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Matinicus Isle is a plantation in Knox County, Maine, United States. The population was 51 at the 2000 census, although during the summer that number can triple or quadruple. Remote Matinicus Island is accessible by ferry from Rockland, located away, or by air taxi〔According to a local, "(f)lying can be expensive ($70 or more per round trip) and landing on the short grass strip is not for the faint of heart." Bunker, "Matinicus," in Sustaining Island Communities, Rockland, Me.: Island Institute & Coastal Program, State Planning Office, State of Maine (1998)〕〔Auciello, Shlomit, (Islanders Save Matinicus Plane Crash Victims ), (Rockland, Maine) Village Soup, July 19, 2011〕 from Knox County Regional Airport. Following a fatal crash on October 5, 2011, air taxi service was temporarily suspended, but has since resumed.〔(Penobscot Island Air suspends flights after fatal crash ) Portland Press Herald, October 7, 2011.〕〔Parrish, Christine, (Penobscot Island Air Back in Service After Fatal Plane Crash ) The Free Press, Oct. 13, 2011〕 ==History== Abenaki Indians called it Matinicus, meaning "far-out island." The French used it as an early fishing station.〔(Eva Murray, "A Five-Minute History of Matinicus" 2010 )〕 In early May 1717, several pirates from their snow (a type of two masted vessel), the ''Anne'', raided several vessels that were off the shore of Matinicus at the time. The ''Anne'' had originally been captured off the Virginia Capes in April by the pirate Samuel Bellamy in the ''Whydah'', which wrecked in a storm on the night of April 26, 1717, off of Cape Cod. The ''Anne'' made it through the storm with another captured vessel, the ''Fisher'' (which was soon abandoned and the pirates aboard her transferred to the ''Anne''). The pirates arrived at Monhegan Island, Maine, on April 29 and waited for the ''Whydah'', for the pirates had not seen or heard about the ''Whydah'' wrecking in the storm of the night of April 26. The pirates eventually realized the ''Whydah'' was lost, and proceeded to attack vessels in the area. Several of the pirates set out in a launch from the ''Anne'' and proceeded to Matinicus: :"...where they took a sloop belonging to Colonel () Minot, one shallop belonging to Capt. () Lane and three Schooners. They brought the Sloop and Shallop and (as we are informed) the sails and compasses of the 3 schooners to Menhagen (), whereupon they manned the last mentioned Sloop with ten hands..." The pirates soon departed the area on May 9, 1717, on the 25-ton sloop formerly belonging to Colonel Minot, with a pirate crew of 19.〔"Deposition of Ralph Merry and Samuel Roberts" Boston. May 11, May 16, 1717. in Jameson, John Franklin. "Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents." New York: Macmillan Company, 1923, pp. 301-302; "John Newman to Governor Shute" Gloucester. May 12, 1717. Massachusetts Archives 51:290〕 Matinicus was first settled in 1750 by a squatter, Ebenezer Hall, who had served as a lieutenant during the 1745 Battle of Louisburg. Accompanied by his family, he built a house and commenced farming, burning the land to produce better hay for his livestock. He also burned another island, infuriating the Penobscot Indians who hunted and fished in the area for their livelihood. At a trading post conference in 1752, Chief Colonel Louis said: :"...one Hall and family, who live at Matinicus, interrupt us in our killing seals, and in our fowling; they have no right to be there; the land is our own." Twice the tribe wrote letters to Royal authorities in Boston, complaining about Hall. In the second, delivered for forwarding on April 25, 1753, to Fort Richmond, they warned: :"...if you don't remove him in two months, we shall be obliged to do it ourselves." Governor Spencer Phips ordered Hall and his family brought into custody at Boston to answer for ignoring his command to leave Matinicus. But nothing happened. The Penobscots waited not two months but a little over four years before taking action. On June 1, 1757, they laid siege to Hall's house, and on June 10, 1757, killed and scalped him. Hall is buried in the vicinity of the so-called "store well," with a bronze plaque bolted to a ledge as commemoration. 〔(Ebenezer Hall of Matinicus Island - 1757 )〕 So began the island's 250-year aura of insularity and frontier violence. Residents developed a reputation for wanting to be left alone; outsiders and tourists were not welcome. It was not infrequent for visiting sailboats to be shot at, and the Maine State Police were under orders not to be on the island after dark. Several boating magazines listed Matinicus as a "hostile harbor," and locals openly referred to it as a "pirate island." The state gave up enforcing vehicle laws on Matinicus in the 1950s, so license plates (and brakes) are optional on the rusted vehicles that ply its unpaved roads. More recently, however, outsiders have purchased property and built summer cottages on the island, whose economy is now comfortable with the seasonal influx of tourist dollars. Only interference in local lobster fishing invites trouble. 〔(Eva Murray, "A Little Mythbusting About Matinicus Island", ''DownEast.com'' 2010 )〕 Matinicus shares with Vinalhaven what may be the richest lobstering grounds in the world.〔(''Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine'', by Walter Rich, US Bureau of Fisheries, 1929 )〕 With incomes reduced and the source of income at stake, territorial disputes can flare between fishermen. In July 2009, a 63-year-old resident and fisherman shot a 41-year-old fellow fisherman in a dispute over the locations of individual lobster-fishing rights.〔(Clarke Canfield, "Lobster Wars Rock Remote Maine Island", 2009 )〕 Also, in 2006, shots were fired by a fisherman at another fisherman on his boat. The island has a strong Christian presence and is a routine stop for the Maine Seacoast Mission's vessel ''Sunbeam''. It has one church, built in 1906, and all island residents are somewhat affiliated with it. This, and an unwritten law to assist anyone in trouble, prompts island fishermen to be first responders at all sorts of marine emergencies in outer Penobscot Bay. On January 16, 1992, the tugboat ''Harkness'' sank, and it was a lobster boat from Matinicus that went out and found the three crewmen. The rescue is featured in the issue of ''Reader's Digest'' for March 1994. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Matinicus Isle, Maine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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