naturally along with great freedom for fun. It was a time for growing up on an island of Eden-like beauty, where storms thundered with surf against the rocks, where rainbows arched the sky, where on clear nights Polaris and the Big Dipper appeared so close, where in late summer, aurora borealis streaked the sky with streams of light, where incarnadine sunsets reflected on the ledges opening into the Thread of Life and of course, across the starlit heavens shot meteors to make a wish on. It was above all a time for forming lasting friendships on an enchanted isle.

A Miscellany of Diverse Facts

In addition to open fireplaces, coal and wood-burning stoves helped heat cottages while heating water, baking and otherwise cooking food. A gasoline stove was not unknown.

Japanese lanterns hung, as decoration, from the ceiling of living rooms. Fish nets adorned the walls; matting, the floors; hammocks, punky-Jos and large rockers, the porches.

John's Island, in John's Bay and Fort Island, a short distance up the Damariscotta River were favorite picnicking spots, offering cold spring water and a beach for swimming.

Mrs. Gunn made delicious doughnuts. Mrs. Fielitz really earned the title of cordon bleu of Heron Island. Besides unparalleled luscious blueberry pies, she added luster to the name of the Boston hotel where Parker House rolls were first made. You could buy those delicacies of the table at food sales held in the Casino.

I have a very special reason for remembering Mrs. Fielitz's blueberry pies. A boardwalk led to the Barnacle cottage. One summer around 1910, a family of garter snakes nested beneath the walk and took turns sunning themselves on the walk. When either Mrs. Fielitz or Miss Burt saw, right at her feet, one of those harmless reptiles wriggling sinuously, she recoiled with a shudder. Finally, Mrs. Fielitz made a proposal to me. If I cleared the place of snakes, my reward would be a blueberry pie. Finest bargain I ever struck.

A cow spent one summer on the island.

Innocuous green snakes added color to the reptilian population.

Bats flew about at dusk for several years.

Once a school of whales swam spouting toward the mouth of the river between Heron and Linekin.

I used to row Sarah Burt, 8 years of age, to Christmas Cove for ice cream, occasionally for a banana split.

Several summers, my father took Ralph, Ed, Rom and me camping on Damariscotta Pond as the lake was then called. Traveling by motor boat up the Damariscotta River to Damariscotta Mills, we rented canoes, paddled about three miles to Hay Island, with all necessary paraphernalia and pitched a large tent. Stayed a week, trying to eat my father's unleavened bread "baked" in a frying pan. His flapjacks were excellent. And bass and horn pout [bullhead] were plentiful. To add to the menu, we paddled half a mile to shore where a farmer sold us milk and eggs. In the evening - shame to say - we startled the silence with a twenty-two. The yodeling loons were at a safe distance. Furthermore, being "avian submarines", underwater went their heads before the bullet carried.

One summer Lucy Pond and Tony White followed suit to camp on an island nearby.

On our last trip, bad luck struck. Tide was fast making up river from the bridge. The motorboat was towing a rowboat, all our belongings inside. Rushing waters sucked the motorboat against a boulder not far from the bank. The tow line slacked, the rowboat capsized. Four boys leapt instantly into the swift current, waist-deep, to right the rowboat. We grabbed right and left, tossing everything back in. Searching the bottom, we found my rifle. We lost nothing. Reached the "Pond" safely. Canoes loaded, we paddled to Hay Island in the pouring rain.

Hotel rates, cost of meals, boat fares I cannot accurately state. I think room and board per week was about eight dollars a person. Some cottagers had Sunday dinner at the Lodge for fifty cents a head. The Humphries ate at home. My brother and I took turns hand cranking homemade ice cream. A trip on the Newcastle from Heron to Damariscotta cost, I believe, fifty cents a head.

A final word. At summer's end, when cottages closed one by one, departure of a family was not without ceremony. For whatever boat, at whatever time going away was scheduled - frequently at 6 a.m. on the Newcastle - all remaining islanders were at the head of the wharf to send off friends with the Heron Island cheer, loud and lusty: Heron Island! Heron Island! Rah! Rah! Rah!Heron Island! Heron Island! Sis Bum Bah!Damons! Damons! Damons!

or Howlands! Howlands! Howlands! etc.

