Hurricane Island

We visited Hurricane on or shakedown cruise a few weeks ago, and each time I go there I am drawn further in to the mystique of the place.

Now I find out Hurricane Island doesn't have a Wikipedia page.  I thought everything had a Wikipedia page.

So here's the story.

Hurricane is a high mound of pinkish granite, overlooking Penobscot Bay just west of Vinalhaven, overgrown with rough spruce and tangled black raspberry bushes.  Hurricane Island Foundation - comprising the same cast of characters who were the backbone and ribs of the now-defunct Hurricane Island Outward Bound School - maintains facilities there, and the owner of the island, a dissipated old physician with more money than sense, has a boondoggle of a house carved into the rock on the southwestern end which is accessible only by a rigorous hike.  There are no roads; HIF maintains some trails.

Between 1870 and 1914, Hurricane was a leading producer of granite.  The Civil War General Davis Tillson was one of the owners and the driving force behind the island's success - he was a paternalistic, benevolent visionary who oversaw well-managed operations which provided happy, contented laborers with honest work, housing and a company store in which they could satisfy all their earthly wants.

Well, either that or an autocratic megalomaniac who oppressed and essentially imprisoned his workers, economically and physically, in a company town.

Depends on who you ask.

The Scottish laborers called Tillson "Lord of the Isles," and the Italians "Il Bombasto Furioso."  Might be a clue there as to which version of the Tillson legend is closer to reality.

In any case, the granite business was good to Gen. Tillson.  By 1877 there were 600 souls living on the island, with an active quarry, a cutting operation, polishing mill, and highly skilled carvers turning out granite which found its way to buildings and monuments all over the United States, including the Washington Monument; post offices and courthouses in St. Louis, Boston, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh; the Library of Congress; the New York Custom House; and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The village, ca. 1908

The stonecutting sheds, ca. 1907

The quarry, ca. 1907

By 1905, however, architectural styles were changing.  Concrete was on the scene.  Production and shipping costs were rising.  Granite contracts were becoming fewer and farther between.  The Hurricane Island operations began experiencing periodic shutdowns.

In 1914, good news for the island came in the form of a contract for 1,200 tons of granite for the Rockport, Massachusetts breakwater.  The superintendent of the island, one John Landers (Tillson had died in 1895), was a trusted and talented manager who personally oversaw the cutting of the stone and its loading onto a stone scow in November of that year.

The scow, under tow en route to Massachusetts, made it as far as Rockland Harbor, then foundered and sank.  It was not insured.  Sixteen days later, John Landers died of typhoid fever.

Those two events - the latter perhaps more than the former - sounded Hurricane's death knell.  Operations were immediately and permanently suspended, and the hundreds of people who had lived and worked and married and borne children and buried their dead on Hurricane left in a panicked frenzy to find other work.  Virtually overnight, Hurricane was deserted.

Its inhabitants had not even paused to pack, but for a few personal possessions.  Tools were dropped next to half-finished carvings.  Homes were abandoned, some with tables laid for a meal and pictures still hanging on the walls.

Folks from Vinalhaven wasted no time in salvaging everything they possibly could, from the personal belongings to the buildings (the lumber and other materials were transported the short distance over Hurricane Sound for re-use elsewhere).  

In the century since then, the spruce and brambles have reclaimed almost all of the island, and there are very few traces of the thriving town and graniteworks other than stone foundations, several wells, and two untended graves.

There are many, many other islands around with abandoned quarries and granite wharves; some, like High Island, are uninhabited, while others, like Vinalhaven, have managed to sustain communities.  But only Hurricane is so haunting and compelling, the immediacy of its abandonment unique.

The churchyard

Abandoned stonework

Flywheel and boiler of the steam-driven air compressor

One of two lead-lined safes which still sit in the foundation of the bank.
They were reportedly the only things too heavy for the good men of Vinalhaven to liberate from Hurricane.

The quarry.
Under the placid surface of the water lies rusting rock-moving machinery.

This is the same view from above the quarry as
 in the postcard of the cutting sheds, above

Erik Lawson, aged one year, seven months, and twenty days.
This is one of only two graves remaining of the fifteen or so that were here in 1910 - either the others were vandalized and the stones removed, or possibly the graves themselves were moved after the island closed down.
According to one of the last residents of the island, most people buried their dead in their own (well, Tillson's) yards, which means there are lost graves scattered all over the island.

Sunset over Hurricane Sound