Island
Life and the Coming Prosperity
.
The
general anguish that the Civil War years brought
the community, in the end, came home to the hearthstones
of individual families. The personal loss of war
was something the Deer Isle of 1861 could never
have predicted. By the time of the surrenders, Salome
Sylvester Sellers was the only surviving member
of her immediate family, having had her three brothers
die during the war years, all of natural causes.
Worse yet, she was now a widow. Joseph Sellers died
February 27, 1865. Salome and sons, William and
Albert, were left to work the farm. Caroline Rittenhouse
wrote of Salome’s steadfast nature, imagining
her need to work the farm, to rise above the tragic
through the routine of daily life:
"The
seasons bring the work. Wood cutting, plowing, planting,
haying. The cows have to be milked twice a day,
and all the animals have to be fed, the stalls and
pens cleaned, the cows driven to pasture. There’s
no letting the chores go. And I wonder if there
will be pasture enough for the sheep. I need the
wool from the sheep if I’m to keep on spinning
and knitting, and that I must do. It’s all
that calms my heart sometimes …"
Yet
Deer Isle emerged out of the tragedies of the war
with a keen eye on its future. The work of life
continued. In 1867, a town vote called for the suppression
of "drinking-houses and tippling-shops."
The final tally was in favor 39-2. A general increase
in school spending saw the yearly allotment rise
to an average of nearly $3,000 — double what
it had been a decade before the war. The communities
were growing. New roads were being built. The 1871
town records show four residents compensated, "to
pay damage … for the road(s) leading over their
lands." Fishing and lobstering continued to
grow as staple industries, sardines having become
an important addition. But it was the growth of
a new enterprise that would bring with it a boom
… The islands to the south and southeast of
Deer Isle are all pure granite outcroppings and
quarrying took hold here, as it did on many of the
islands of Penobscot Bay. Centered in Green’s
Landing, a "most colorful and picturesque fishing
port" as detailed by Spofford-Watts, the granite
industry began to thrive. The island’s economy
of the late 19th and early 20th
century revolved around the granite quarries. The
men and the product they cut from the earth here
gained wide recognition. The large metropolis had
emerged from the industrial age as the very definition
of progress. And in these days prior to cement and
steel, granite block was the load-bearing anchor
of its building boom. Deer Isle’s natural resource
was unique and varied. A granite composed of "pink
feldspar" found out in the Settlement Quarry
near Oceanville was pinkish in color. In 1868, J.
G. S. Goss opened the Green Head quarry, the first
major operation. Over the next fifty years, the
industry prospered on Deer Isle like few commercial
ventures before or since. A dozen different companies
worked an equal number of island and mainland quarries.
In 1875, town selectmen, realizing the importance
of the quarries to the local economy, allotted $200
to build a spur road from the R. Warren & Company
quarry out "to the main road." By the
arrival of the new century, the granite quarries
of Deer Isle would be in full production mode. The
Deer Isle Granite Museum literature proclaims,
"Deer Isle granite underpinned the new massive
bridges and piers and built the familiar Classic-style
courts, city halls, banks, post offices and memorials,"
a fact true in most all of the booming cities of
the eastern seaboard … Quarrying itself was
dangerous, difficult, unpredictable work. A hike
around the old Settlement Quarry, now a park
interpreted and maintained by the Island Heritage
Trust, provides a link to this past. In the
park’s brochure it describes the scene that
was:
"It
was a forest of stacks, masts, booms, and derricks
… It included coalfired boilers to generate
the steam to run the engines that operated compressors,
dynamos, winches, and cranes. There was a railroad
for moving granite and machinery within the site."
This
old quarry is now just an empty stark industrial
scar. But there’s a certain and unique allure
to it. It’s a great place to get out and stretch
your legs.
At the Goss Quarry ~ |
|
Crew of the Defender ~ |
|
At Settlement Quarry ~ |
Life for the year-round residents of Deer Isle was
still hard work in tune with the chores of the seasons.
But during the late 1800s, an influx of summer visitors
began to vacation on Deer Isle . . . a custom I
was helping to keep alive and well over a century
later. Caroline Rittenhouse wrote the wary thoughts
of Salome Sellers towards these "fancy people"
and their "having time to stay on the island
and just sit," finishing plainly, "there’s
no such thing as taking a rest from the farm."
