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Artist's Rendition of Early Settlers Facing Danger on Bear
Island.
Continued
from page 3
According to Mrs. Ernst, other families who
lived near the church were named Beebe and Bode. "If
you head down from St. John's Church at the south end of
the island, you'll find a pile of stones on the left, which
was part of the Bode sheep shearing pen. In the olden days,
if you then followed the path marked with little white rags,
which was the way all paths were marked, you would have
come to a very large cellar hole, which was the Bode farmhouse.
They must have been most prosperous, for that cellar hole
is much bigger than the one on Jerry Point where the orchard
was planted."
Farther down the road from the Dockhams, near the shore
on what is now known as Dolly Point, lived Dolly Bryant
Nichols, sister of Bear Island's first settler. Ensign Robert
Bryant. Early in the 1800s, she had married Joseph Nichols
and had two sons and a little girl who died when only eight
years old. Subsequently, Joseph also died, bequeathing his
small tract of land, cabin and ferry business to his wife.
Since the boys, Robert and James, had already moved away.
Dolly was left to support herself. (Eventually, Robert
moved to Center Harbor, married, and had a son of his own,
James E., who later gave the money for the Center Harbor
Public Library in memory of his parents.)
In "Looking Back," an article in the November
20,1928, Meredith News, local historian Edgar Harlan Wilcomb
describes the hardships Dolly had to face:
Her cabin burned down and was replaced with
a smaller shack consisting of four rooms with an open
chamber above which Dolly built with the help of kind
neighbors. Some of the old-timers say she built it herself.
She cultivated a potato patch and vegetable garden, trapped
wild game, fished and ferried people to Bear Island.
Prospective customers would stand at Cattle Landing on
the mainland and shout across the lake for service. Dolly's
hand propelled ferry was the first "taxi" to
operate on the lake. Dolly also added to her income by
catering liquid refreshment to whomsoever asked for it.
There were no restrictions then, and it was not considered
degrading for a woman to sell strong drinks. No one
presumed or even dared to molest Aunt Dolly for she was
known to be perfectly capable of taking care of herself
under any circumstances...and kept a sharp axe and hunting
knife within reach.
For a short time. Dolly kept a little store
near The Carry and rowed to Davis (now called Governor's)
Island and to The Weirs to buy supplies to stock it. She
also offered lodgings and meals to fishermen and raftmen.
"Aunt Dolly," as she was generally known, was
not as brawny a woman as her endurance suggests. She was tiny; circumstances
made her tough.
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