Red Burtts Storys

Westport Island Maine:
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Westport Island Maine
By Nelson H. Burtt

This is a short description of the Westport Island I knew as a young boy during the great depression of the 1930’s. My knowledge of Westport Island is of the East Shore Rd. area, Swanton’s cove, Long Cove and Kehail Point. All my relatives on my mothers’ side of the family were born and raised on Westport Is. My grandparents, Arthur Alexander Kehail and Philena (Tarbox) Kehail were the owners of a piece of property and farmhouse on the East Shore Rd., located at Long Cove. The original house was destroyed by the great fire that swept over that part of the island in 1918, a new house was built in 1920 and remains there today. My aunt, Hazel (Kehail) Templeman and her husband, Ronald B. Templeman are still living there at this writing. Ronald remodeled the whole building sometime in the 1960’s. My first memory’s of Westport are in the middle 1930’s, my grandmother spent every year from March to October on the island, she would leave Boston by train and a friend of hers by the name of Maude Webber, one of the few people on the island that owned an automobile, would pick her up in Wiscasset and bring her back to the island.

My parents were very poor during the thirties, my father lost his business in the stock crash of 1929 and it was much easier on him financially for my mother and myself to spend the summer on Westport. We lived in a three decker tenement in the Cambridgeport section of Cambridge, Mass., and coming to Westport for a twelve year old boy was like a whole new world compared to the city streets that I was used to. School let out the second week in June and the very next day at 4 AM we started our trip to Maine. There was no Maine Turnpike then, we would drive out to Saugus Mass. and then travel the old “Rte 1” all the way to Bath Me. This same trip today would take about three hours, our trips would take anywhere from ten to thirteen, it was one flat tire after another, inner tubes were used then and the tire had to be broken down, the tube taken out, find the leak, scrape it, put glue on it, then put the patch on, let it dry then remount the tire, drive thirty miles or so and do it all over again.
In-between the flats there would be water pumps, fuel pumps, broken hoses and anything else that could happen, and usually did.

I always remember the times that we arrived after dark, we would pay a ten cent toll and cross over the Carlton bridge in Bath and continue north on Rte 1 toward Wiscasset, a few miles ahead we would turn right onto a dirt road that is now Rte 144, a short distance ahead the road dipped and railroad tracks crossed, back then all railroad crossings had signs that read, “Stop Look And Listen” this crossing also had a wrecked automobile that had been hit by a train and dumped beside the tracks so all passing cars could see it. My mother would always make my father stop, turn the engine off, then look and listen, she wanted to make sure a train didn’t come along and kill us, now one of the things that I always looked forward to was coming up, getting onto the island.
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Today, crossing from the mainland to Westport there is a well built modern day bridge but back in the thirties we crossed on a two car ferry, (My mother said it would carry four) that was pushed along by a motor boat made fast to the side. When we arrived at the waters edge my father would turn the engine off and blow the car horn several times, after a few moments, across the water we would see a kerosene lantern flickering in the little building close to the shore, then we would hear the putt, putt, putt of the old one lunger motor boat starting it’s short trip across.

The approach to the Ferry on the Wiscasset side of the river was very steep, my Mother would pull me out of the car and we would stand at the top of the of the short hill and watch as my Father let the car roll down onto the Ferry, he would have to be almost standing on the brake peddle to keep the car from rolling right off the other side of the Ferry and into the river which is what my Mother always thought was going to happen.

The current could be quite strong here as the tide went in and out, and to prevent the ferry from being pulled off course there was a steel cable that stretched from one shore to the other, this cable passed up and through large pulleys that were attached to three or four posts that were built into the side of the ferry, the cable would come up out of the water and through the pulleys as the boat pushed the ferry along. This cable would also act as a guideline bringing the ferry into the exact spot on the opposite shore for unloading.

In all the crossings that I can remember the same man ran the ferry, his name was Luther Cromwell, after my father drove the car on board Luther would set the engine and climb out of the boat onto the ferry, they would all shake hands and then Luther would give my parents all the latest news, what kind of winter they had, who was visiting the island and so on. When we reached the shore Luther would lower a large ramp, there was one at each end of the ferry, and we would drive off and up what is now called, “The Old Ferry Road”. Most of the roads on Westport today are paved, although as I write, the section of the E. Shore Rd. in front of our place is still dirt but that will probably soon change. Back then the roads were nothing but two ruts with grass growing up the middle, but the Main Rd. that connects the E. Shore Rd. to the W. Shore Rd. was a dirt road but it was always graded and fairly smooth.

