Smuttynose and Malaga Islands
Smuttynose Island, at 25 acres (10 ha), is the third-largest island. It is known as the site of Blackbeard's honeymoon, later for the shipwreck of the Spanish ship Sagunto in 1813, and then for the notorious 1873 murders of two young women. The latter is recalled in the story, "A Memorable Murder", by Celia Thaxter, in the 1997 novel, The Weight of Water, by Anita Shreve (and in the film of the same name), and in the song, "The Ballad of Louis Wagner" by John Perrault. There are two small houses on the island. One of them, the Samuel Haley house, was once believed to be the oldest structure in the state of Maine. Smuttynose is not populated today.
Malaga Island is a diminutive island just to the west of Smuttynose, connected to it by a breakwater. That breakwater was built around 1820 by Captain Samuel Haley, who is reputed to have paid for its construction with proceeds from four bars of pirate silver that he found under a flat rock on the island.
Read more about this topic: Isles Of Shoals
Famous quotes containing the word islands:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)