Nash Island Light

Nash Island Light remains - click

The Towns of Addison, Columbia Falls and Columbia were all ports for shipping granite, lumber and other Maine products in the 1830's.  In 1837 Congress appropriated money to build a light on one of the site of Nash Island.  There are/were two Nash Islands there, big and little, the Light is on "little".
The first dwelling and tower did not fare well, both were excessively leaky, and in time both were replaced.  The new Light is the one shone above.
  One of the keepers, John Purington or Portland, arrived, in 1916, aboard a tender with his wife and seven children, one of them 3 weeks old; two more sons would be born on the island.  School was on the island for two weeks, then the teacher would go to another island and so on.  The result was two weeks of school and about 6 weeks off.  One of those children was Jenny, she didn't have much education but she was industrious for sure.  Jenny became a farmer and lobster fisherman, she lived on the island until the time she died at age 91.  I wrote about Jennies sheep on my Tehachapi Pete blog a while back.  The light is no longer active, it was sold to a local preservation group, who are activly working on it.  The Island is under the authority of the U S Fish and Wildlife Service.

A Coast Guard photo, 1870's maybe.

The ruins of the keepers house in 2001

Some of Jennies sheep in 2010

June 7, 2011 in this blog, read about the sheep.