From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The island of Vinalhaven, Maine, was home to John Calderwood who emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland in 1725. His descendants prospered on the island and today the name Calderwood is still prominent in landmarks, roads and local history. The Historical Society of Vinalhaven, locate don High St., just a short walk from downtown, had a large collection of memorabilia, not only for the Calderwood family and other early settlers, but also the early economy, which thrived on granite mining and cutting. Many of the nations well-known bridges and edifices are constructed from granite quarried on Vinalhaven (the Brooklyn Bridge and cathedral of St. John the Divine in NY). With the advent of cement as a more utile building material, the island's quarries slowly went out of business and many of them now function as local spring-fed swimming holes.
After granite, lobsters became the primary product of Vinalhaven, and the island bosats the largest lobster fleet in the US, if not the world. The ferry from Rockland to Vinalhaven is a beautiful trip as it wends it's way through what would seem to be a veritable minefield of multicolored lobster pot buouys, thousands of them, that litter the channel between the mainland and the island.
The one and a half hour ferry trip is well worth the time if just for the visual beauty of the coastline and scattered outcrops of granite islets that lead to the little port of Vinalhaven.