I repeat that cheer now, expressing the same feeling as of old, ending with: Heron Islanders! Heron Islanders! Heron Islanders!

Cottages and Cottagers

What follows are names of some people who owned or occupied various cottages up to and through the present - 1983. Errors and lacunae are numberless, I am certain. Correct and fill in at the County Courthouse in Wiscasset.

Judge Thompson of Greenfield, Massachusetts, had the Alpha built. His son, Judge Francis N. Thompson followed him. Judge Francis Thompson's daughter, Mary Alexander, now owns the cottage and occupies it with her husband, Russ, their children and grandchildren visit annually.

The Warner cottage became the Fellows, the Hutchins and at present Leanne Hutchins Harkness, their daughter, is owner. Her husband and two children occupy the cottage.

The Snows of Greenfield, Mass. had a cottage built. A daughter, Mrs. Browning inherited it. She, in turn, willed it to three sons, one of whom, Franklin, bought out the other two. Franklin, his wife Katherine Humphries Browning and their son occupied the cottage a number of years. Franklin turned it over to his brother Paul whose daughter Nancy and her husband John Peterson now own it.

Shortly after moving into the Barnacle, the Foxes moved out. Reason: the Nims' cottage rose in front of them to obstruct their view. Following the Nims came the Kaulbacks, then the Binghams, next a daughter, Mrs. Morris. Two daughters of Mrs. Morris, Sarah and Elizabeth Signell now own it. [Editor's note: the cottage was originally built by Gunn in 1894, then Atkins(1896)-->Kaulback(1901)-->Nims(1912)--> Bingham(1924)]

The Foxes built on a west by north point of land. Keeping the cottage only a few years - long enough to interest my parents in the island - they sold it to the Kidders after whom the Elleys took possession. The Elleys gave the cottage to their older daughter, Caroline Elley Long.

The Barnacle came into the hands of Miss Clara Burt who, later, with her good friend, Mrs. Fielitz, took into their home Miss Burt's niece, Sarah D. Burt. The cottage became the property of Mrs. Fielitz who was, to Sarah, Aunt Caroline. Sarah in turn owned the Barnacle which for some years now has belonged to the Peter Signells.

Dr. Roberts, referred to above, was, I think, the first owner after Judge Francis Thompson of the Bungalow, a stone's throw from the Barnacle on the east shore. The cottage reverted to the Judge's ownership. He rented it for a number of years until Miss Caswell, a former student of Dr. Roberts and sister of Sarah Elley, bought and lived in it every summer up to about 1942 when the handsome dwelling burned to the ground at the season's end. Miss Caswell rebuilt, gave the cottage to a niece who sold it to the Allards, present owners.

The Gunns built their cottage an high ground somewhat west-south of the hotel Annex. Miss Linda Graves, Mrs. Gunns' half sister, inherited it, then transferred ownership to the James S. Barkers. Meanwhile, Mrs. Gunn had Frank Jordan build for her other half sister, Dr. Frances Graves, an attractive little cottage with separate guest quarters on part of the former hotel site. Not long afterwards the property was for sale. Mrs. Elley bought it for her younger daughter and family. Their occupancy lasted for several years until the Barkers bought it, moved in and turned over the large Gunn cottage to their three children. Such are the present circumstances.

Back to the Nims' cottage, just south of the tennis court and north of the Barnacle. Following the Nims - relatives of Judge Francis Nims Thompson - the Kahlbacks lived in it, either owning or renting, then the Binghams who left it to a daughter, Mrs. Morris. At present, the key is in the hands of her two daughters, Sarah Morris and Elizabeth Signell.

Now returning south once more, sits a cottage, originally owned by the Charles Keiths of Greenfield, Mass., located between the Gunn cottage and the Casino. The Keiths left after a year or so, selling to a Mr. Andrews, realtor from Greenfield, who both occupied it and rented it. More information later.

Across the center path stood one of two plastered wall cottages, the Cutler cottages. The other was the Alpha. Mr. Andrews also acquired this interesting place, with a stone foundation and stone columns supporting a front porch roof with, on top of that, a roofed balcony, now gone. The house was also a sort of duplex with two front doors. The Crawleys rented the cottage from about 1906 through 1916. During the summer of 1920 or 1921, a Mr. Bartlett leased the cottage which had lain vacant between times. More in a moment.

