Appledore Island from the west

It was originally settled by Europeans in the colonial era, when the ease of transport by water made farming on island economically efficient. A church was established in 1640. Near 1700, the entire settlement on this island moved to Star Island in New Hampshire to escape taxes imposed by Massachusetts (of which Maine was then a province).

The heyday of the island was the artists salon that thrived there in the late 1800s, before the advent of artists' colonies as we know them today. Celia Thaxter reigned over an impressive group of friends who were also the leading artists, musicians, and writers of the day. These included Edward MacDowell and his wife; American pianist William Mason, son of Lowell Mason, who played the grand piano in her salon daily; and John Knowles Paine, America's first serious composer of note. Childe Hassam painted Celia's magnificent garden in a style similar to Monet's Giverney paintings. This rarefied atmosphere ended with Thaxter's death in 1894 and the hotel burned in the early 1900s, bringing down the final curtain on this heyday in American arts. A charming small original daybook from this time period was re-published in part, in 1992, titled The Isles of Shoals Remembered, by Caleb Mason.

Today, the island is home to Shoals Marine Laboratory, run cooperatively by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire since the early 1970s. Appledore Island is owned predominantly by the Star Island Corporation.

The most prominent feature on the island is a tower built to hold a World War II radar installation. The dome, which would hold the radar, is no longer present and no actual radar unit was ever installed in this tower.

External links

• Shoals Marine Laboratory

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