#000177
The Evolution of Bailey's Island
Beth E. Hill
*The Evolution of Bailey's Island* by Beth E. Hill, published around 1992, is a local history of one of the small islands of Casco Bay - Bailey Island, part of the town of Harpswell on the Maine coast. Reached today by a famous cribstone bridge, the island carries a layered past: an Abenaki name and presence long before European settlers arrived in the eighteenth century, followed by generations of fishing, summering, and slow change. Hill's book is the sort of carefully compiled community history that towns produce to keep their own memory - genealogies, landmarks, anecdotes, and the texture of island life. It is cited as a standard reference in Bailey Island bibliographies. For readers with a love of coastal Maine, or of the granular local histories that professional accounts overlook, it is a valuable record.
more…less ▴
The book
The Evolution of Bailey's Island is a local history written by Beth E. Hill and published around 1992. It chronicles the small Casco Bay island's development from its Native American and colonial beginnings through its life as a fishing and summer community, and it appears in scholarly bibliographies as a source on the island's past.
The subject
Bailey Island lies in Casco Bay within the town of Harpswell, Maine. Originally known by an Abenaki name, it was settled by Europeans in the 1700s and is celebrated today for its cribstone bridge, one of the few of its kind in the world.
How to read it
Approach it as community history rather than academic monograph - strongest on local detail, place-names, and the lived memory of an island that outsiders mostly see in passing.
For more context
Pair it with the Harpswell Historical Society's publications for the wider history of the peninsula and its islands.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Beth E. Hill
- Place of publication
- Maine
- Year
- 1992
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- History
- Location
- Maine
Places