a , A CGR FP RAs Te aE ee ee” ee 
So a 
June 11,1915 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder ) 
Baker’s Island—Some Interesting Facts 
Concerning This Island and its Beacons, off the North Shore. 
By KATHERINE GAUSS 
THe growti ot Baker’s Island, as a summer resort has 
attracted a good deal of attention in the past few 
years. Only one new house is building this year, a pretty 
little cottage house for Henry R. Newcomb of New York, 
a leading man in the Fleischmann yeast organization, but 
others are in prospect so that the island will doubtless be 
pretty well covered with summer homes in a few years. 
It is certainly a delightful place, easily reached by a 
steamer line from Salem Willows, and many Salem and 
Boston business men find here at the end of the day a 
pleasant resting place and always a good night’s sleep, 
for no matter how warm it may be on the mainland 
blankets are needed at night on the island five miles off 
at sea. 
In early days Baker’s Island was covered with heavy 
timber, which was all cut down, and now it is difficult 
to make a tree grow to any considerable size. Doctor 
Bentley, the pastor of the old East Church, who kept that 
wonderful diary of his times, which has just been pub- 
lished in four volumes, was a frequent visitor to Baker's 
Island going down frequently in the custom house boat. 
In 1791, long, of course, before the present lighthouses 
were built, he tells in his diary, that “the Marine Society 
proposes to build a beacon on the island” for the guid- 
ance of seamen entering port, and on the 20th of July 
the same year he says: “Yesterday the intended Beacon 
at Baker’s Island was raised by a large and jovial party 
of our mariners. It is to be forty feet in height.- Every 
exertion of this nature is to be considered as favorable to 
the public happiness and as a source of our good hopes 
for the improvement of our navigation.” 
In the eighteenth century Baker’s Island was owned 
by a family of Irvings of England and an agent living in 
Salem was authorized to dispose of the land as he thought 
best. At that time there was one house near the woodea 
light house, enclosed in a square, with a garden running 
down to “a living spring.” Fine Indian corn and garden 
vegetables were raised in this enclosure, but outside of it 
all was pasture land save for the few Juniper bushes 
‘scattered here and there. 
years in great abundance and their fur was sold to a 
Rabbits were raised for many 
ready market. In August, 1797, General and Dr. Bent- 
ley were among those who went to Baker’s to see the 
breaking of ground for the new light-house, and he says 
on January of the following year that “as we returned 
upon the bridge from Beverly for the first time the Lights 
at the Light-House on Baker’s Jsland were lighted” and 
describes it as ‘‘a very plain building.” Besides import- 
ant events of the day Dr. Bentley recorded various light- 
er scenes and in September speaks of rowing to the is- 
land, and on the way “saw the seals sporting in the offing 
and the porpoises playing. On the island was brought 
the dog fish taken near its shore. Upon our return the 
loon was entertaining us with its squalling,” thus giving 
a pleasant picture of ordinary life. 
In 1811 a story gained circulation that ore had been 
found on Baker’s Island and General Dearborn, collector 
of Boston, with Dr. Bentley and others examined every 
part of the island with great care and found the whole 
island, like other islets round Salem, to be seated upon a 
mass of mixed and hard rock, and none of them promise‘ 
any mineral substances which could be collected for use. 
It was suspected that the tale of the minerals arose from 
what had been heard at Plum Island, that a negro pre- 
tended to have found mineral substances of value and en- 
gaged several persons from Newburyport in the seare) 
and had borrowed a horse to go to the southward to find 
the man who promised to analyze them, but neither negro 
nor horse were ever heard of again. On the southeast 
side of the island was found a long vein of white rock 
which passed for a long distance, as a vein, in the bed 
of rocks in which it was found, never of a foot in width 
and near at hand were freshly dug excavations for money. 
While examining these rocks the party also visited the 
new light-house that had been erected and which had been 
made in conical shape from stone with patent lamps 
fitted with metallic reflectors behind and glass plano con- 
(Continued on page 28) 
