Dispatches from the Cabin: Part Five

Nat's great-great uncle, Dr. Vincent Yardley Bowditch, first came to Islesford in 1886. Staying with friends in Northeast Harbor, he came over to the island "to picnic on the beach." He returned with his father, the abolitionist and Boston physician, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, and other family members, the following year, boarding at various Hadlock residences.

In 1901-1902 "Treetop" was built and the life-long bachelor spent his first season there in 1902. Nat's grandparents, Henry and Eleanor Bowditch, spent their honeymoon at "Treetop" where, according to Nat's father Phil, "Islesford first wove its magic on their lives."

Tuesday evening, Sukie and I ate at the Islesford Dock Restaurant, enjoying the live Latin music. We watched as the fog receded, revealing the forms of the Acadia mountains to the north, before again climbing and obscuring their slopes. Later, we were joined by Mary (Lord) Van Dusen and two of her friends from Marblehead. After Vincent Bowditch's death in 1929, Mary's parents, Milton and Rosamund Lord, bought "Treetop" and summered there beginning in 1936. She and her family still come to the island.

When Sukie was eleven or twelve, living in Marblehead, she and her sister Peggy babysat Mary's children. Bowditch and Lord, Heald and Curtis. There are occasions, more than mere happenstance, when the interweaving of lives is astounding, and delightful. Past ages live on within us and our present moments are subtly shaped by the ebb and flow of time. Photo: Old skiff , Islesford boatbuilder Arthur Joe Spurling.