Touring the Isles of Shoals
Two-Hour Steamship Cruise Traces 400 Years of Portsmouth, NH History
Mar 24, 2009
Devotees of US maritime history at its most timeless and immediate will relish a tour encompassing nuclear submarines, pirate lore, lighthouses, fortifications, and a trip around islands first mapped by Captain John Smith.
That’s what the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company delivers—a ceaseless tide of stories reaching back 400 years and on into the future, all from the three decks of the Thomas Laighton, its 90-foot Victorian-style steamship that has heated cabins, an open-air sundeck, restrooms, and snack bar.
Passengers get a close-up of a working port, with tugboats and tankers, as the Laighton steams past pyramids of scrap metal and salt and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on its way to the Shoals, nine islands (including Appledore, Smuttynose, and Star) whose ownership is split between New Hampshire and Maine.
ISSCO owner Robin Whittaker says, “Each tour sets many sites and stories deep in the imagination and creates a sense of connectedness (to place, to the past, and to others) that brings people back.”
Highlights of the Thomas Laighton’s Isles of Shoals Tour
Portsmouth Naval Prison: Called “The Castle” this austere edifice was a major military prison from its 1904 construction till 1974, a year after it served as the final destination in the Jack Nicholson film, The Last Detail. Further down river, the Laighton passes a second promontory from the era (now restored), the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel, which, in 1905, housed dignitaries negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth, ending the Russo-Japanese War.
Lighthouses: The tour passes five lighthouses, including Portsmouth Harbor Light (1877), a 48-foot cast iron tower whose classic lines and setting at the mouth of the Piscataqua River near Fort Constitution in New Castle has landed it on countless travel guide covers.
Murders on Smuttynose Island Inspired Anita Shreve's The Weight of Water
Smuttynose Murders: On March 6, 1873, Louis Wagner rowed to Smuttynose Island to steal $650—the fishing-boat fund of former employers he spied that evening in Portsmouth. He killed Karen and Anethe Christensen; a third woman, Maren Hontvet, escaped. Maine convicted and hanged Wagner, its last execution. Poet Celia Thaxter ("A Memorable Murder") and novelist Anita Shreve (The Weight of Water, 1997) are the tale’s most famous chroniclers.
Who was Thomas Laighton? He tended the White Island lighthouse and ushered in the era of grand hotels by building the Appledore House (1847). His daughter, Celia Thaxter (1835-94), is among the Shoals most famous residents. Her 1861 poem “Land Locked” launched a career that brought the likes of Emerson, Hawthorn, and Longfellow to Appledore. Her cottage burned down in 1914; the Rye Garden Club maintains her famous garden. Appledore houses the Shoals Marine Lab, run by Cornell and the University of New Hampshire, offering year-round education programs.
Pirate Lore Persists, Despite Scant Evidence
Pirate Lore: Legend says Sandy Gordon (who sailed with Black Beard) stashed his wife Martha on White Island before his 1718 death off North Carolina. She died in 1735 and haunts the island, seen staring from the rocks, calling, “He will come back,” a pronouncement now chanted to visitors leaving Star Island. A second legend, sustained and unsubstantiated, is that in 1820, Sam Haley (whose restored house adorns bottles of Smuttynose Beer) funded the building of a breakwater between Smuttynose and Malaga Islands with four silver bars found on Star.
The Oceanic Hotel: Since 1897, this hotel, built in 1873 and rebuilt following an 1875 fire, has been the site of summer conferences and retreats run by the Star Island Corporation, which purchased the island in 1916 for $16,000.
The ISSCO offers cruises, charters, and educational field trips from April through October and is a member of the Blue Ocean Society, a nonprofit promoting marine environment awareness and conservation.
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