Wood Island Light - Legends and Lore

Legends and Lore

Eben Emerson served as Lightkeeper from 1861 to 1865. On March 16, 1865, he saved the crew of the British brig Edyth Anne from drowning in a heavy storm near the lighthouse; for this action he was commended by the Canadian government and rewarded with a pair of binoculars.

Thomas Henry Orcutt, a former sea captain and previous keeper at Saddleback Ledge Light served as keeper of Wood Island Light for 19 years (1886–1905). His dog, Sailor, became famous for ringing the station's fog bell to greet passing ships by taking the bell cord in mouth and pulling it with his teeth.

In the 1890s Wood Island Light and Wood Island were host to a grisly murder-suicide. A local squatter and part time lobsterman was living on the west end of the island. The squatter had been involved in an earlier altercation on the mainland and was approached by a sheriff's deputy in his squatter shack on the island. The squatter murdered the sheriff's deputy. Realizing what he had done he attempted to turn himself in to lighthouse keeper Thomas Orcutt who, in fear, turned him away. The squatter returned to his shack and committed suicide. Legend has it that the ghost of the murdered deputy still haunts the lighthouse and island.