Driving down what is now Rte 144 we would come to the split in the road where the E. Shore Rd bears left and the Main Rd goes off to the right, if it happened to be a foggy night my father would have to pay close attention as it would be very easy to miss this turn.
A mile or so down the E. Shore Rd. the first house on the left back then had a very small driveway, you had to look real close or you would drive right by it (today this driveway is called “Old Pier Lane” this driveway went right down to the shore of the Sheepscot River, the house that sits at the end of this driveway on the left is the house that my grandmother grew up in during the 1800’s, her father, my great grandfather, built this house, his name was Amasa Tarbox, he left this place to my grandmother’s twin brother, Arthur Tarbox, it then went to my grandmother Philena ( Tarbox ) Kehail and then passed on to my aunt, Hazel ( Kehail ) Templeman.
I spent several vacations in this house after I married with my wife and two oldest children,
my aunt sold it sometime in the late 50’s or early 60’s.

My mother didn’t care much for the water or boats, but my grandmother loved the sea, two or three times each summer they would want to give this little house a good cleaning, my mother and my aunt Eliza would walk up the road to Swantons Cove but my grandmother and myself would go down to our beach on Long Cove where we had our big row boat tied up and I would row out of Long Cove and around Kehail Point and up the Sheepscot river to Tarbox Cove, I would tie up at the landing there and my mother would be waiting for us, we would then take the mops and pails out of the boat and they would spend the day cleaning while I climbed the rocks along the shore with my dog.
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Directly across the road from the boat landing is the Swanton house, the Swanton family and my family were very good friends I only remember the man of the house as “Mr. Swanton” but I believe his name was Harry. Several times each summer after supper we would all walk up the road to the Swanton house to visit, play the piano and sing hymns.
Down close to the waters edge across the road from the Swanton’s, there were two house boats, my grandmothers brother, Henry Tarbox, lived in one of them and a women by the name of Mary Dickson lived in the other, I guess the house boats are long since gone now (I am not sure). Tarbox Cove looks pretty much the same today as it did back then, the roads are paved now and more traffic passes but each time I drive over now to visit my aunt and her husband I slow down a little and look down at the Swanton dock and it brings back a lot of my boyhood memories.

As we pass the Swanton house now after our long trip from Cambridge we are only a few minutes from Long Cove, just past the Swanton’s the road makes a sharp right turn, during the daylight hours from this turn you can look right out to sea, you can also see Mark Island, a small piece of land right at the tip of Kehail Pt. This was another one of my favorite places of which I will talk about later.
Everybody on Westport used kerosene lanterns then as there was no electricity on the island, I loved walking into my grandmothers late at night, she would be standing in the kitchen holding a lantern and our shadows would be on all the walls and I could smell her fresh doughnuts that she must have cooked up during the day, I loved my grandmothers doughnuts.
These were bad times for us back in Cambridge and there were many instances that there would be next to nothing for us to eat, (we were always hungry) but Westport was different, we had fresh clams from our beach and the creek down the road, we had flounder, cod, haddock, and my grandmothers brother, Henry Tarbox, had lobster traps and he would always give us fresh caught crabs and lobsters. Not being on the island year round we didn’t have our own vegetable garden anymore so for fresh vegetables we would walk up the island toward the town hall and a man by the name of Mr. Perry had a place there, he always had a big garden and we would buy a few cents worth of vegetables, for a few cents we would walk home with two big bags.

