(7) Verona

Verona Island

It was also known as Penobscot Island and Orphan Island, the latter because it was all that General Henry Knox had to bequeath to his orphaned grandchildren. In 1839 it became the plantation of Wetmore Isle. The name was changed to Verona (after Verona, Italy) upon its incorporation as a town on February 18, 1861. The town lengthened its name to Verona Island, matching the name of the land form on which it was located, in 2004.

 

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(1) Stockton Harbor (2) Fort Point (3) The River (4) Narrows Bridge (5) Fort Knox (6) Bucksport (7) Verona
 (8) The Bay (9) Fort George(10) Castine (11) Islesboro (12) Belfast(13) Searsport (14) Sears Island

The Island lies in the Penobscot River between the main and the Eastern Channel, the latter being supplemented with the outlet of the Orland River. The Waldo-Hancock Suspension Bridge provides the link from the Town of Prospect as U.S. Route 1 and Maine Route 3 pass through the northern portion of the town, then to Bucksport.

Verona Shipyard

Beazley Shipyard located on Verona Island overlooking Bucksport, 1880

Verona had another shipyard, the William Beazley Shipyard, which, like McKay Dix, looked toward Bucksport in the busy heyday of shipping. In those days, the Verona-Bucksport Bridge was made of wood and near it, shipyards and a steamboat wharf did brisk business.

 

 

 

Roosevelt

Once a shipbuilding community, it built Commodore Robert E. Peary's ship the "Roosevelt" for his expedition to the North Pole.

It steamed out of New York harbor in 1905, and was the most practical ship to enter Arctic waters:

  • The ship had egg-shaped sides that were designed to let it ride up on the ice.
  • Some parts of the hull were as much as 30 inches / 76 cm thick. It was both elastic and strong.
  • Massive crossbeams braced the hull inside.
  • The ship was narrow and the prow was flared to let it cut into the ice floes.
  • It had a powerful engine with an oversized shaft and propellers.
This "battering ram" - designed to attack the ice by force - left Greenland on July 8, 1908, for the final push north to Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island.

After it had bashed, banged, hammered, plowed, sliced, squeezed and twisted its way through the ice, Peary commented: "I do not believe there is another ship afloat that would have survived the ordeal."