Layer 03 · 1858 → 1917

The Summer Island

Steamers, cottages, a hotel on the bluff — and a fire.

Lemuel Cushing consolidated the island and built the Ottawa House — an Italianate summer hotel pitched at English-Canadian visitors who reached Portland by the Grand Trunk Railroad. In 1883 Francis Cushing formed the Cushing's Island Company and engaged Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot to plan a summer colony, with cottages by John Calvin Stevens. The first hotel burned; a second Ottawa House went up in 1888, the same year Ilsley & Cummings mapped the sold lots and blocked out the southern shore for the government reservation. A catalogue record for a c. 1900 photograph describes the second hotel holding about 300 guests, with a large ballroom and a bathing pavilion at Willow Beach. It burned in 1917 and was never rebuilt.

Still unresolved

Exactly where did the Ottawa House stand, and can its footprint be fixed against the 1888 map rather than estimated?

Stories in this layer

8 min read

The Ottawa House

A hotel that shaped an island for sixty years, burned in a single day, and left almost nothing you can point at.

On the timeline

1858
Lemuel Cushing consolidates the island; the Ottawa House era begins
Lemuel Cushing brings the island into single ownership and develops it as a summer destination. The date the first Ottawa House opened is not settled: this site's earlier working date is 1858, while SAH Archipedia dates the Italianate hotel to 1862. Both agree the hotel was aimed at English-Canadian visitors reaching Portland by the Grand Trunk Railroad.
1883
The Cushing's Island Company and a planned summer colony
Francis Cushing forms the Cushing's Island Company and engages Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot to plan a summer colony. John Calvin Stevens designs cottages on the island; a Stevens drawing for a Cushing Island house survives (MMN #6029).
1885
Longfellow's manuscript plan
A. W. Longfellow's plan of the island (MMN #23340) maps Bayberry Ridge, Rock Terrace, the Meadows, Lobster Cove, Spring Cove, and White Head — the earliest detailed island plan preserved in the archive.
1886
Sargent publishes the Historical Sketch
Portland lawyer Wm. M. Sargent issues 'An Historical Sketch, Guide Book, and Prospectus of Cushing's Island,' with paintings by Harrison Bird Brown and John Calvin Stevens's cottage plates. It remains the primary source underlying this history.
1888
The first hotel gone, the second built — and the island mapped
The first Ottawa House had burned; a second Ottawa House was built in 1888. The same year Ilsley & Cummings issue two sheets (MMN #23340, #23341) marking lots already sold and reserving the southern shore for the coming U.S. Government installation. A catalogue record for a c. 1900 photograph (MMN #12157) describes the second hotel as accommodating about 300 guests, with nightly dancing in a large ballroom and a bathing pavilion at Willow Beach.
1917
The second Ottawa House burns
The second hotel burned in 1917 and was not rebuilt, ending the resort era. The year and the outcome are documented; a contemporary newspaper account of the fire itself has not yet been verified, so no scene-level detail is given here.

Evidence for this layer

Same ground

Calumet Avenue

A road is the most conservative thing on an island: it outlasts the buildings it was built to reach. Calumet Avenue is named on the resort-era survey and still carries traffic today.

1885
Surveyed
A. W. Longfellow's manuscript plan lays out the island's named features — Bayberry Ridge, Rock Terrace, the Meadows, Lobster Cove, Spring Cove, White Head. The road network of the summer island is being drawn before most of it is built.
[DOC]Source →
1888
Sold
The Ilsley & Cummings lot map shows parcels already sold in dotted outline along the island's roads, and blocks out the southern shore for the United States Government. The avenue is now a property line as much as a route.
[DOC]Source →
1917
Transition
No image held for this period
The Ottawa House burns. What the road served at its western end no longer exists; what it serves at its southern end — the fort — is expanding. No image of the avenue in this year is held here.
[DOC]
1943
Military landscape
No image held for this period
The southern end of the island is a working coast-defense reservation. Whether the resort-era roads were regraded for military traffic, and where, is not established by any source in this history.
[POS]
Today
Still in use
No image held for this period
Sunken road cuts, stone walls parallel to grade, and long-worn shoulders. This history treats the road corridor as a layered feature: Wabanaki travel, colonial path, resort avenue and service route are not separable on the ground without excavation.
[HC]Stand here →

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