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Fire Destroys Appledore Cottage |
Seacoast Blog #76
December 21, 2009
John Riley of Belchertown, MA recently wrote in search of details about the fire that swept their family cottage on Appledore Island at the Isles of Shoals in 1953. He sent along a snapshot. I didn’t know the story or the cottage. The grand Appledore Hotel and Celia Thaxter’s famous cottage burned in 1914 and get all the press. I searched the Athenaeum photo archive online and found a few pictures that matched John’s photo. Turns out that the wooden cottage was originally owned by Celia’s brother Cedric Laighton (also spelled "Leighton") and it survived the much publicized island blaze. So we dug a little deeper. (See full story below)
Riley’s grandfather co-owned the cottage for only a few short years before the fire. His father is now 89 and their newspaper clipping about the fire had gone missing. I put out a request for info to the circle of people who know Shoals history well, and in the process, dug around for info about Cedric who is least well known of the Laighton siblings.
Poet Celia Laighton Thaxter gets 95% of the attention these days, and her bearded brother Oscar Laighton gets another 4% by my subjective calculations. Oscar lived to almost 100 years on the Shoals, drew pencil sketches, and published his own little book of poems that he autographed for toursts.
That leaves 1% of the attention to brother Cedric. If it wasn’t for a book of Cedric’s letters collected by Shoaler Fred McGill in the 1990s, the welthy and succesfful brother would be largely anonymous. They are clever and humourous letters that leave the reader wishing we knew more. I dug up an obituary of Cedric from the Granite Monthly that is reprinted at the bottom of this blog. Meanwhile Charles Shipman and Donna Gilbreth at the New Hampshire State Library located the article about the 1953 fire from micforilm records that is also transcribed below. It’s just another footnote, but we Shoalers love every detail that turns up. -- JDR
Fire Destroys Cottage on Appledore Island
The Portsmouth Herald
April 4, 1953
Appledore Island – Fire destroyed a 100-year-old, wooden frame summer in 25 minutes last night on Appledore Island.
Only the brick chimneys remain from the once two-story, seven-room dwelling owned jointly by Charles Currier of Dover and Jesse Riley of Portsmouth. Currier estimated the lost at $10,000.
No one was on the island when the blaze broke out at 11 o’clock the Coast Guard at Portsmouth said today.
The fire was spotted by Keeper Douglas Larrabee and Seaman Jerry Russell o f the White Island Light Station, half a mile away.
The Coast Guard Station at Portsmouth dispatched a ultimity boat to the scene immediately after being notified by Larrabee. The dwelling was a mass of smoulering ashes when the guardsmen arrived on Appledore.
Early yesterday afternoon, Larrabee and Russell investigated a minor grass fire om the island. They found no one there and the fire was, at that time, harmlessly being fanned out to sea.
"It’s got us all buffaloed," Larrabee said today. "Don’t know how it started."
Currier said today that the cottage had been broken into several times during the past and for that reason had removed nearly all the furniture.
Originally the "Leighton Cottage", owner by Oscar Leighton of the Isles of Shoals, the summer home belonged to Prof. C. Floyd Jackson of the University of New Hampshire before Curriet and Riley purchased it a few years ago. The Portsmouth Coast Guard is investigating the blaze.
Transcribed by SeacooastNH.com
CEDRIC LAIGHTON OBITUARY
Cedric Laighton, one of the proprietors of the Isles of Shoals property, died at West Medford, Mass., June 5, after a protracted illness, aged about 58 years. He was born in Portsmouth, and was a son of the late Thomas B. and Eliza (Rymes) Laighton. His father removed to the Isles of Shoals to conduct a small boarding house for summer boarders, communication being had with Portsmouth by means of a sailing craft. Here Cedric grew up, remaining all the time, summer and win- ter, on the islands, except for periodical trips to that city, until his marriage. At the death of his father, Cedric, with his brother, Oscar, took charge of the property, which was then a small affair, and soon afterwards began to enlarge and improve it, continuing until now, when it consists of Appledore, Star, and Smut- tynose islands, on which are situated the Appledore, Oceanic, and Mid-Ocean houses, as well as a score of cottages. They also own the steamer Viking of the Isles of Shoals line, the steamer Sam Adams, the schooner Flying Eagle, and a big fleet of yachts and craft, as well as the majority of the stock of the Gardner Cable company, which operates a cable between Portsmouth and the islands. Cedric married, about eight years ago, Miss Julia Stowell, in Boston, and she sur- vives him, as do also three daughters, Margaret, Ruth, and Barbara. He was a brother of Celia Thaxter, the poet.
From the GRANITE MONTHLY
June 1899
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