Long Island’s echoes of the past

By Steele Hays

This summer marked the 30th anniversary of a major event in Blue Hill’s history --- the protection of Long Island by the National Park Service, which paid $6.7 million to purchase a conservation easement on 95 percent of the island and permanently protect it from development.

At 4,500 acres, Long Island (center) in Blue Hill Bay is the largest island in Maine not connected to the mainland by a bridge or regular ferry service. Photo by Google Earth.

While Long Island remains unspoiled, it also remains --- for many area residents and visitors --- relatively unknown. 

There are seven “Long Islands” in Maine, but Blue Hill Bay’s is by far the largest–it’s even the largest island in the state not connected to the mainland by a bridge or regular ferry service.  Once home to 120 year-round residents with its own school, post office, general store and a thriving granite quarry, the island’s last full-time residents moved away in 1920. Today it is uninhabited except for a handful of summer residents and a few hunters who visit their camps during fall deer season. 

Citing its unspoiled character and beauty, a National Park Service report described it as “outstanding and of significance on a local, state, and national level. Collectively, these features put the island in a class of its own.”  Less than four miles as the crow flies from Acadia National Park–which is visited by nearly four million people a year–relativcely few visitors set foot on the Long Island each year.

The island stretches four and a half miles from north to south, covering 4,560 acres and rising to 375 feet along its highest ridge. Heavily forested with spruce, fir, white pine and birch, it appears much as it did 300 years ago. A handful of private summer camps and homes dot the western and southwestern shores.   

About 250 acres of the island remain in private hands, with roughly a dozen seasonal homes like this one, commanding extensive views down Blue Hill Bay. Photo by Steele Hays

A key factor in the island’s undeveloped nature is the fact that since 1949, more than 95 percent of the island was owned by one family, the Florians. While it’s long been rumored that the late Stewart Florian acquired the land in a card game, he in fact traded a house in Hollywood, Florida, valued at $40,000 at the time, for roughly 4,500 acres of Long Island.  The seller was a member of the Allen family, which had used much of the land for blueberry production. 

In the following decades, multiple generations of the Florian family built a few houses on the island and visited regularly, but left the land otherwise undeveloped. Over time, Stewart’s sons, David and Roy, became the primary title holders. In the early 1990s, faced with rising property taxes and other challenges, the brothers began considering a variety of options. They offered large parcels for sale, but ultimately did not sell. They contacted the National Park Service, which concluded that “with the current threat of development… Long Island [is] the top priority for land conservation in coastal Maine and Acadia National Park.”  After lengthy negotiations lasting several years, an agreement was reached and the Park Service purchased a conservation easement on 4,415 acres, paying $6.7 million, the largest conservation easement purchase in its history. The Florians retained 250 acres and a few other private landowners retained small plots.

The conservation easement prohibits timber harvesting or any development of the land while allowing public access, including for hunting. The Florians continue to hold title to the property and no longer have any tax liability. The Park Service monitors compliance with the easement and considers the agreement a great success, according to John Kelly, management assistant to the superintendent at Acadia National Park. “It’s remarkable that Long Island is so untouched,” he said. 

The Park Service does not encourage public visitation, but they don’t discourage it either.  The public can hike, picnic, explore, fish, even camp overnight. Campers are advised to contact the Park Service to ensure they are not encroaching on private land, and they must closely follow any rules and permitting for camp fires.  

“How do you talk about a place and keep it protected and preserved when you’re not in a position to manage it?” Kelly said, “It’s a tricky balance between protecting while having public access.”  

One of the frequent visitors to Long Island is Denny Robertson, 84, the retired Blue Hill fire chief and lifelong resident of the area. His late uncle Ralph Duffy owned a camp on the island, just as Denny does today. When he was three years old, in the early 1940s, Denny spent a summer with his family on the island, where there were still dozens of fish weirs along the shores.

“Mackerel were running pretty good in those days,” Robertson said.  The fishermen who built the weirs and harvested the fish came over from Blue Hill or Brooklin, he said.  

“I can feel the way of life those people had. If you take me out there, I can feel those people and the way they lived,” Robertson said in an interview. “There’s a lot of people who love it like I do. I feel so lucky that my family worked and lived out there.” 

This photo from around 1890 shows employees of the Brown & McAllister granite quarry. The tall poles are "gin poles," pivoting masts used to lift and move the heavy cut stones. Photo courtesy of the Maine Memory Network, Denny Robertson Collection.

At the old Brown & McAllister granite quarry, which operated from 1890 to 1898, large blocks of stone and rusting equipment still stand, as though the work stopped suddenly one day without advance notice.  An impressive circular column of granite lies on its side, offering proof of the quarry workers’ skills.  When it was built, the road to the quarry was lined with wooden ties and steel rails, enabling teams of oxen to pull the granite on carts to a stone pier, where it was loaded on ships heading to Rockland, Portland, Boston and other points.  Now there are only fragments of the stone pier remaining, battered by more than a century of storms. But to this day, the quiet of the island reverberates with echoes from its past.  

Large blocks of stone and rusting equipment still stand in place at the quarry, as though the work stopped suddenly without advance notice.  Here, an impressive granite column lies on its side, a lasting testament to the quarry workers’ skills.  Photo by Steele Hays

Editors note: If you plan on visiting Long Island, always heavily douse all fires and leave no trace behind.