2008 Town of Long Island Comprehensive Plan

A History of Long IslandOver time, Long Island has shown many faces to the world: a remote self-sufficient fishing and farming community in the 1700s and 1800s; a summer playground for Portlanders in the late 1800s until World War I; site of a major Navy installation during World War II and into the 1950s; and the proposed site of a super tanker port in the 1960s and early 1970s.Today Long Island is a community of 900 people struggling to remain viable in the economic uncertainties of the 21st Century.About two hundred of those 900 people live year round on the island.Long Island is now one of 14 islands in Maine still supporting a year-round community.At the turn of the century, Maine had 300 such island communities. Long AgoClam shell heaps still contain bones of a species of giant beaver long since extinct, so we know they were among our early inhabitants.There is archaeological evidence that the Red Paint people were on Long Island (known as Smith's Island long ago), and we know that Native Americans were on our shores.Some lived here year-round, others only in the warm months.John Smith, that intrepid explorer and speculator, recorded a visit to Long Island on a map dated 1600 in the British Museum.Quite clearly the French visited the island, perhaps under duress, for they named the harbor facing seaside, Havre de Grace.The first European settler was John Sears from Boston in 1640.Very little is known of his goals, his activities, or the results.During this period around the turn of the century, the islands were being touted as health resorts and idyllic retreats.Large steamers from Boston and New York brought vacationers in droves.Large summer hotels were a big attraction; there were dozens of boarding houses; and most families had a room or two to accommodate the influx of visitors, many from Canada.At this time Long Island's real claim to fame was its summer clambakes.People came by the hundreds to eat clams, lobster, corn, potatoes, eggs, bread, and pickles, cooked outside over fires that consumed cords of firewood.They were served outside in big fields or in the pavilion built for that purpose.The most famous was the celebration of Portland's Centennial when over 2000 people ate 500 bushels of clams cooked over 16 cords of firewood! Cow IslandThe military came to Cow Island in 1901.It was known as Fort Lyon.It was established as a support for Fort McKinley, 300 yards across the water on Great Diamond Island.Fort Lyon featured a wharf, a powerhouse and two gun batteries.The first, completed in 1907, Battery Bayard was mounted with three guns that could fire 6-inch diameter shells eight miles.The second, completed in 1909, Battery Abbot mounted three guns that could fire 3-inch shells five miles.These two batteries were among 25 batteries with 73 guns and mortars in the five Portland Harbor forts: Williams, McKinley, Preble, Levet and Lyon.The forts were built out of fear that Portland Harbor could be invaded by an enemy fleet that might have taken over Saint John, New Brunswick or Halifax, Nova Scotia as a base of operations.Each battery had a specific role and field of fire in the coordinated system of forts defending the harbor.Battery Bayard's primary role was to help defend Hussy Sound.Battery Abbot had a dual role of helping guard Hussy Sound, as well as the back channel between the islands and the Falmouth mainland.

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