Just south, beyond the well and the site of the old windmill stands a bungalow-type cottage of which there are seven on the island, same original floor plan. Again Mr. Andrews disposed of that one as well. The Mannings, a large family, were renters for a number of years.

Then, for what seemed like many moons, those three last named cottages, forming a sort of triangle in the middle of the island, lived in silence and solitude for want of habitation. Finally, a Mr. Brand, reading a newspaper ad, bought all three cottages in the early 1930's. Mr. Brand was a realtor from New York mid Connecticut. The purchase price was derisively low. While living in the bungalow of the three, and overlapping into the stone-columned one, he sold in the mid thirties, the third on the east side of the center path, to my brother, who, with his family, moved a few years later to the mainland. Ed Damon then took over the property which became known as the Lodge. It remains in the Damon family.

After the death of Mr. Brand, his widow did not return to the island. Yet, for whatever reasons, she was unwilling to sell either of her two remaining cottages. Meanwhile, the Hoogenbooms had been guests, on the island, of the Signells. Not surprisingly both Ari and Olive became enamored of Heron. Sarah Humphries gave to them Mrs. Brand's address in Brooklyn urging a personal call on her. She yielded to their persuasion and the Hoogenbooms bought the cottage some ten years ago. Mrs. Brand's interest in hanging on to the Cutler cottage ended. Chuck Stevenson became its owner and restored a rapidly deteriorating home into a beautiful cottage. Continuing south on the west, Mrs. Butler and children, first occupied the cottages bought by Miss Louisa and Miss Lucy Stevenson. Both were teachers, Miss Louisa the brilliant head of Mt. Holyoke College's Department of Chemistry. Together, they reared with rare devotion and wisdom their brother's three sons. The boys, Robert, John and William had lost at a young age both parents. John is the present owner of the cottage.

In early days, the Knights owned the bungalow just to the south. Came next Professor Schneider of Wesleyan with his family who sold to Professor Hagen of Penn State. The Hagens still own the cottage but no longer come to the island.

Some distance further south is situated on high ground overlooking the water with Ram Island and Seguin in view, a sturdy little cottage with, on the same property a second building to serve as study and sleeping quarters, equipped with fireplace. Dr. Bennett gave it all as a wedding present to Anne and son, John. They returned in a few years to the main Bennett cottage, selling the property to Roy Howland, Jr., who later made the Vanderbilts lucky buyers. When Cliff Vanderbilt moved to Florida, the Greenwoods took over and are still owners.

At the south end, west side still, the Horns built. I do not remember them. Mr. Horn, I believe, was a classmate of Mr. W. C. Damon at Harvard, 1892. 1 do recall the Davenports and three children as renters for one year about 1907. The Reverend Mr. Davenport served as the first Episcopal Bishop of the diocese of the Eastern Shore, Maryland. A storm of spring tide and fury swept away, one year, the front steps facing south. Entrance was changed to the east. Next, as well as I can recall, Dr. Eddy, discoverer of vitamin B, moved in and stayed through 1924 when Ernie Dodge bought him out. Ernie Dodge ceased coming to Heron. His widow sold the cottage, now known as Isle End, in about 1959, to Harriet Damon. She has rented it since that period to the Reverend Buss Morrill and his wife, Polly. Buss was rector of Trinity Church in Concord, N.H. He held communion services at Isle End, saved by baptism a dozen or more heathen babies and young children, performed the first marriage ceremony ever on Heron Island. Later, after the untimely passing of Buss and subsequent remarriage of Polly, Dr. Fred and Polly Waldron have become regular Heron Islanders.

Across the center path at the south end, another landmark built by Mr. W.C. Damon. The Damon homestead has remained continuously in the family through son Ralph's lifetime and now in the possession of his widow, Harriet. Besides Ralph and Edmund, two sisters, Katherine and Edith, grew up on the island in the W.C. Damon family.

