From when this lighthouse was built, in 1897, until it was automated, in 1964, keepers lived on this windswept island, four miles off the coast. They often brought their families — and sometimes their pets. The first keeper’s dog, Smut, helped save two mariners when their schooner floundered on nearby shoals in a gale. Smut heard the men trying to row to the island and barked to alert the keeper, who arrived in time to toss out a line when a wave threw them from their dory. (It’s said the grateful sailors wanted to buy Smut, but the keeper wasn’t selling.) Six years after the signal was automated, the U.S. Army’s Green Berets blew up the keeper’s house, a demolition exercise that also left the tower’s brick walls cracked and the panes of its lantern room broken. Today, the island is part of a wildlife sanctuary — still a safe haven, now for nesting seabirds.
This month’s Where in Maine is sponsored by
