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Star Island is one of the Isles of Shoals that straddle the border between New Hampshire and Maine, approximately from the mainland in the Atlantic Ocean. At ,〔(NH GRANIT hydrography data )〕 Star Island is the largest of the four islands that are located in New Hampshire and second largest overall, after Appledore Island. The island was supposedly assigned its name by sailors who imagined the shape of the island as the points of a shining star.〔(Island Details )〕 Originally known by the local "Shoalers" as the town of Gosport, in 1876 the island was annexed to the town of Rye.〔("Community Profiles - Rye" ), NH Economic & Labor Market Information Bureau〕 Star Island has been owned and operated by the Star Island Corporation since 1915 as a place for family, youth, and individual conferences and retreats.〔(Island History )〕 The Star Island Corporation has close ties to the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ. Conferences vary from a week to a few days, with some focused on religious themes and others on secular subjects (photography, arts, yoga, writing, science, etc.). In 2008, "personal retreats" were created to allow members of the public to stay on the island for up to one week.〔(Personal Retreats ), Star Island Corporation.〕 In 2015, Star Island Corporation held a year-long centennial celebration with both island and mainland events, a ribbon cutting and historical reenactments.〔(Centennial celebration )〕 ==History== Captain John Smith mapped the Isles of Shoals in 1614 and originally named them "Smyth's Isles".〔(Isles of Shoals History )〕 There is a monument remaining today on Star Island, built in 1864 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of John Smith's trip.〔(Isles of Shoals Details )〕 Star Island was first settled, as were all the Isles of Shoals, in the early 17th century by seasonal fishermen working the rich waters of the North Atlantic coast. Many were English, coming up from the colonies of the Virginia companies. The first permanent settlement of Star Island began in 1677 when the Province of Maine, under Massachusetts rule, undertook to increase taxes on nearby Hog Island (now Appledore Island). That and the recent availability of housing on Star Island, which was in New Hampshire, caused a mass migration, and in 1715 the township of Gosport was established on Star Island. The town and the island flourished until the American Revolutionary War, when the colonials ordered the Shoals evacuated, believing that having a group of questionable loyalty just off the coast posed a threat. Many shoalers abandoned their island homes shortly thereafter. After the war, some moved back to Gosport, but it never achieved its former population.〔(New Hampshire's Missing Places: Gosport, Isles of Shoals )〕 The islands were sparsely inhabited until the middle of the 19th century when Thomas Laighton established a hotel on Smuttynose Island. With Levi Thaxter, Laighton eventually opened a much larger one, the Appledore Hotel, on Hog, which he renamed Appledore Island. Laighton's daughter, Celia, went on to marry Thaxter, and Celia Thaxter became one of the most popular American female poets of the 19th century. She hosted an arts community on the island frequented by such luminaries as authors Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sarah Orne Jewett, and the Impressionist painter Childe Hassam.〔(Isles of Shoals History )〕 They were so successful that in 1873 another entrepreneur, John Poor, built the Oceanic Hotel on Star Island, by joining a cluster of Caswell family buildings with a long wooden veranda. The largest building, the former Atlantic House, had been run by Lemuel Caswell. Another, the Gosport House, was once run by Lemuel's brother Origen Caswell. When the first Oceanic burned in 1875 soon after it was built, he immediately reconfigured the surviving buildings into a second Oceanic Hotel, which is the only surviving hotel from this period remaining in the Isles of Shoals today. The late 1800s was a golden era for island hotels. Air conditioning had yet to be invented, and the cool sea breezes were a perfect escape from the hot summers of Boston and New York. Sarah Orne Jewett wrote an occasional poem, "On Star Island", published in ''Harper's Magazine'' in September 1881, about her visit to Star Island and the Gosport church. But the resorts in the mountains of New Hampshire and New York grew and did not involve a potentially unpleasant sea voyage. By the 1890s, the island hotels were nearly empty. Then, in 1896, Thomas Elliott and his wife Lilla arrived on Star Island. They immediately saw in the lightly occupied hotel a place where summer conferences could be held, to be sponsored by the Unitarian Church, of which he was a member. He made a deal with the manager to "fill the place to the ridge-poles" the following year, and then went back to the mainland to make good on his promise. He met with the Unitarians in Boston and then, just to make sure, he went across the street and made a deal with the Congregationalists. The following summer, he had so many at the conference that the staff was sleeping in the bathrooms. The conferences continued, and in 1915 the Isles of Shoals Summer Meeting Association which Elliott had organized bought the hotel and the island, forming the Star Island Corporation. Today conference goers still sleep in the Oceanic Hotel and utilize other historic buildings, such as the stone Gosport Chapel built in 1800. 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「Star Island (New Hampshire)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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