These articles describe my search for confirmation of a lighthouse or a lighthouse-like structure said to have been on Negro Island. The prior articles described the extensive and complex research I did to prove a "lighthouse" building was moved from the island to Boothbay Harbor's Greenleaf Lane on McFarlands Point. Owner Pal Vincent told me the story in 1994. I confirmed through Red Giles that the camp was moved for Henry Perkins, and Dot Bennett confirmed he'd owned a camp on Negro.
One person kept me going. A red-letter day came when I searched out Max Tibbetts (born 1915) at Linekin. I asked him if he'd ever heard of a lighthouse on Negro Island. He said "they" (the old people on Linekin Neck), said there had been "something like that out there." Finally a corroboration of the existence of something that people likened to a lighthouse. I imagine Max's old people might have been born in 1850 or 1860 or later, and he might have heard it by 1930. Something to go on.
Nancy Cross
I continued talking with a number of people, including Marcia Wilson. We worked at the museum together cataloging for more than 15 years — my first and very long-time volunteer on the job. I told her the story of my search and, by wonderful coincidence, Marcia recognized the name Henry Perkins since she'd been friends with his granddaughter, Nancy Cross, in Michigan and was still in touch with her! Nancy and I corresponded and planned a Boothbay get-together when she visited. My first letter to her was 4,600 words — she was a very good sport to plow through it.
Nancy wrote that Negro Island had been the family vacation spot for her mother and her Perkins relatives, which was identical to the Murrays' experience out there. Henry owned the camp there, but not the land under it. While the owners were very kind to them, eventually they were ordered off by owner Albert Ross when the Murray owners were being bought out during the second quiet title action. Nancy's grandfather, Henry Perkins, had the camp moved to McFarlands Point so quickly that Ross was amazed to see it gone. Henry had a store and very good government jobs (the only local jobs with pensions) as a postmaster and customs official.
Unscrambling Perkins Houses
The extended Perkins family had four houses altogether in that Commercial Street area, all next to one another and shown numbered in the first article's photo group: 1) present Admiral's Quarters (Maxwell relatives), 2) a nearby cottage called Gray Gables they had as a rental, 3) the camp from Negro, also a rental, and 4) Henry's dwelling (the Greenleaf Inn) which Henry and Gertrude called Twin Lindens.
In 1926 the camp from Negro was rolled up the hill behind Henry's house where it was called "Funny Smoke." Perhaps the hill and the low height of the camp caused downdrafts or caused the chimney smoke to travel oddly. I remember houses with that feature, but few heat with wood now. Nancy said the camp was later torn down and replaced on the same spot by a building much the same shape and size, though much more luxurious. That killed any hope of finding evidence of a "lighthouse" in that house. And hearing this was as unwelcome as Asa's saying Pal's house was torn down and rebuilt. Things were really going awry.
Wrong House!
I sent Nancy photos of the area to be sure of what we were talking about. On phones in different states looking at copies of the same photos, I started scrambling in my head. Nancy described the cottage, Gray Gables, as Pal's house, and in so doing I realized that Pal's was not the camp/lighthouse that came from Negro; Pal's was the cottage a few yards south of the Negro camp. Pal, Ken Merrill, and Butler Eames had mixed up the very close small buildings!
That realization clarified why always reliable Asa remembered the new house built about 1950 for Fisher Rice on that general site, when I doubted him. All along I'd been advised to focus on what turned out to be the wrong house, and though Asa was housebound, I hadn't thought to take photos of the houses to him.
Getting back to Ken Merrill and his telling Pal her house was moved there — Ken's working for Milton Giles during the 1920s makes it very likely that he helped move the camp from Negro to Greenleaf Lane. When Ken did plumbing for Pal decades later, the house appeared to be the same one that he had helped move in 1926, but Pal's house was actually the Perkinses Gray Gables, not the moved camp.
Nancy visited Boothbay in August 1995, and I had the pleasure of having lunch with her and Marcia Wilson. We covered more details of the camp moving and the houses in that vicinity, and we continued to write about her Boothbay forebears once she returned to Michigan. During our talks and letters, my repeated questions to Nancy about anything that could be construed to be a lighthouse on Negro Island dredged up nothing.
Bobby Holbrook
Avenues to pursue to explain the legend (?) were getting hard to find, so I turned to the need for a lighthouse. I asked my old friend Bobby Holbrook if he could see a reason for a mariners' warning device on Negro Island. He said there were no dangers that were not apparent, though you needed to have your wits about you, as always, when navigating around there at different tides and conditions. He discussed where to keep the pipe in the ledge off the northwest corner of Negro, what the depth was near the island and in Card Cove, how close and which side to keep the nearby big boulder, and what swell height dictated avoiding certain features. Bobby's expertise was admirable, but put me even farther away from a lighthouse. How far will I get? Next time.