There were also two trucks that came onto the Island I can’t remember how often, I think once every two weeks, one of them was Nissens Bakery and the other was a big truck that looked like a moving van, this truck had pull down steps on the back, the driver would lower these steps and we would all walk up into the back of this truck and it was just like going into a grocery store, there was a walkway down the middle and on each side there were shelves and cases and drawers with anything and every thing you would buy in a regular store.
The products we would purchase from these vendors would be canned goods, bacon, coffee, tea and any other dry goods that weren’t perishable, the bacon and unused canned meat we would put in an airtight metal pail and lower it into the well, this would keep it fresh for a day or two. The money for these things that we bought from the trucks would come from the laundry that my mother, grandmother and aunt did for some of the summer people that were visiting the island, they did all the washing right out in the yard using two big wash tubs and a hand wringer. The hot water would come from the big tank built into the side of our kitchen wood stove. After the wash had dried they would put these big heavy flat irons on top of the stove until they were good and hot and then iron everything they had washed, mostly bed clothes.
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When the wash was all ironed and folded they would put it into a big red wagon that was very popular with the kids of those days, I think my aunt still has that wagon, and then they would get their berry pails and we would head up the island to deliver the laundry.
Our closest neighbors were a couple by the name of Joe and Gladys Hodgdon, Joe passed away sometime in 1949, he used to walk down the road to our place and cut our grass with a big scythe that he carried over his shoulder, my grandmother used to tell me a story about him cutting grass for a summer family when he came upon a bobcat and her kittens and the cat came at him, he killed her with his scythe, his wife Gladys loved cats, she had one for all the years that I knew her, he brought the kittens home but they realized they were wild and that they couldn’t keep them so Joe put them in a burlap sack and took them down to the shore and threw them in, they were very young and would never have survived on their own.
Joe was gone now and Gladys lived alone year round in the same house up the road from ours until the 1980’s I believe, then she had to go to a nursing home where she passed away, Gladys is buried on Westport Island.

As we pulled our wagon up the road Gladys would be standing out in front of her house with her berry pail and we would be off to deliver the laundry. After the laundry was delivered the berry picking started, all the way home they were picking berries, back then as I remember it berries grew everywhere on the East Shore, all kinds, maybe it was because that part of the island was still coming back from the great fire of 1918.

When my father left to return to Cambridge we were more or less stranded we were on our own, no electricity, no running water, no refrigeration, no transportation, we had an outhouse for the daytime and big chamber pots for the evening if we needed them. Gladys Hodgdon was our only neighbor, there is a house right down the road from ours it was then owned by a family by the name of Ladd, we always called it the Ladd house, (today it is the Mason house) the Ladds only came to the island for a week or two during the summer the rest of the time we were all alone. If a real emergency had come up we would of had to walk all the way up to The Swanton’s or Maude Webbers, about three miles, or we could of rowed our boat across the Sheepscot to get help.
Earlier I mentioned Mark Island, this is a small little island on the Sheepscot River right off the tip of Kehail Point, ( Kehail Point is named after my Grandfathers family, my mothers maiden name was Kehail ), I used to row our boat out to Mark Is. when my grandmother would let me, as I said we were all alone on that end of the island and if anything happened to me in that boat I would of been in big trouble. I used to tie my boat up on the rocks, I had my dog with me, and we would jump out and look for sea gull eggs, a big egg with brown spots, if you put a pin hole in them you can drain them out, let them dry and make a mantle piece decoration of them. I never left Mark Is. without sitting down for a while and just looking out to sea, it was like being all alone in the world, I also did this on Kehail Point, at low tide I would go down to our beach and climb the rocks up onto the point, there is a pine grove there, it has a house on it today, and I would go through the grove to a path I had made and go all the way down to the tip of Kehail Point, I would stay here for a very long time laying in the grass and looking up at the sky and the large white puffy clouds and listening to the gulls. It wouldn’t be long before I would hear the big horn that my grandmother kept in the house to call any of us in if we were berrying or digging clams when it came time to eat, they didn’t like me out of sight to long for fear that I might fall down the rocks into the water.
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Kehail Point today, is all developed and there must be ten or fifteen houses maybe more built there now but back then it was my private playground. When I heard the horn I would head back up my path to our beach and up to the house for some crabmeat sandwiches. ( Sandwiches that I would lay in bed thinking about during the cold hungry winter back in our third floor Cambridge tenement )
Another of my favorite places was the Mill Pond and the Creek that lies inside Long Cove. In the years before the great fire there was a tide mill that one of my Kehail relatives owned, this mill was destroyed in the fire of 1918 but some of the pilings survived and some are still there today. I used to row my boat out to these at high tide and tie up to one of them and fish for Cunners ( a small sea perch ) these were used for bait in the lobster traps, my grandmother said she also used them for fertilizer when she lived year round on the island and had a large garden.
There is a strange rock in the Mill Pond, if one should row into the far end of the pond and tie up on the left bank facing in, then climb up the bank about ten or twenty feet there was a very large rock about the size of an automobile, this rock was black all the way through just like a piece of coal, my father said it probably fell out of the sky, but fathers tell their boys things like that, but who knows….. It must still be there.
The Mill Pond empties into a creek that passes under a small bridge, this is a modern well built crossing today but back in the thirties it was a wooden structure with wooden railings built onto the sides, it was supported by large boulders, the bridge measured about twenty feet from side to side to allow the tide flow in and out. I don’t know if a boat can row under there today but another of my favorite pastimes was to row in through the Mill Pond about an hour or so before a full high tide and go under this bridge into the creek, the current ran quite strong in the creek when the tide was flowing and all I had to do was sit in the stern with one oar to steer with and I could drift a good distance up the island until the tide flow started to slow down. At high tide the water would come to a standstill, it would stay calm and unmoving for almost an hour before turning and starting it’s flow back out.
During this time I would push my boat through the tall sea grass and tie up on shore then my dog and I would prowl around in the woods.
I had three women back in that house thinking that they would never see me again, so my time out here was short, it wouldn’t be long before I heard that horn and that meant get back here. If you were to stand on the road in front of the Ladd house ( now the Masons ) you could see a long way up the creek and as I came into view I would wave and they would be assured that I was still alive and had survived another trip up the creek.

