Collinsport - Widow's Hill

Widow's Hill

Widows' Hill is a high elevation point outside of the village and the location of the Collinwood estate. It was one 100 feet (30 m) from the edge of the cliff to the water below, and on a cloudless day, one could see 20 miles (32 km) out to sea from the cliff along the water. Widows' Hill acquired its name because women used to wait on the cliff and look out to sea, watching for their ill-fated husbands' ships to return. When Jeremiah Collins decided to build Collinwood on the hill in the 1796, he turned the widows away and told them to go home and keep their grief to themselves.

Some people in Collinsport claimed that the widows still walked the hill 150 years later as ghosts. The wailing sounds coming from the hill were believed to be the sobbing widows, rather than the wind, and some old-timers in town claimed to have seen them walking the hill from a distance.

By 1967, three people had thrown themselves off the cliff. Josette Collins jumped to her death because she was being pursued by her "lover" and would rather die than welcome his attentions, and the two others were Collinwood governesses. Legend told of a third governess who would one day be found dead at the bottom of the cliff. Some have speculated that this is Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, just outside of Bar Harbor, Maine. Others believe this is nearby Thunder Hole.