Casco Bay

“ Other than this, save at extreme high tide, the ship’s hull rose above the water.
“Makes sort of a harbor,” said Pearl. “Believe you could sail the Flyaway right inside. Make a grand place to weather a squall.”
[201]
The three girls, Betty, Ruth and Pearl, fully intended going to old Fort Skammel that day. But life on the islands in Casco Bay is a busy one. Fish must be caught, clams dug, crabs and lobsters trapped and boiled. Summer visitors must be served for it is their money that fills the flour box, and the coal bin, too. ”

“ Leaving the entrance to Portland Harbor, the tug steamed up into the waters of Casco Bay, that beautiful spot with its scores of verdant and rocky islands. As it was the height of the summer season they passed many pleasure boats, big and little. Once they passed an island where a big picnic was in progress and they heard the music from a band quite distinctly. They also passed Peak’s Island where there was a big, round-topped structure, which the captain of the tug said was a famous summer theater. ”

“ On House Island, Casco Bay, you will find Fort Scammell. This fort was built in 1808, under the direction of Mr. H.A.S. Dearborn, who under authorization of the War Department, purchased for twelve hundred dollars, all the southwest part of House Island containing twelve acres more or less. On the highest point of this island an octagonal block-house of timber was erected, with a porthole and a gun on each side. The upper story projecting over the lower, two or three feet; contained the battery. On the low upright center timbers of the roof, was a carved wooden eagle with extended wings. ”

“ The trees, from our distance, might have been hazel; the beach might have been in Europe; the mountain forms behind modelled in little from the Alps, and the forest which clustered on their ramparts a growth no more considerable than our Scottish heath. Again the cliff yawned, but now with a deeper entry; and the Casco, hauling her wind, began to slide into the bay of Anaho. The cocoa-palm, that giraffe of vegetables, so graceful, so ungainly, to the European eye so foreign, was to be seen crowding on the beach, and climbing and fringing the steep sides of mountains. ”

“ The first mystery had come to them on shore in the hold of a beached three-masted schooner.
Ruth knew the schooner well enough. She had been on board her a dozen times and thought she knew all about her—but she didn’t.
The owner, a dark-skinned foreigner who had purchased the schooner six months before, used her for bringing wood to the islands. There is, so they say, an island in Casco Bay for every day in the year. Each island has its summer colony. These summer folks like an open fire to sit by at night and this requires wood. ”

“ Check the old brick walls then the inside area, after which proceed to go over the grounds surrounding the cellar. Some of the ancient tools and implements may be waiting for your metal detector to bring them to light.
At the beginning of this chapter I mentioned George Cleeves and Richard Tucker. They were the founders of Portland, Maine, so this section of Casco Bay is a hub of the wheel of history in this bay and the state itself. The south shore is the side towards Peaks Island and the metal detector should be used along the beaches and high ground on this side of the island. ”

“ Gwen assured her. "For instance, we can take a motor-boat or can row or sail over to Jagged Island, where we can have a clam bake, or merely a picnic luncheon, as we feel inclined. We can go to the end of the island and be 'sot over' to the next one, from which we can drive all the way to Brunswick, coming home by way of the Neck, or going the other way to Bath. We can even come back on the boat from New Meadows river if we start in time. Then besides Jagged Island there are dozens of the most beautiful places to explore, for Casco Bay is full of lovely spots. ”

“ Many of the beautiful islands in Casco Bay had a few English settlers upon them. The Indians paddled from one to another in their canoes, and the inhabitants generally fell easy victims to their fury. A few families were gathered upon Jewell's Island, in a fortified house. On the 2d of September a party of Indians landed upon the island for their destruction. [Pg 402] Several of the men were absent from the island in search of Indian corn, and few were left in the garrison excepting women and children. ”

“ There should be, hidden out of sight, a number of old relics that could be located with a good metal detector. The date of the fort being as I mentioned 1808, therefore the artifacts that might be found here, would really have some value. Don’t forget to secure permission before you hunt on any property. The owner will like you better for this.
25 CHAPTER IV
PEAKS ISLAND
The Island of Peaks is located in Casco Bay and is approximately three miles due east from Portland. It only takes a fifteen minute boat ride to arrive at Peaks. ”

“ The other places get their supply from the smacks and also from the fishermen in their vicinity, who run in their own catch. Portland is very favorably situated in this regard, as Casco Bay is a noted fishing center for lobsters. ”

“ The leading industry of the island was the curing and drying of salt fish that were caught just off shore. You can walk around the entire shoreline of this island in about an hour and a half. A metal detector should react here to something buried long ago. The island, being a trading post, should reveal some treasures of the bygone era. The island has a wonderful beach on the westerly side. If you also happen to be interested in shells you will find many “sand dollars” here. A “sand dollar” is a shell fish shaped like a silver dollar. They are very interesting to study. ”

“ French’s Island is located between Great Chebeague and Goose Island and to the south of Bustin’s Island. To reach this island you proceed to Flying Point, Freeport, then by boat to Bustin’s Island, then over to French’s. It is a short trip from the mainland. You will have to hire someone with a motorboat to take you across the bay. This island is privately owned, so permission must be secured before you land and start your treasure hunt. I believe a Portland resident owns this island. ”

“ Yacht Casco, Anaho Bay, Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands [July 1888] .
MY DEAR COLVIN,—From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write to say how d’ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing ’em, and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded: no fool, though.
The climate is delightful ”