Garbage, as I said before we were stranded on this end of the island, everything that had to be disposed of was destined for one place, off the bridge, there was no dump, no rubbish pickup and nobody would think of lighting a match outdoors to burn anything, not since the 1918 fire. Gladys Hodgdon, the Ladd family (when they were there) and my family all disposed of their garbage and rubbish off the bridge into the creek, Gladys had a path behind her house that led down to the river that she used at times for her garbage but she used the creek quite often as she enjoyed visiting and talking as she walked past our house.

After each meal and all the dishes were washed it was my job to take the pail of leftovers down the road to the bridge, I would especially enjoy doing this at high tide, I would throw the food particles over slowly and almost immediately out from under the rocks and sea weed would come all the little salt water creatures and gobble up everything I threw in before it hit bottom. Tin cans, paper and things of that nature were something else, they would float off, depending which way the current was flowing, when you went back the next day, everything was gone; it went somewhere, out of sight out of mind. I hope today’s EPA won’t hold it against us, we knew no better, the Ladd family, Gladys Hodgdon, my family, they all did it, probably every body that lived near the coast did it, the old timers always said “If you don’t want it throw it overboard”, but times have changed.
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Now, MOSQUITOS…………….Dear God………..My grandmother said they came from all over the world to spend the summer in Long Cove and wait for one of us to step outside the house after 6:00 PM. During the day Long Cove, Swantons Cove, The Mill Pond, Kehail Point, these places were all like being somewhere up in heaven, but come supper time, wherever you were you ran, you didn’t walk to get behind closed doors as fast as you could. I haven’t been out doors in the evening on the island for many, many years but I imagine there are still plenty of them out there, waiting.
My aunt, Hazel ( Kehail ) Templeman, who lives on the island today was a working girl back then and probably lucky to have a job, she was a stenographer for a Boston insurance firm, she had a two week vacation in the summer and she always came to Westport, she would come up from Boston the same way my grandmother did, she would make arrangements with Maude Webber to be picked up in Wiscasset and driven over to the island. I always liked to see her arrive, I mentioned the Swanton family earlier, my aunt Hazel and Mary Swanton were very good friends, if Mary Swanton happened to be on the island at the same time as my aunt she would spend a lot of time at our house, I remember her as a very happy person always laughing and kidding around, I enjoyed having them around it seemed like there was always more doing, more time on the beach, more walking the old dirt roads, and we always had at least one or two singing sessions at the Swanton house, I hope my memory is right, I seem to remember going in the front door of the Swanton house and directly across the room in the right hand corner there was a piano, my mother or somebody would play hymns and everybody would sing. The last time I was in that house was 1938, so I don’t know if I have remembered everything correctly.
Once every summer my mother and my grandmother would save enough of their laundry money for us all to take the boat trip to Boothbay Harbor, this was a big day for me, we would all put our best clothes on, comb our hair, brush our teeth, shut the dog up in the house and start the walk up to Tarbox Cove, I remember once my grandmother telling us to wait while she went in and asked Gladys if she would like to go with us, but I don’t recall her ever being with us, the way things were in those days she probably couldn’t afford to go. We would go up to Swantons landing and Mary Swanton would come running out of her house laughing and yelling and I knew I was going to have a good time. We would wait around on the dock for twenty minutes or so and pretty soon the boat would appear coming up the Sheepscot river. This boat was maybe fifty or sixty feet in length with passenger seats on both sides, it looked just like some of the tourist boats you see in Boston Harbor or other waterways that they use for sightseeing. I loved the ride to Boothbay, we would veer off to the left past Mark Is. and Kehail Pt. and then we would make another stop on the other side of Long Cove and then straight across to Boothbay Harbor. My grandmother would make maybe a dozen of her crabmeat sandwiches and a dozen of her home made doughnuts and pack them in a tin suitcase she kept for things like this, there were five or six of us on this trip so there was no “laundry money” for a fancy restaurant, my treat would be a bottle of Root Beer with lunch and an Ice Cream cone later in the day.

