CHAPTER IX.—ISLANDS.
MOST of the coast of Maine is thickly strewn with islands. The largest is Mount Desert, on the west side of Frenchman’s Bay; it is fifteen miles long, and twelve broad. Many fine islands lie in Penobscot Bay, as Long Island, on which is the town of Islesborough; the Fox Islands, containing the town of Vinalhaven; and Deer Isle, on the east side of the bay, about eight miles from Castine.
The Isles of Shoals belong partly to New Hampshire, and partly to Maine. They lie about eight miles out at sea, between Portsmouth and Newburyport, and are hardly more than a cluster of rocks rising above the waters; but they are, on many accounts, worthy of notice. They have but a thin and barren appearance, yet for more than a century previous to the revolution they were quite populous, containing at one time six hundred inhabitants, who found there an advantageous situation for carrying on fisheries. To this day the best cod in the world are those which are known in the market as Isle of Shoals dun fish. These islands were discovered by the celebrated Captain Smith in 1614, and called at first Smith’s Isles. The New Hampshire portion now constitutes the town of Gosport.
In all of them are chasms in the rocks apparently caused by earthquakes. There is a remarkable chasm on Star Island, where one of the female inhabitants secreted herself when the islands were invaded, and the people carried into captivity by the Indians. The largest is named Hog Island, and contains three hundred and fifty acres; Star Island has one hundred and fifty, Hayley’s one hundred; they are in all seven. The inhabitants are about one hundred; they live solely by fishing, and in connection with those of the shore in their immediate neighborhood, who follow the same mode of life, are the most rude and uncivilized beings in New England, except the Indians. They supply the markets of Newburyport with fish, and have long been known there by the name of Algerines. Efforts have recently been made to improve their social condition.
In the northern part of Massachusetts, at the mouth of the Merrimack, lies Plum Island, nine miles long and one wide. On the side towards the ocean it consists of sand hills twenty or thirty feet high, thrown into a thousand fantastic shapes like snow drifts in a storm. These hills are covered with low bushes bearing the beach plum, a fruit about the size of a musket ball, and of a pleasant taste; wild cherries and grapes also grow in different parts. In autumn it is much frequented by parties of pleasure from the neighborhood. At the northern extremity are two lighthouses and a hotel.
Nantucket, twenty miles south of the main land at Cape Cod, is an island of triangular form, about fifteen miles long and eleven broad in the widest part, containing twenty-nine thousand three hundred and eighty acres. It is removed at least twenty miles from the nearest land, and, during some parts of the winter, the water is frozen around it as far as the eye can reach, for a number of weeks. The climate is comparatively of an equal temperature. Springs of water on the island below a certain level have a peculiartaste, and are disagreeable to those unused to them. The frequency of dense and heavy fogs has frustrated the attempts made here, to manufacture salt by evaporation from sea-water.
The inhabitants of this island are a robust and enterprising race, chiefly seamen and mechanics; and those employed in the whale fishery are said to be superior to all others;the island, being sandy and barren, is calculated only for such people as are willing to depend almost entirely on the ocean for subsistence.[24] The people are mostly of the society of Friends, and are warmly attached to their island; few wishing to remove to a more desirable situation.
There is a sand-bar at the entrance of the harbor of Nantucket, which effectually excludes large vessels, deeply laden. Some attempts have been recently made to remove this bank, and an appropriation of twenty-eight thousand dollars was made by government for this purpose; but the sand removed in summer was more than supplied in winter, and the project was abandoned. Ships now unlade at Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, and their cargoes are taken in small vessels to the island. Some months in the year, they can unload at the bar. South-east of the island, and out of sight of land, lie Nantucket Shoals, a dangerous reef of sand, fifty miles in extent.
Martha’s Vineyard, west of Nantucket, and lying nearer the continent, is twenty miles long, and ten broad. This island has a good soil, and in the western part is somewhat elevated; it has many productive farms, and contains the town of Edgartown, which has a good harbor. Holmes’s Hole is a safe and commodious harbor in the north part of the island, much frequented during the winter by inward bound vessels. The Elizabeth Islands are a chain of sixteen small islands lying north-west of Martha’s Vineyard, and forming the south-east side of Buzzard’s Bay; a part of them only are inhabited. They were discovered by Bartholomew Gosnold, in 1602. A multitude of islands lie in Boston Bay, many of them very beautiful, but none of sufficient importance to merit particular description.