Circling around the east shore, the first cottage to loom into view is one of the seven bungalows. The first owner, I knew was a sister of Mrs. Charles Keith. Miss Marion Allen, also from Greenfield, Mass. As before noted, Miss Allen had as guests a nephew and two nieces who added enormously to our social and tennis activities. To everyone's sorrow Miss Allen stopped coming to the island after the summer of 1916. Professor and Mrs. Raymond Dodge took title to the cottage. Uncle of Ernie, Professor Dodge was chairman of the Department of Psychology at Wesleyan, later head of the Psychological Institute of Yale. After the couple had retired from the island, Ed and Alison moved in to spend many summers at Spruce Tops and to add a guest house they called the Pine Cone. Both at present are in the hands of two of their children.

Next door, going north rises the lofty McClave cottage which I have spoken of. The island chateau with, originally, on the roof top, a cupola in the loose sense of a square, railed lookout rivaling that of the hotel. It was Ed Schneider who bought the ark for $500.00, labored on and in it for a couple of years. He and Eleanor heard their voices and footsteps echo in the place perhaps a half score of years before selling it to Stuart Bugbee. His widow, Edith Damon Bugbee, remains owner although she seems to have forsaken the island. Her two sons spend vacations in the handsomely restored dwelling.

You walk the Indian Path to reach a cottage the Ponds of Greenfield had built. Lucy Pond, the youngest of four children, inherited it. She continued to summer on Heron until she and her friend, Antoinette White, pulled up stakes to drive together in the fall of 1915 across the continent to California where they both spent the rest of their lives.

Although older than I by a number of years, Lucy was a good friend. I think of the hours she spent teaching me how to serve a tennis ball. Then, in an effort to overcome my shyness and awkwardness on the dance floor, she tried to instruct me in the two-step. Finally, when she, Tony and Mildred Crawley needed a fourth at bridge in 1915, Lucy invited me to join them for an evening at her cottage.

Clarence Hale, Professor of Mathematics at Albany State Teachers' College, bought the cottage, too long vacant, in 1925. Their last summer on Heron was 1952. Clarence's widow, Bertha, sold the cottage in 1953 to Jane Howland' s mother, Mary E. Snyder, who in turn deeded the cottage in 1960 to Jane and John Howland. The John Howlands' real estate holdings on Heron began in 1949 with the lot in front of the Pond, later Hale, cottage - a Christmas present from Jane's mother. Since owning the cottage, John has bought contiguous land north and south to add to his property. John and Jane continue to be faithful and loyal Islanders in the tradition of the Howland Seniors.

The Romilly F. Humphries bought in 1903 the cottage just north of the Ponds'. The two cottages were originally, before extensive alterations by the Hales, identical in lines of construction - basement kitchen and dining room, piazzas running all around the main floor except south. The Humphries cottage has not lost its name, having been deeded a year back to Floyd, Jr.

Below the Humphries, to the east, the Harpers forced the relocation of the Pond-Humphries Siamese twin outhouses. The Harpers had bought property up to the ledge. We youngsters had the fun, in about 1908, of watching lumber landed from barges onto the rocks, at high tide, directly in front of the site the cottage was built on. Professor and Mrs. Karl Van Dyke and family - he, chairman of the Wesleyan Physics Department - acquired the attractive home to spend their first summer on Heron in 1926. Karl, Junior, now owns it.

Firsts, in boyhood, are either serene or shocking. At age 11, I first became aware of mental alienation. Next door to the north, there lived in the 1910 season only, a son of a Gunn. He was immured and under surveillance of an attendant. I never saw the poor man. Yet I could hear furniture being heaved about the house. My imagination ran furiously riot at the thought of a successful break for freedom.

Fortunately, one of the island's most well-liked and respected families landed the following summer to become our best of neighbors for many years - the LeRoy A. Howlands of whom I have already written. They acquired by deed from Francis Nims Thompson in 1911, cottage and lots. In 1951 from Mrs. L.J. Gunn more than five additional lots which, except for a jog where once stood Dr. Roberts summer house, extends the property north to Blackberry Lane and east to the East Marginal Way. The entire property was sold in 1955 to the Registers - David and my daughter, Virginia. Now, she and her husband Rufus Wroth, living close by in Newcastle, spend many days on the island spring, summer and fall.

Acknowledgements

Nobody would have the audacity to "dedicate" to anyone the above screed. Nevertheless, thanks, but not responsibility, go to my wife, Sarah, for surrogating my memory. And blame Jane Howland for prodding me into the writing.

Floyd T. Humphries

Addendum by Jane Howland