Friday, July 10

Busy day!

Most visitors we have seen.

It started at 1000 when I saw some people walking around outside. I went out front and met Maggie, her mother and her brother. Maggie helped me run the flag up the flagpole and she was quite excited. I took them up the lighthouse. This was the first of many walks up the 38 steps to the top.

Over the next seven hours we hosted groups and families both local and from afar. There was a large group that has a family cottage in Pemaquid, another family from Texas and two families that have special ties to Seguin.

The Ramsey’s are from Raeford, NC. Beverly spent the first year of her life on Seguin. Her father was a Coastguardsman assigned to Seguin in the late 1950’s. She was born ashore and brought to the island when only a few weeks old. Beverly showed us many pictures of her dad on Seguin and one or two showing her as a baby while here. The Ramsey’s are going to stop in the FOSI office and attempt to document and verify her father’s time here. There is an obvious break in the island records during this time.

Another man arrived with his dog and told the following story. About 65 years ago his father was assigned to Seguin and brought his wife along. During that time the wife got pregnant and when it came time for the delivery his father rowed to shore with the pregnant wife lying on the bottom of the boat. They made it ashore in the nick of time and his sister was born thirty minutes later.

Around noon I walked to the cove intending to cut the grass. When I got there I noticed more boats coming in and visitors walking up to the lighthouse. I stayed down for a while and got the camping area and the trail mowed while Brenda took care of things at the top. Wasting no time I walked back up and joined her in giving tours and taking care of visitors.

When we mention to visitors that we are writing a blog about our adventures on Seguin, they all want to read it. I ask them for their email address and then email a link to the blog. People must be reading it. I can monitor the number or readers and it is well above fifty. If this keeps up we should have a real following by Labor Day!

One lady today asked me if I knew the story of Malaga Island. When I told her no she said I should check it out.

It truly is “A Story Best Left Untold” and a shameful moment in the history of Maine.

Malaga Island’s tranquillity belies a sad history of hope and desperation. Malaga was settled sometime during the Civil War by Benjamin Darling, a black man. He had a wife, who may have been white, and two sons. Soon he was joined by a group of blacks, Indians, and other mixed breeds who built a community of driftwood shacks. The squatters and their descendants fished and scratch-farmed the rocky soil. They dug clams and caught lobsters and heated with whatever washed ashore. Occasionally they would work as laborers for mainland farmers.

But rumors began to grow. It was said that the social order of the Malagoites was loose and that incest was rampant. Ben Darling was said to have been an escaped slave, and the women were thought to have been concubines of local sea captains in the West Indian trade who were put ashore before the captains returned to their wives. Others were reported to have escaped from a slave-trading ship headed to the south. Some claimed that the children grew horns and lived like beasts in tunnels.

One of the group was James McKinney who was born in Phippsburg into a family of Scots. He became known as the “King of Malaga,” but by the time he became the leader of this desperate outpost, his kingdom was a shambles. The natural bounty of clams had been depleted, the topsoil had eroded, and much of the population suffered from malnourishment and lack of education.

By 1903, the Malagoites were so desperate that they sought help from the town of Phippsburg, which at the time was being discovered as a place for summer cottage development. Not wanting the problems or the embarrassment of Malaga, Phippsburg was quick to argue that the island belonged to the town of Harpswell. For better or worse, the dispute publicized the islanders’ plight. State legislators finally settled the dispute by granting Malaga to Phippsburg, but then, at the urging of Phippsburg, reversing their decision, leaving the Malagoites, by default, wards of the state. Locals called Malaga No Man’s Land.

Malaga’s plight caught the attention of Captain George Lane, who had a summer house on what was then called Horse Island to the south. George was a descendant of the Lanes of Lanes Island at the mouth of the Royal and Cousins River and Malden, Massachusetts. He used to sail into isolated coves and preach the Good Word. Concerned for the Malagoites, he approached the Superintendent of Schools only to discover that there was no money to build a school on the island. At Lane’s insistence though, he conceded to providing a teacher if there was a suitable building.

In the spring of 1908, James McKenny, the King, allowed Lane to set up a temporary school in his house, taught by Lane’s daughter. She would row across from Horse Island for classes. The Lanes raised food, clothes, and money, and by July, they broke ground on a new school building. When it was completed in October, the Superintendent, true to his word, supplied Malaga with a teacher.

In the summer of 1911, Governor Fredrick Plaisted visited Malaga to observe the progress. Instead, he saw only the squalor. Appalled, he suggested burning the shacks down, drilling a well, and rebuilding. But by this time, Malaga had become a highly publicized scandal and a political liability. Newspapers dubbed it “Maine’s Scandal Island” and a “salt-water skid row.”

The politically safer and more expedient alternative was eviction. The next year the State evicted the 56 residents, dug up the remains of the dead, and burned down the hovels. For lack of any other expeditious solution, many of the Malagoites were committed to the Maine School for the Feeble-Mined in Pownel. Others were left to fend for themselves.

Sadly, Malaga’s stigma still haunts descendants of Malaga’s exiled in the form of local taunts and jeers and name-calling.

Most all states have a story like this. Fortunately we are slowly rising above this bigotry.

An Outward Bound group is scheduled to arrive in the cove this evening and spend the night. The plan is to see them in the morning and do a project together.