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A History of Little Cranberry Island, Maine
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Island-native Hugh Dwelley recounts the history of Little Cranberry Island (and the village of Islesford) from its founding in the 1700s through the modern day. Little Cranberry sits in the shadow of Acadia National Park and is one of only 14 year-round island communities that remain in Maine, down from about 300 at the turn of the last century.
Excerpt from A History of Little Cranberry Island:
"Dried and salted codfish and smoked mackerel were highly marketable
commodities in the mid-eighteenth century as were seal skins and the feathers
from sea birds that went into making pillows. Much of the cod was shipped
south where it was a staple in the diet of plantation slaves for it cost
less than half as much as salt pork. The cod were also very much a part
of the settler's diet along with haddock, mackerel, and other fin and
shell fish that abounded around the Cranberry Islands and further at sea.
The Stanwoods, Stanleys and Bunkers had fished here before they brought their families up and settled in. Once here, they fished locally from dories, skiffs, sailing skiffs and somewhat larger Chebacco boats using mostly hand lines. The fish were plentiful and the catches large. The settlers could salt and dry their catch and sell it to passing trading schooners or take it to market in Portland or Boston themselves in their Chebacco boats or small schooners. From time to time they did both.
We know from Capt. William Owen's record of his 1770 visit with the Bunkers on Great Cranberry that they had a Chebacco boat that they used for fishing and transport. Then, on May 20, 1771, Capt. Owen recorded: "At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Isaac Bunker in a small schooner came through the west passage (at Campobello), and anchored in the cove." So they had a schooner as well.