Chebeague Island: Difference between revisions

 

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Early commerce on the island developed around fishing, farming, and the construction of “stone sloops,” ships that carried quarried granite down the [[East Coast of the United States|eastern seaboard]] for the building of breakwaters, lighthouses, and set navigational markers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Stone Sloops of Chebeague|last=Hauk|first=Z. William|publisher=Freeport Village Press|year=1991|location=Freeport, Maine}}</ref>

Early commerce on the island developed around fishing, farming, and the construction of “stone sloops,” ships that carried quarried granite down the [[East Coast of the United States|eastern seaboard]] for the building of breakwaters, lighthouses, and set navigational markers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Stone Sloops of Chebeague|last=Hauk|first=Z. William|publisher=Freeport Village Press|year=1991|location=Freeport, Maine}}</ref>

The U.S. Postal Service appointed a postmaster for Great Chebeague Island on May 11, 1868.<ref name=”Postmaster”>{{cite web |title=For the Chebeague Island Post Office in Cumberland County, Maine |url=https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/postmasters-by-city.htm |website=U.S. Postal Service |publisher=U.S. Postal Service |access-date=11 October 2025}}</ref> Little Chebeague Island had a post office for several months in 1889 servicing a resort there.<ref name=”Philatelic”>{{cite web |title=Long Island Postal History |url=https://www.mainephilatelic.org/mph/LongIsland.pdf |website=Maine Philatelic Society |publisher=Maine Philatelic Society |access-date=11 October 2025}}</ref>

By the late 19th century and throughout the early 20th century, tourists from Canada, Boston, and points south began to visit Maine in a phenomenon sometimes known as the “rusticators” movement, where residents of New England’s industrial cities sought to get back to nature for a few days or weeks.<ref>Woodard, Colin. [http://www.colinwoodard.com/lobstercoast ”The Lobster Coast”] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219044647/http://www.colinwoodard.com/lobstercoast |date=2012-02-19 }}. New York. Viking/Penguin, {{ISBN|0-670-03324-3}}, 2004</ref> The tourists filled the cottages, rooming houses, and inns, such as the [[Chebeague Island Inn]], that dotted the islands of Casco Bay. In 1900, Great Chebeague Island had five hotels. Tourists arrived on steamboats from Portland.<ref>Frappier, William. ”Steamboat Yesterdays of Casco Bay”. Stoddart, Canada, {{ISBN|978-1-55046-086-5}}, 2000</ref>

By the late 19th century and throughout the early 20th century, tourists from Canada, Boston, and points south began to visit Maine in a phenomenon sometimes known as the “rusticators” movement, where residents of New England’s industrial cities sought to get back to nature for a few days or weeks.<ref>Woodard, Colin. [http://www.colinwoodard.com/lobstercoast ”The Lobster Coast”] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219044647/http://www.colinwoodard.com/lobstercoast |date=2012-02-19 }}. New York. Viking/Penguin, {{ISBN|0-670-03324-3}}, 2004</ref> The tourists filled the cottages, rooming houses, and inns, such as the [[Chebeague Island Inn]], that dotted the islands of Casco Bay. In 1900, Great Chebeague Island had five hotels. Tourists arrived on steamboats from Portland.<ref>Frappier, William. ”Steamboat Yesterdays of Casco Bay”. Stoddart, Canada, {{ISBN|978-1-55046-086-5}}, 2000</ref>

Town in Maine, United States

Chebeague Island is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, with Great Chebeague Island the dominant land form.

Chebeague Island was a part of the Town of Cumberland until July 1, 2007, when it seceded and became the Town of Chebeague Island. Fifteen islands and portions of two more are part of the Town of Chebeague Island.^[2]

At the 2020 census, the town’s year-round population was 396.^[3] The population is said to more than triple in the summer months.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 24.56 square miles (63.61 km²), of which 3.56 square miles (9.22 km²) is land and 21.00 square miles (54.39 km²) is water.^[1] The town estimates the size of Great Chebeague Island at 1,930 acres.^[4]

At approximately 3 miles (5 km) long and 1 mile (2 km) wide,^[5] Great Chebeague is the largest island in Casco Bay with no bridge access to the mainland. The northern tip of the island is called Chebeague Point and the southern tip is called Deer Point.

The Town of Chebeague Island includes fifteen islands in their entirety and adjacent waters. These include Great Chebeague, Bangs, Bates, Broken Cove, Goose Nest, Hope, Little Jewell, Ministerial, Rogues, Sand, Stave, Stockman, West Brown Cow and Upper Green islands; and Crow Island, just off Great Chebeague’s eastern shore (another Crow Island in Chandler Cove is part of the Town of Long Island). Portions of Jewell and Little Chebeague islands are also part of the Town of Chebeague Island.^[6]

Great Chebeague Island is not always a single landmass, with adjacent Little Chebeague accessible on foot at low tide via a sandbar.

