Westport Island resident Connie Ostis reminisces about the early years on the Westport Island’s historic Heal Cove. (Charlotte Boynton photo)
On Sunday, Sept. 8, the Friends of Westport Island History opened their newest exhibit called “Heal Cove” at the town’s history center, located at Wright Landing.
The exhibit includes several display panels relating the different chapters and owners in the history of Heal Cove, dating back to 1770 when Daniel Dunton, the son of Timothy Dunton, the first settler on the island, claimed the property. The exhibit will be on display through the spring of 2025.
According to the research by the Friends of Westport Island History, recognizing the potential for tidal power at the site, Dunton built a dam and lumber mill. The mill operated with sliding gates that were opened to allow ponds behind the dam to fill with the incoming tides. Then at high water, the gates were closed and the water directed through a sluiceway turned the water wheel to operate the mill. Working hours for the employees were determined by the tides instead of the clock.
In 1785 the island and the mill was sold to Levi Shattuck, who had been working at a mill in Georgetown.
In 1896 Mabel Heal and her mother inherited the house and the Heal Cove property. During the next 40 years Mabel remained on the land as a single woman, teaching, working the farm, and raising poultry. She also took in boarders and farm workers to help with the expenses, and farm work.
One of her boarders was Mabel Eisnor. The two Mabels became very good friends. When Mabel Heal died, she left her property to Mabel Eisnor.
During a recent interview, the current property owner, Connie Smith Ostis reminisced about her early years on the island with her parents Jack and Jean Smith, sisters Sarah and Jennifer, and her brother John.
Ostis has been coming to the island since she was seven years old.
In 1947, the family visited Westport Island to visit friends who lived in Massachusetts and had a place on Knubble Bay. When her father saw the view from the home on Heal Cove, he fell in love with the site.
Although there was not a “for sale” sign on the house, Jack Smith knocked on the door and asked the owner of the property, Mabel Eisnor, if she had any interested in selling. She said she was but she would have no place to go, if she sold.
As a result of that encounter, Jack Smith and Eisnor come up with a deal.
She asked $3,000 for 60 acres of land, the house, barn, outbuildings, furniture and tools. Smith agreed to pay Eisnor $25 per month for seven years, and gave her permission to live in half the house until it was paid off.
According to Ostis, the family came to Maine two weeks a year for summer vacation and sometimes on weekends.
Ostis recalls getting ready to come to Westport Island for vacation took weeks in planning, keeping in mind there would be no running water or electricity when they got here.
She said her mother would pack clothes and sheets in an old steamer truck and her father would pack up his trailer with tools and equipment he would need for a project he planned to do while in Maine.
She recalled her father would get out of work on Friday, and the family would travel until late at night, arriving in Wiscasset at the old Ferry Landing, having to honk the horn to wake up Luther Cromwell, the ferry attendant on the Westport Island side to come over to get the family.
She said her Mom would be anxious, thinking of everyone that flat, no-sided pull ferry.
Ostis recalled a story of her mother asking Cromwell, “Do you ever lose anyone?”
Cromwell thought a minute, and then calmly replied, “Every now and then one goes undah.”
“Fortunately, we never went under” Ostis said.
A photo of a young Mabel Heal on the bridge below the Heal Cove house on Westport Island from the late 1800s. (Photo courtesy Connie Ostis)
For the Smith children, the Heal Cove home was a place of freedom and fun, but for her parents, it was hard work, Ostis said. She recalled the family going to the dances at the town hall, swimming in the pond at high tide, and playing the game of hearts with the family by a kerosene lamp. She said her parents were thrilled to get electricity in 1950.
In 1971 Jack and Jean Smith retired and moved to Westport Island and became active in the community. Jack Smith served on the select board and as road commissioner. Jean Smith put her nursing skills to use in community health programs, gardening, and with her church, the First Congregational Church of Wiscasset.
Jack passed away in 1984. Jean stayed on at Heal Cove for 17 years after the death of her husband. She passed away in 2006 at an assisted living facility in Yarmouth.
Ostis has made her home on Heal Cove since 2017. During a fundraising event hosted by Friends of Westport Island at the Heal Cove property on July 28, Ostis told the group she hadn’t planned on retiring to Westport Island. She came to Heal Cove seven years to figure out her next step, and now she can’t imagine relocating.
“I am grateful for a lifetime of connection to this property, for all the continuing support and work by my family, for the neighbors and friends who have made moving to Westport Island my best late life decision,” she said.
She went on to tell her guests, when her life ends, the property will be pass to her parent’s eight grandchildren. “Life is unpredictable, so I can’t be sure I’ll spend my final day here,” she said. “But, I have taken up my Dad’s frequent refrain ‘Why go elsewhere when I live in the most beautiful place on earth?’”
The Westport Island History Center is open from noon to 2 p.m. on Sundays, and by appointment. To schedule a visit, email fowih19@gmail.com. For more information, go to fowih.org.
