Maine and New Hampshire share a land border that continues outward into the Atlantic Ocean. There it goes straight through the middle of the mysterious Isles of Shoals. There the states share an additional land border along a causeway only a few yards wide.
This map shows the Isles of Shoals, a series of rocky ledges and outcrops about ten miles (16 kilometres) from the coastline. Appledore, Star, Smuttynose and Gosport sound odd today. However, our distant ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic knew them.
This closer image of the shared border displays the narrow link between New Hampshire’s Star Island and Maine’s Cedar Island. Cedar Island, as you’ll notice if you zoom out a notch or two, consists of not much more than a stepping stone that connects Star Island to Smuttynose Island.
The Isles can be approached by regularly-scheduled day cruises such as those offered by the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company. It provides direct routes from Portsmouth Harbor. Access to this geo-anomaly shouldn’t be a problem for those who wish to seek it.
As interesting as I found the geographical oddity to be, it pales in comparison to the history of the archipelago itself. I’ve never been to the Isles of Shoals but I will now place them firmly on my travel destination wish list.
A Little Context
Fishermen exploited these grand banks soon after the very first European explores discovered them. This took place even before Captain John Smith passed through the isles and formally mapped them in 1614. The name probably derives from the “shoaling” or schooling of what seemed to be an endless supply of fish. The Isles of Shoals quickly became the busiest port in New England during that early colonial era. It dominated the lucrative dried codfish export market for the next century and a half. Colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth fill the history books today. However, the overlooked Isles of Shoals kept right up there with those locales at the time.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason received a joint land patent that included the Isles of Shoals along with a large tract on the mainland in 1622. A few years later they decided to divide the grant. Each negotiated a portion of the Isles as part of the transaction. Mason retained the southern portion to form New Hampshire. Gorges retained the northern portion and associated it with land that would later become Maine. Thus the geo-anomaly exists primarily because two parties split fishing rights nearly four centuries ago.
The Situation Evolves
The fishermen never spread their sphere of influence. They stuck to the Isles of Shoals and concentrated on making money rather than history. So it became a single-purpose settlement based solely on processing and exporting cod to Europe. The settlement also earned an unsavory reputation as a haven for pirates, thieves and cutthroats with little respect for laws or restrictions upon their freedoms. They became so obstinate that they picked up and moved their entire community from Appledore Island (Maine) to Star Island on the other side of the border (New Hampshire) because of taxes.
Mainland colonists forced the evacuation of the islands during the Revolutionary War ostensibly for safety reasons. In reality they simply distrusted those offshore ruffians. Historians in the newly independent nation found plenty of reasons to subsequently whitewash unwelcome diversions such as the Isles of Shoals. Instead, they focused nostalgically on noble parables such as the First Thanksgiving. It didn’t matter so much that the Isles of Shoals had long been established and had been much more viable economically during its heyday.
The Isles of Shoals never attained its former glory. A few stragglers lived there in abject poverty during the first half of the Nineteenth Century. The isles later became the home of Celia Thaxter in the second half of the century. She used her fame as a renowned poet to anchored a prototypical artist colony on Appledore Island before such things became common.
Into the Modern Day
Large seacoast hotels came into vogue during the Victorian era, and tourism arrived on the Isles of Shoals. The only grand hotel remaining here today, however, is the Oceanic Hotel on Star Island. This survived by a quirk of fate, sifting its focus to religious conferences and retreats, a function it continues to provide.
The Star Island Corporation, an affiliate of the Unitarian-Universalism Association and the United Church of Christ, remains its longtime owner. Just recently they started allowing personal retreats to Star Island. Visitors can now can stay at the hotel on their own accord without participating in the conferences or any of the organized activities.
Trivia
I ran into a few other interesting tidbits as I researched the Isles of Shoals:
- People who have worked at the hotel on Star Island call themselves Pelicans and they maintain an active alumni association.
- A gruesome double-murder happened on Smuttynose Island in 1873 that became the subject of a 1997 novel by Anita Shreve called “The Weight of Water.” It became a movie with the same title in 2002.
- Smuttynose lends its name to a microbrewery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
I never imagined that so much information could be derived from a tiny state border crossing in a remote archipelago off the Atlantic coastline.
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