In 2014, Great Chebeague Island’s mean tide was reported at 9.1 feet (2.8 m) with ranges of 3.5 feet (1.1 m) at high and low tides.^[7] The underwater topography and resulting depths of surrounding waters can vary drastically, with ledges and shallows creating hazards for vessels. A channel has been dredged in the past to the island’s wharf for ferry service.^[8]

Chebeague Island is located 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Portland, Maine’s largest city. Chebeague Island is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The name “Chebeague” evolved from Chebiscodego,^[9] the name used by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, a First Nations and Native American confederation of five principal nations: the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot. Historians have cited one possible definition of the word Chebeague as “island of many springs.”^[10] Other sources state that Chebeague comes from the Abenaki words T’Cabie or Chebidisco, meaning cold spring,^[11] or Jabeque or Gaboag, meaning separated, which recognizes the connectedness of Great Chebeague and Little Chebeague islands.^[12] Great Chebeague Island was also known for stretches as Indian Isle,^[11] Merry’s Island^[13] and Recompense Island.^[14]

The early Native American presence on Great Chebeague was not year-round. During the summer months, Native Americans arrived by canoe to fish and gather shellfish for the winter months.^[15]

Walter Merry of Boston bought Great Chebeague by 1650, from Portland settler George Cleeve^[13] or a man named Rigby^[11] according to differing accounts.

Falmouth merchant Thomas Westbrook became a subsequent landholder of most of Great Chebeague at some point during the first half of the 18th century. By 1743, Samuel Waldo executed a legal seizure of Great Chebeague,^[16] and partnered with Falmouth resident John Waite to establish a livestock farm on 1,400 acres in the island’s northern section.^[17]

Zachariah Chandler acquired 650 acres on the island’s southern side in 1746,^[18] and in 1756 sold Ambrose Hamilton 50 acres of land, who would double his acreage within a few years.^[19]

Waite died in 1769, and during the American Revolution his son Col. John Waite relocated the farm to the mainland given exposure on Great Chebeague to British raiding parties.^[18]

Early commerce on the island developed around fishing, farming, and the construction of “stone sloops,” ships that carried quarried granite down the eastern seaboard for the building of breakwaters, lighthouses, and set navigational markers.^[20]

The U.S. Postal Service appointed a postmaster for Great Chebeague Island on May 11, 1868.^[21] Little Chebeague Island had a post office for several months in 1889 servicing a resort there.^[22]

By the late 19th century and throughout the early 20th century, tourists from Canada, Boston, and points south began to visit Maine in a phenomenon sometimes known as the “rusticators” movement, where residents of New England’s industrial cities sought to get back to nature for a few days or weeks.^[23] The tourists filled the cottages, rooming houses, and inns, such as the Chebeague Island Inn, that dotted the islands of Casco Bay. In 1900, Great Chebeague Island had five hotels. Tourists arrived on steamboats from Portland.^[24]

Maritime occupations also continued to contribute to Great Chebeague’s island economy in the 19th and 20th centuries, including the Fenderson Clam Factory which purchased soft-shell and quohog clams from local diggers for canning and wholesale distribution. Clams were sufficiently a commodity that they could be exchanged for purchases at an island store.^[25]

In 1956, construction was completed on a bridge^[26] connecting nearby Cousins Island to Yarmouth, and over subsequent years Great Chebeague Island residents considered a bridge to Cousins Island or adjacent Littlejohn Island for direct vehicular access to the mainland.^[27] A statewide referendum proposing a $3 million bridge to Great Chebeague was rejected in 1963 by a 70% to 30% margin.^[28]

The Chebeague High School closed in 1956.^[29] The schoolhouse, built in 1871, still stands and serves as a museum of Chebeague Island history.^[30]

In 1971, the Chebeague Transportation Co. was formed to provide ferry service to Cousins Island and by extension the mainland, initially using a converted fishing boat. In the early 1980s, the CTC board authorized construction of Islander, a 52-foot steel ferry with capacity for nearly 120 passengers and freight. In 2019, CTC added the slightly longer Independence as its primary ferry.^[31]

In 1997, Great Chebeague Island residents played a significant role in convincing Nabisco to reverse a decision to end production of its Crown Pilot Crackers brand of chowder crackers.^[32] The initial campaign was successful and Nabisco donated $1,000 to the Chebeague Historical Society.^[33] In 2000, Kraft Foods acquired Nabisco and in 2008 discontinued production of Crown Pilot Crackers.

