Ragged Island (Harpswell, Maine) is a privately owned island in Harpswell, Maine, in Cumberland County, Maine, which is geographically within Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. It is located at 43°43′39″N 69°56′13″W.

History

Ragged Island is notable as having been the summer home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and husband Eugen Jan Boissevain from 1933 until her death in 1950. It is now a private residence.[1]

Whatever the history of the island's name, at least one 1790 maritime chart identifies it simply as Cold Arse.[2]

Preservation

Ragged Island provides habitat for a large and diverse population of nesting seabirds, including the eider duck, black guillemot, greater black-backed gull, herring gull and osprey. Maine Coast Heritage Trust led an effort to protect the island, and in 2008 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant program awarded a $323,000 Coastal Wetland grant to purchase a conservation easement on the property. The easement, held by Maine Coast Heritage Trust, permanently protects the 76.6-acre (310,000 m²) natural area used by seabirds for nesting on Ragged Island.[3]

Notable people

• Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet[4]
• Elijah Kellogg, minister, lecturer, author[5]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ragged Island.

• Ragged Island on Google Maps
• Harpswell Historical Society Museum
• Preserving a Storied Casco Bay Island
• Maine Coast Heritage Trust
• Songs about Ragged Island
• "Harpswell and Adjacent Islands, Casco Bay, Maine" (1894) by J.H. Stuart & Co., from the David Rumsey Map Collection