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Dingley Island

Harpswell, MaineIslands of Cumberland County, MaineIslands of MaineVague or ambiguous time from June 2023

Dingley Island is a small island in Casco Bay, near Brunswick, off the coast of Maine, United States. In the 1750s, the island was known as Bateman's Island, and later Indian Island. However, in 1788, Captain Levi Dingley purchased the south 50 acres (200,000 m2) and in 1792 built a house there; it has been known as Dingley Island ever since.The island was until recently connected to adjacent Great Island by a solid, 200 ft (61 m). causeway that had been constructed around 1954. However, the resulting buildup of silt in Dingley Cove, in the area adjacent to the causeway, was by the mid 1990s threatening to turn the area into a salt marsh. Such a transformation would have significantly reduced the important clam harvest in this area and had a deleterious effect on associated livelihoods. The island's 45 acres (180,000 m2) of clam flats generate an average annual harvest of some $225,000.In response to this growing environmental concern, residents and neighbors of Dingley Island began in 1996 to investigate the possibility of replacing a portion of the causeway with a bridge that would allow the restoration of normal tidal flows to the cove. Over the next several years, various partners were brought on board, including the Town of Harpswell, the US Navy Innovative Readiness Training Program (IRT), Bowdoin College students and faculty, the New Meadows River Watershed Project, the Maine Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These partners, led by Harpswell Resident Elsa Martz, worked together to develop and finance the bridge construction project, which cost approximately $174,000. On October 1, 2003, the community and its partners, along with Governor John Baldacci, celebrated the opening of the new bridge.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Dingley Island (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Dingley Island
Dingley Island Road,

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Latitude Longitude
N 43.816111111111 ° E -69.883888888889 °
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Dingley Island Road 165
04079
Maine, United States
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Harbor Island, Phippsburg, Maine

Harbor Island is a small, heavily wooded island at the mouth of the New Meadows River across from the shores of Sebasco in Phippsburg, Sagadahoc County, Maine, United States. There are two beaches on the island, one on the south end just across from Sebasco Harbor Resort, the other a small sandy cove on the north end. There are a few private homes on the island. The island's first known settler was Benjamin Darling. Legend has it that Benjamin Darling was a black slave who was given his freedom as a reward for saving his master, Captain Darling, in a shipwreck. Though he is believed to have been a slave from the West Indies, DNA of his ancestors has been traced to the Senegal / Gambia region of Africa. Darling bought Harbor Island in 1794 for 15 pounds. Benjamin Darling and his wife, Sara Proverbs (who was supposedly a white woman), settled on the island and began their family there. Their descendants later settled on islands and the mainland surrounding Harbor Island, including Malaga Island, half a mile to the northwest. Malaga is now preserved and owned by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and is one of the most important aspects of Maine's Black History. In 1912, descendants of Ben and Sara and others who had settled on Malaga Island were evicted by the state. They did not own the land and several had become wards of the state. Eight of them were relocated to Pineland Center for the Feeble Minded. Some of Benjamin and Sara's descendants stayed on Harbor Island. Others moved to the mainland of Phippsburg primarily into the fishing villages of West Point and Sebasco and to Cundy's Harbor. Harbor Island is called "Horse Island" by the locals as the horses used at Corneleus Ice Pond, also known as Watuh Lake, for the ice trade industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s were kept there during the summer.