View of Vinalhaven, Maine harbor.

View of Vinalhaven, Maine harbor.

View of Vinalhaven, Maine harbor. Photo probably from 1880's. A dozen or so two masted schooners - likely the fishing fleet - are drying sails. This c. 1870 view of Carvers Harbor underscores Vinalhaven's two traditional resource economies, namely fish and granite. The fleet of schooners and sloops pictured here caught mackerel and probably ground fish as well, which were both plentiful at this time. By the time of this photo (~1870) islanders were fishing for herring, mackerel, hake, pollock and cod, which they either smoked, salted or sold to outside dealers. . The lobster fishery came into existence in the 1850s and many of the fishermen switched over to this fishery. They did not go to Georges Bank after the early 1860s due to the dangers. In c.1880 there were 180 boat fishermen on the island and 170 of them were lobster fishing, using about 60 traps and the lobsters were sent to market either by steamer or a smack. During Vinalhaven's 60-year heyday of granite cutting, more than 40 quarries dotted the island's 169 rocky square miles; four or five of those were quite large and prosperous. The island is also the beneficiary of historically plentiful fisheries, and shares famously prolific lobstering grounds with its southern neighbor, Matinicus. The photographer stood atop Kitteridge (now Armbrust) Hill to compose this shot. The spit of wooded land across the harbor is also part of Vinalhaven; the larger island looming in the background is Greens Island. The boarded building with three chimneys no longer stands. The leftmost of the two dark-colored buildings on the shore may have been absorbed into the Lane and Libby fish processing operation later on; the rightmost of the two is gone, and the fishery is a private home. The white house, on the right, still stands today (2015).