Dan and Cynthia Lief have owned and operated the Islesford Dock Restaurant for the last 16 years. As they prepare for their 17th summer, they are also preparing for a new business venture; the Islesford Dock Gallery. The gallery on the dock will feature artists from Maine, South Africa, and a few places in between.
In the past, the restaurant walls have displayed a variety of work from Dan and Kate Fernald’s Islesford Artists Gallery, which is located next to the Islesford Neighborhood House. The Fernald’s gallery opened 22 years ago. Islesford potter Marian Baker will be celebrating her 20th year of business on the Islesford dock, and Sue Hill’s shop, Winter’s Work, will be relocated to a larger space on the dock before she opens for her 21st season there. Dan and Cynthia have made some great changes on the dock this spring to create their new gallery space. They hope that their artists will complement the island’s reputation as a stopping place for fine arts and crafts.
Baby boomers and their elders can remember the harbor at Little Cranberry, before the new town dock was built in 1963. Until that time, most of the comings and goings at Islesford took place on the Islesford Dock. In 1879, Gilbert Hadlock helped to build the Life Saving Station on Islesford for the U.S. Government, and served as its first keeper.
In 1888, when his interests turned to commerce at the other end of the island, he built a wharf to accommodate the steamers, Agnes, Florence, and Islesford. The stone pilings that were once part of the steamship wharf are still visible in the harbor today. The consensus of my sources say that Gilbert Hadlock probably built the Islesford Dock around the same time, to help accommodate the active shipping and fishing industries.
Deeds show that Gilbert’s daughter-in-law, Grace Hadlock, and his grandson, Russell Hadlock, sold the Islesford Dock to Irving and Warren “Bert” Spurling in 1928. Bert ran the dock’s fishing business and Irving ran the coal business. Large schooners would bring loads of coal to the dock, often grounding out at low tide. The echo of coal being dumped out could be heard from all over the island.
Hugh Dwelley, president of the Islesford Historical Society recalls, “Francis Fernald was usually the “dump man” who caught the bucket when it came up from the vessel and dumped it into the barrows for others to wheel back. Was he black when he got home!” Pieces of history are everywhere, as the carpenters dodge the coal dust that sifts down from above while they renovate the dock for the new gallery. Two of the old wheelbarrows are still visible in the rafters of the high-ceilinged studio space.
Bert sold the dock to his son Elmer Spurling in 1949, and for many years Elmer sold bait and fuel, bought lobsters, and ran a ferry service. His boats included the Vagabond, Hobo, Rascal, Eleanor G, and the Islesford Ferry. His wife Eleanor ran a snack bar serving steamed hot dogs and lobster rolls, home baked brownies, filled cookies, ice box cookies and gingerbread. A cooler in the office held soda bottles with caps displaying names such as Down East, Coca Cola, Fanta, Grape Nehi and Orange Crush. On the other side of the dock were huge wooden barrels of salted herring for lobster bait, and a small building known as the bait shed.
In the winter, when Hugh Dwelley was a boy, it was “a warm place where some of the old fellows were always playing ’63 or cribbage and someone was usually repairing a trap or a tub of trawl. We kids were tolerated if we sat quietly on an old trawl tub and listened in.” The bait shed had several lives over the years as a gift shop, a small apartment, storage, and currently the restaurant office.
In 1970, Dan Field, a teacher from Lee Academy, spent his summer running the snack bar at the Islesford Dock. He employed teenagers Karen Fernald, Katy Morse and Joy Sprague to help him. He sold lobster rolls, crab rolls, steamed lobsters and tuna rolls. Lobsters from 17-year old Mark Fernald cost him 75 cents a pound, and he paid $1.20 a pound for lobsters from Lee Ham’s wharf, next door. He bought donuts, made by Hildegarde and Emerson Ham, for 75 cents a dozen, his baked goods, such as muffins, date squares and congo bars, cost 10 cents a piece from Glenn Hadlock, and a 10-trip mail boat ticket cost $5.
Elmer sold the dock in 1973 to Keating Pepper and Griff Fenton. It changed hands again when Dana Heath bought it in 1975. Dana sold it to Conley and June Salyer in 1977. They ran a snack bar and built a gift shop and a small restaurant on the dock. The kitchen was in the front and the cook, Ralph Robbins, lived up overhead. At one point, Conley proposed adding a second story and building hotel rooms at the dock. Most people were not in favor of the idea, so he never followed through.
Conley sold to Fred Farrace in 1985, and it was Fred who installed the bar and opened up the front of the dock so customers could see the harbor. In 1988 Fred sold to Gail Nelson and her brother Richard Emmons. They ran a restaurant named Puddles on the Water for three years, and to this day there are still people who refer to the restaurant as Puddles.
In 1991, the restaurant was closed, though on the dock, Marian still had her pottery shop and Sue still ran “Winter’s Work.” To fill in the food gap, Karen Fernald and Amy Philbrook put out picnic tables and sold sandwiches, steamed hot dogs and baked goods under a yellow umbrella on the lawn near the green “shack.” In 1992, Dan and Cynthia established the Islesford Dock Restaurant with Harvey Bunker and Eve Harrison, before becoming sole owners following year.
Think of all of the people who have walked and worked on that dock in its many manifestations since the late 1800s. From fishing, to fine food, to fine arts, their stories could fill volumes. If you live on Islesford, you have either worked there yourself, or are separated by one degree from someone who has.