In 2002 Chebeague Island explored secession from Cumberland, with whom they had been tied for 184 years. The initiative gained traction after school district 51 considered downsizing the island elementary school. The island won independence from Cumberland after votes in the Maine Senate (31–3) and House of Representatives (131–1) on April 5, 2006. The separation took effect on July 1, 2007.^[34]

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
2010	341		—
2020	396		16.1%

As of the 2020 United States census, Chebeague Island had a population of 396 people, a 16% increase from 2010.^[36]

There were 300 households in the Town of Chebeague Island as of 2020, and 614 units of housing including those used seasonally by people with primary residences elsewhere.^[37]

Among Chebeague Island residents, median annual income was $63,750 in 2020 with 49.5% of Chebeague Island residents employed.^[37]

Transportation to the island includes two ferry services. Chebeague Transportation Company’s (CTC)^[38] ferry, the Independence, makes the 15-minute run from Wharf Road on Cousins Island to the Stone Wharf on the north-west side of the island. Casco Bay Lines provides service on all mail boat and other “down-bay” trips that travel beyond Long Island.^[39]

One main macadam-paved road (with various different names, including North Road and South Road) loops around the island, with a few connecting paved or partly-paved roads in between, such as Schoolhouse Road, Roy Hill Road, and Littlefield Avenue. Coming off the paved road, there are many unpaved roads going to residential homes and various points and beaches. The beaches are considered state land and anyone can walk on them, like state park property, thus the reason many of the smaller roads simply end at coastal points. Some of smaller “roads” are merely single-lane, rutted sand trails with heavy overgrowth to either side, and on the off-chance two cars meet coming at one another, one car must pull to the side or back up to a suitable area to allow the other to pass. Most residents have “island cars” that they use year-round; they take the abuse of rutted back roads with overgrowth that scratches the sides of vehicles, as well as the corrosive, briny Casco Bay air. Island cars are not required to have license plates, although they must be registered.

Children of year-round residents take a boat back and forth to the mainland every day from the Stone Pier to go to middle and high school. Elementary-school-age children usually stay on the island to attend the school house, which houses grades K–5.

In 2024 and 2025, birds observed on Chebeague Island include the chickadee, common goldeneye, common loon, European starling, herring gull, great black-backed gull, eastern bluebird, mallard and white-winged scoter and wild turkey, among numerous species.^[40]

Other animal species on Chebeague include White-tailed deer, squirrel,^[41] beaver, frogs, hares, muskrat, raccoon, salamanders,^[42] snakes^[43] and American red fox.^[44]

Harbor seals are active in the waters around Chebeague Island, with seal pups on occasion having gotten stranded on island beaches.^[45] Harbor porpoises have been spotted in the waters near Chebeague.^[46]

Chebeague Island is one of four municipalities on Casco Bay that rank in the top quartile statewide for numbers of active lobstering licenses, along with neighboring Long Island, Harpswell and Phippsburg.^[47]

Chebeague Island employs a shellfish warden to oversee clam licensing and harvesting on the shore.^[48] Like other communities in Casco Bay and Maine, clam beds have been closed periodically during periods of red tide.^[49]

Chebeague Island has its own post office.^[50] There is cell phone service on the island.

The Town of Chebeague Island has a webpage that provides access to town documents, a town calendar, and other information.^[51]

There is one school on the island which has classes Pre-K through 5th grade.^[52] Students in sixth grade and older attend schools on the mainland. Sixth through eighth graders attend Frank H. Harrison Middle School in Yarmouth and ninth graders to seniors attend Yarmouth High School.

The strong sense of community is highlighted in its summer months, where children often participate in the many camps offered on the island. Popular are the farm camp, clown camp, British Soccer Camp, theatre camp, and many others sponsored by the island’s recreation center. Among the most popular is the Chebeague Island Sailing School, created by the island’s yacht club. In the acclaimed camp, students learn about small boat sailing while enjoying the great waters that Casco Bay offers.

The Chebeague Island Boatyard provides a variety of services ranging from indoor heated storage and nightly mooring rentals to portable marine engine diagnostics and fabricating or refinishing woodwork. In the summer months, a gift store, the Niblic, is open at the Boatyard.^[53]

The Chebeague Island Methodist Church is the island’s oldest institution and the island’s only church. Its roots extend back into the 18th century when Methodist missionaries visited Casco Bay. The island matriarch was “excommunicated” from the Congregational Church when she joined the Methodists. They held class meetings and built a small meetinghouse. In 1814 nearly all of the 19 members were connected to the Hamiltons. As Chebeague’s population grew, the need for a new church became apparent. In 1855 a schism about the location occurred. As a result, two Methodist churches were built within sight of each other. When the Methodist Protestant Church closed around 1890, they were welcomed back to the Methodist Episcopal. A new parsonage was built in 1885–1886 and has housed many pastors and their families. Today, the church has left the Methodist denomination and is led by chaplain Victor Diaz.

The local historical museum run by the Chebeague Island Historical Society is open during the summer months. The Chebeague Island Library is open year-round.

Second Wind Farm, run by Charles Varney, provides islanders with locally-grown produce during the season.^[54]

The Chebeague Island Inn and restaurant is open in the summer, as is a nine-hole golf course,^[55][56] a tennis club, and two gift shops, the Niblic, located at the Boatyard, and Island Riches, located near the landing for the Casco Bay Ferry.

There is a full-time volunteer fire station and EMTs/ambulance.

Police matters are handled by Cumberland County Sheriff officers. If there is a medical emergency, one must be taken to the mainland via the ambulance and ferry, which are always on call.

43°44′27″N 70°06′29″W / 43.74083°N 70.10806°W / 43.74083; -70.10806