“ A good landing place may easily be made, where any thing might be landed from half ebb to half flood. It is the intention of the lieutenant-governor to erect a store-house, and make a good landing place; indeed this would have been done before, but the want of hands prevented it. The Golden-Grove and Supply have both lain at anchor in this bay, bringing the great Cascade to bear south-west, at one mile from the shore, in seventeen fathoms coral and sand, but the bottom is foul, as there is great reason to suppose it is all round the island. ”

“ A slight indentation of the land affords a somewhat sheltered anchorage-ground, and an opening in the cliffs has supplied a way to the beach 121 by a winding road at the foot of the dividing hills. A stream of water, collected from many ravines, finds its way by a similar opening to a ledge of rock in the neighborhood, and, falling over in feathery spray, has given the name of Cascade to this part of the island. Off this bay, on the morning of the 21st of June, 1842, the brig Governor Philip was sailing, having brought stores for the use of the penal establishment. ”

“ Cascade Bay is a very good road in the strong south-west wind, and very smooth water; the landing is easy, as is the access to the island. As the ebb goes very strong nine hours to the eastward, the most convenient place for anchoring off Sydney Bay, on account of the boats, is, with the body of Nepean's Isle east-north-east half east, or east by north; the flag-staff north-north-east half east, Point Ross north-west by west, and the west end of Phillip Isle south-south-east nineteen fathoms ”

“ The bearings, when at anchor in Duncombe Bay, were Cook's rocks east-south-east, and the rocks off Point Howe, west-south-west one quarter west, the landing rock south, distance off one mile; the depth nineteen fathoms, coarse sand and coral. The best anchorage in the Cascade Bay is with the great cascade south-west, and Cook's Point north-east; distance off shore about a mile and a half; the ground tolerably good. ”

“ It had been a bright clear day on the upland, so clear that the ramparts of Fort Jackson and the flagstaff were plainly visible twelve miles away from the long curving peninsula that stretched a bared white arm around the peaceful waters of Logport Bay. It had been a clear day upon the sea-shore, albeit the air was filled with the flying spume and shifting sand of a straggling beach whose low dunes were dragged down by the long surges of the Pacific and thrown up again by the tumultuous trade-winds. ”

“ With respect to landing upon the shore, as it is frequently attended with great difficulty and danger, stores should never be sent here but in the summer time, when there is much fine weather and easy landing; but when the landing is impracticable in Sydney-Bay, it is possible to get light stores a-shore in Cascade-Bay, which will then be smooth, if it do not blow hard; when it does, the whole island is inaccessible, for it is not of sufficient extent to prevent the sea, occasioned by bad weather, from affecting every part of the shore. ”

“ There is never lack of exercise in small-boat sailing, and the hard work is not only part of the fun of it, but it beats the doctors. San Francisco Bay is no mill pond. It is a large and draughty and variegated piece of water. I remember, one winter evening, trying to enter the mouth of the Sacramento. There was a freshet on the river, the flood tide from the bay had been beaten back into a strong ebb, and the lusty west wind died down with the sun. ”

“ But to be able to speak to people is not all. And in the first stage of my relations with natives I was helped by two things. To begin with, I was the show-man of the Casco. She, her fine lines, tall spars, and snowy decks, the crimson fittings of the saloon, and the white, the gilt, and the repeating mirrors of the tiny cabin, brought us a hundred visitors. The men fathomed out her dimensions with their arms, as their fathers fathomed out the ships of Cook; the women declared the cabins more lovely than a church ”

“ No great river does, or can, take its rise below the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range; the distance to the sea is too short to admit of it. The rivers of the San Francisco bay, which are the largest after the Columbia, are local to that bay, and lateral to the coast, having their sources about on a line with the Dalles of the Columbia, and running each in a valley of its own, between the Coast range and the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range. ”

“ In making a short turn to the south, the river forms the cascades in breaking over a point of agglomerated masses of rock, leaving a handsome bay to the right, with several rocky, pine-covered islands, and the mountains sweep at a distance around a cove where several small streams enter the bay. In less than an hour we halted on the left bank, about five minutes' walk above the cascades, where there were several Indian huts, and where our guides signified it was customary to hire Indians to assist in making the portage. ”

“ There are villages of Kasa-an Indians in the smaller inlets and coves opening from the bay, and carved totem poles stand guard over the large square houses of these native settlements. The bay itself is as lovely a stretch of water as can be imagined, sheltered, sunny, and calm, with noble mountains outlining its curves, and wooded islands drifted in picturesque groups at the end. ”

“ The sight has proved sufficient to thickly people the banks of the Sacramento—hitherto sparsely settled—and cover San Francisco Bay with ships from every quarter of the globe.
Not only is the harbour of Yerba Buena crowded with strange craft, but its streets with queer characters—adventurers of every race and clime—among whom may be heard an exchange of tongues, the like never listened to since the abortive attempt at building the tower of Babel. ”

“ The northern face of the Sá Leone peninsula is fretted with little creeks and inlets, bights and lagoons, which were charming in a state of nature. Pirate's Bay, the second after the lighthouse, is a fairy scene under a fine sky; with its truly African tricolor, its blue waters reflecting air, its dwarf cliffs of laterite bespread with vivid leek-green, and its arc of golden yellow sand, upon which the feathery tops of the cocoa-palms look like pins planted in the ground. To the travelled man the view suggests many a nook in the Pacific islands. ”

“ Dead horses marked the trail across two continents. The Cossack soldiers deserted and joined the banditti that scoured the Tartar plains; and for three winters the travellers were storm-bound in the mountains of Siberia. But at length they reached Avacha Bay on the eastern shore of Kamchatka, and the waters of the Pacific gladdened the eyes of the weary travellers. At Petropavlovsk on the bay they built a fort, houses, barracks, a chapel, and two vessels, named the St Peter and the St Paul. ”