Still, the advent of modern conveniences made an
impact. Steamboats, the chosen transportation of
the summer visitor, ran to and from Boston —
making the trip in less than a day. Deer Isle could
claim two newspapers by the 1880s: Hudson Pressey’s
Deer Isle Gazette established in 1882 and
the regional Eggemoggin Pilot established
in 1885. The granite quarriers shared economic prominence
with the ever present fishermen. Seth Webb, one
of the most successful, maintained a modern outfitting
& processing station in Oceanville. Sardine
canneries opened in Stonington, an important source
of island jobs until recent days. Motorboats had
begun to appear on the bays, inlets and seas around
Deer Isle. Acetylene gas lamps would soon replace
the "lamplighter," an individual entrusted
with lighting kerosene lamps each night at dusk
throughout the downtowns of townships — extinguishing
each lamp at dawn. Horses and horse-drawn carriages
were the most efficient form of island travel with
the improved condition of roads, despite the continued
burden of long waits during high tide at ocean crossings.
But in 1899, Mainard D. Chanson visited Deer Isle
with a strange contraption called the "Stanley
Steemer," the first "horseless carriage"
to anyone’s recollection that the islands had
ever seen. The hard ways and life of the early half
of the 19th century were giving in to
the revolution of consumer-based convenience. Modern-day
improvements extended across the entire spectrum
of island life: from municipal to individual. By
the turn of the century there were three consolidated
high schools and forty telephones in service. Aside
from the plentiful granite, Deer Isle gained world-wide
recognition in sport as well. Long recognized as
expert sailors, the first America’s Cup,
held in 1895, was won by the American yacht "Defender."
The entire crew were residents of Deer Isle. The
first defense of America’s Cup in 1899
was also a victory, this time for the yacht "Columbia."
Again, the entire crew hailed from these islands
… The turn of the century was a truly remarkable
time, at once turbulent and bright. The 1800s had
seen trial and sacrifice reside tragically alongside
rampant innovation and prosperity. As an appropriate
closing to the 19th century, Stonington,
once a tiny seaside village of fishermen named for
resident Sullivan Green, was incorporated on February
15, 1897. It would soon eclipse the township of
Deer Isle as the islands’ largest, most commercially
productive town.
A
New Century
.
On
October 15, 1900, Salome Sellers turned 100 years
old. Still sharp, she employed a fine sense of humor
as she spun her quilts. To her, spinning was more
than the simple act of making a quilt, it was a
way of life: "the quilts had memories sewn
into them." Salome became the focus of local
newspaper reporters and their articles over the
final years of her life — sometimes to her
chagrin, a line from An Island Women musing,
"they made it sound as though I ought to be
getting myself off to paradise." Her age and
good nature made Salome one of the more important,
approachable residents of the time. With the arrival
of 1901, she had "witnessed the light of three
centuries," a poetic description written in
the Ellsworth American. Though she generally
liked the reporters that came to visit and write
of her life, their fancy descriptions she had little
use for. "Plain living with plenty of exercise
and fresh air," was all she felt was required
to live for a hundred years. Salome Sellers would
live to be 108 and was generally recognized to be
"Maine’s Oldest Woman." Salome Sylvester
Sellers died January 9, 1909.
In
1902, the Settlement Quarry exported its
first load of granite. It went to New York City
and into the abutments of the Williamsburg Bridge
then being built. Over its existence, this quarry
would provide granite for such other notable constructions
as the Manhattan Bridge, the New York County Courthouse,
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and arguably its
most distinguished and honorable destination (ironically
one of its last), the JFK memorial at Arlington
cemetery. By the early 20th century,
the granite quarries were the island’s most
focused commercial entity. Stonington was a thriving
economic centre and men came to get in on the good
fortunes … But quarriers were put in near constant
risk by the nature of their work. Many workers were
killed. A century later, they are still remembered
by an understated memorial on Stonington’s
waterfront. But irregardless of the risk, it was
good money. There was never a shortage of workers.
Many immigrated from Europe, the British Isles and
Scandinavia and were put up in boarding houses.
The value of Stonington property exploded with the
boom and the general prosperity was well in step
with advancements in technology and public service.
Due chiefly to the fears of polluted wells and typhoid
epidemics, which were proving unfortunately common,
Stonington became the first town on the islands
to create a public water system. The charter was
granted in 1907. That same year, the telephone company
began operation of a switchboard to provide 24-hour
telephone service to all the island communities.
With the addition of the post office’s Rural
Free Delivery in 1903, islanders now enjoyed the
full range of communication then common to mainlanders.
One of the most noticeable shifts to modernity within
the service industries was the advent of the automobile’s
"service station." Blacksmith shops, common
during the days of the horse and carriage, slowly
disappeared. Edith Spofford Watts wrote, "Eventually
service stations were built and hand pumped tanks
appeared at country stores. New strange words were
being introduced such as carburetors, ignition,
differential, garages and filling stations."
