LB2000.52.1057

LB2000.52.1057

Winter scene of Belfast Bay Monument frozen in ice. Note horse and sleigh, a man, a child and dog looking up at men atop the monument. THIS IMAGE The winter of 1905 was hard, but not as hard as the winter before. Temperatures seldom rose above 12 degrees Fahrenheit. From early February until mid-March, much of the upper Penobscot Bay was frozen solid, with 5 inches or more of ice. Steamboat travel was suspended. Newspaper reports beginning mid-February told of people walking from Castine to Belfast and of an "ice bridge" to Islesboro on which teams pulled wagons and sleighs. The ice sometimes gave out: one man lost a boiler and engine and his horses when they broke through the ice going from Bucksport to Winterport. By March 8th the ice had been broken out of Rockland and a week later an ice jam at Fort Point was broken up by the steamer Reliance, freeing the river to Bangor. March 5th must have been warm enough for Charles Coombs to take a camera out to the Monument marking Steele's Ledge in Belfast Harbor for a photo shoot. Tripod mounted glass plate cameras were not easy to transport and set up. From the ice ring on the granite, it must have been nearly low tide. You can see the north shore of Belfast Harbor in the background, all fields and no trees. The Monument is crowned by a pole and a barrel. Now there is a flashing red light. A week or so later, all of this was gone. HISTORY An Act of Congress, passed in 1826, appropriated twelve hundred dollars for erecting a beacon or monument on Steele's Ledge. Jonathan Wilson offered to build it of split granite; but a proposal to construct a wooden one was accepted. It was completed the following year, being twenty-six feet in height. On the 13th of October, 1833, a violent south-east storm washed out the ballast; and the whole structure, the mast surmounted by a cask, came sailing up the harbor. It was subsequently sold at auction, and taken to the flats opposite the Railroad Wharf, where for many years it served as a pier. In 1846, P. R. Hazeltine and fifty-four others asked the Government to purchase it from Otho Abbot, the owner; but their petition was not granted. It was carried away by a vessel, on the 4th of November, 1864. In 1835, a stone beacon supplied the place of the old one on Steele's Ledge. It was thirty feet high, and twenty-four feet square at the base, narrowing to half that size at the top. After remaining until Feb. 20, 1859, it was thrown down by the pressure of the ice. The present monument was built the same year, by Mr. McIntyre, of Camden.