Muddy Cove in Westport Island, 1920, with two old Hodgdon sea captain homes and two fish houses. Courtesy photo
An illustrated talk on the rise and fall of the Maritime Age on Westport Island’s eastern shore will be given by Westport Island History Committee member Ken Swanton at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 13, in the old Westport Town Hall, 1217 Main Road.
The talk will focus on how the Hodgdon family came to the island in the 1760s and multiplied and flourished with the growth of the Maritime Age into a bustling community of 140 people in 1850.
They were sea captains, fishermen, shipbuilders, farmers and operated a tidal mill, and had a big impact on both Westport and Boothbay, just across the river. Then the Maritime Age withered, and the eastern shore community declined to just one widow in 1950.
This free talk is a one-hour summary of a book Ken Swanton is writing after years of research starting with a neighborhood oral history that his great uncle wrote 90 years ago. The program is co-sponsored by the Westport Island History Committee and the Friends of Westport Island History. For more information, call (207) 380-5926.
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