We didn’t have to be back on the dock until 4:00 PM, so we had all afternoon to roam around the harbor. They all liked to window shop and walk but I liked the docks and the boats, so they would leave me alone for a while to do what I wanted. I was a city kid and being around people and lots of things to look at made me feel good.
My wife and I now live in a small south western town in Maine, it is called Hiram, I have often said to my wife that if I had ever had to grow up in a small country town I would have gone crazy. I can’t imagine life without subways and street corners to hang around on, railroad tracks, ten cent movie houses, the Burlesque Shows in the old Scollay Square in Boston, going out into the streets at 8:00 AM on a Saturday and coming home at 7:00 PM so dirty and tired I could hardly stand up, but I loved Westport, it has been in my head all my life.

Well summer is winding down it is late August, we have been walking up to Mr. Perrys house for fresh ears of corn and my Father has written and told us the day and date that he will arrive after his twelve hours of changing tires and fixing water pumps, my aunt Hazel has returned to Boston, Maude Webber picked her up and took her over to Wiscasset for the train ride back. I was eager to get back to Cambridge but I also didn’t want to see the summer end because I would have to leave Westport. My father always arrived a week or so before we had to leave, so we would have some time to collect and cut wood for my grandmother and stack it in the hen house for her to use when she returned the following spring. My father loved salt water fishing, we would go down to the creek and dig a pail of clams and shuck them, then we would get our hand lines out of the hen house, grab some doughnuts, load the boat and head out of the cove.
My father was a very big and powerful man, we would be well past Mark Island and out into the Sheepscot River in no time with him rowing, very few people had motors in those days, we rowed everywhere, sea food was plentiful in those days, it is hard for someone my age to be told that there is no more fish out there.

We didn’t even throw an anchor in; we were maybe a ½ mile off Mark Is. My father would stop rowing, we would bait our hooks, throw the lines over the side, let them hit bottom and then bring them up a foot or two, we would be slowly drifting with the current and within five minutes we would get our first hit, fishing is fun, but pulling in a large cod or haddock on a hand line from that depth for a thirteen year old skinny kid can be a lot of work, but it was worth it, some of the best memories I have of my father were these fishing trips I had with him on the Sheepscot River. I don’t know if anybody living on Westport Is. today will ever read this but if they do, some of the biggest Cod Fish I have ever seen came out of the waters just a half mile or so off the tip of Kehail Point. I have a picture today of my father standing in the middle of the East Shore Rd., holding up one of these Cod’s by the gills, this picture is in the photo section of our “Family Genealogy”

Westport is changing but that is to be expected, cars drive past our place on the E. Shore Rd. at all times of the day and night now, I can remember back in the thirties if a car went by during the day my grandmother and my mother would drop whatever they were doing and run to the window and say “I wonder who that was” then in about ten minutes or so Gladys Hodgdon would be at the door and she would come in and say “did you see that car, I wonder who that was” my grand mother would make some tea and they would all sit out in the yard and talk for two hours about “the car” that went by. There is electricity on the Island now and telephones, running water, computers, two or three cars in every driveway, they have a Fire Dept. and they even go to the bathroom right in the house.

The summer of 1939 would be my last trip to Westport as a young boy, my Mother passed away in the summer of 1941, WWII came and went, my Grandmother passed away in 1945.
I married in 1947 and in the summer of 1948 with my wife and new little baby boy I had my last ride on the Westport Ferry.
I have carried the memories of Westport with me all my life, little things that happen will bring a flashback such as the smell of seaweed when the tide is going out, the smell of blueberry bushes, I can close my eyes and hear the old fog horn and bell buoy off Kehail Pt. late at night, all things that stay in a young boys mind, I suppose this past summer somewhere on Westport there was a boy and his dog climbing around the rocks down by the shore and maybe he will hold his memories of Westport the way I have. This was his summer. Mine was long, long ago…..The End.

Nelson Hardy (Kehail Tarbox) Burtt Jr