The first two decades of the 20th century
was nothing short of a revolution in technology
and lifestyle. The late 19th century
must have seemed archaic, obsolete and far distant
by then. But one constant is found in the island’s
strong tradition of organized religion. The Methodists,
Congregationalists and Baptists had been here for
nearly a century. In the early 1900s, the village
of Sunshine saw the arrival of the Advent Christian
Church, the village of Mountainville, the Church
of Latter Day Saints. Catholic and Episcopalian
churches would soon be founded, as well.
Stonington, early 1900s ~ |
|
Opening of the Bridge, 1939 ~ |
|
Town of Deer Isle, 1914 ~ |
America’s late entry into World War I in 1917
no doubt helped to keep the casualty rate low amongst
the island communities. Island soldier Rodney Stinson
was the only son lost during the "Great War,"
dying of his battle wounds on April 13, 1918. Stonington’s
American Legion Post would later be named in his
honor. Despite a long wavering public view on the
topic of war, when it finally came to involve the
U.S. there was no shortage of patriotic resolve.
On Deer Isle, liberty bonds were sold and local
boat owners turned over vessels to the government
for use in the war effort — sometimes via impressments.
Over 150 islanders served in ranks of the American
Expeditionary Force in France. On the WWI rolls
appear family names that can be traced to the original
settlers of Deer Isle: Eaton, Greenlaw, Hardy, Haskell,
Pressey, Sellers, Thurlow, Torrey and Rodney Stinson.
The armistice and its subsequent peace came for
many island soldiers after only a short tour at
the front. And considering the appalling casualties
suffered on either side of the war, this can only
be viewed as a good thing for Deer Isle — despite
the loss of one of its own.
Life
with the peace proceeded on a regular course. Fishermen
still brought in tremendous yields off the coast.
Fishermen, clammers and the lobster boats kept the
packing and canning operations in Stonington, Oceanville
and Burnt Cove busy year round. Inland, farms were
still planted and harvested, the cows milked, the
sheep sheared. The quarries continued to cut granite
at a furious pace well into the 1930s, until concrete
and steel slowly became the building materials of
choice. Gas lights and the plant that supplied the
fuel had been a fixture in Stonington since the
turn of the century. In 1914, a Public Utilities
Commission was formed, followed by the 1920 founding
of the Deer Isle Gas & Electric Company. The
company struggled financially and declared bankruptcy.
By then, the novelty of electricity and natural
gas had been replaced by reliance and necessity
and the company’s troubles distressed many.
In 1926, Dr. B. Lake Hoyes and his son George bought
the bankrupt provider. Over the next few years their
determined leadership and attention turned the company
around. It was a fixture when an underground cable
was laid across from the mainland in 1927, pumping
energy sources straight to the islands. In 1922,
the first solid financial institution, The Union
Trust Company of Stonington, was opened. The 1930s
saw the formation of the first real fire department,
its first purchase being a 1926 Chevy coupe, which
was converted and fitted with essential hardware
and firefighting gear. Deer Isle’s major newspaper,
the Messenger, saw its name changed to the
Deer Isle-Stonington Press and then back
to the Messenger between 1927 and 1937, each
under different management and all the while the
same and only major island-based news source. By
then, those dedicated to the newest of communication
technologies were picking up the radio stations
WABI and WLBZ out of Bangor on small battery powered
radio sets, complete with headphones. Radios were
more of a hobby in those days, one of the many available
to residents. The 1920s witnessed the formation
of the Island Country Club and Deer Isle Yacht Club,
both providing a competitive yet relaxing release
for its members. In all, the hard arduous and entirely
unpredictable life common to the 19th
century was swiftly eroding away before the wave
of cultural, social, commercial, medical and technological
advancement. It was a different world, a different
time …
As
if to punctuate this shifting of eras, the longest
and most daring suspension bridge in New England
to that point was opened on June 19, 1939. Connecting
Little Deer Isle and the rest of Deer Isle with
the mainland, the islands by then connected by a
series of causeway bridges, the relative isolation
of island life was now a thing of the past.
Today,
Deer Isle with its small villages, rolling countryside,
forests of white pine and quaking aspen, its roadside
cemeteries honoring the lives that have made this
"mess of islands," its old quarries and
seaside views, is still a remote destination for
the visitor. It requires a bit of work, meandering,
navigating the winding state and county roads that
lead up to and over the bridge. And yet, once you’ve
arrived all this "effort" is replaced
by an easy sense of place, a settled community that
is right with itself, its character, its heritage.
The same can be said of writing about the place
… the "effort" here was worth it.
Please see the next page for a resource list,
photography credits and further Deer Isle information
~
Next
Page
A History of Deer Isle, Maine - Table of Contents
~
Introduction
The Isles and Early Exploration
The First Inhabitants
and the First Settlers
The Early Days of Revolution
and Civilization
Another War and Another
Peace
The Civil War in this
Maine Town
Island Life and the Coming
Prosperity
A New Century
Sources and More Info
