Thomas W. Taylor

Some ten miles off the Maine Coast is a small island, which has been an important natural landmark. Since times immemorial, the island has felt the tread of mankind. In aboriginal times, the Penobscot Indians rowed the long distance to the island to fish and process whales. In fact, the name of the island, Monhegan, derives from the Penobscot word meaning "Faraway Island." Due to its location, for years Monhegan Island has been the first landfall for mariners approaching the Maine Coast from sea.

In the summer of 1821, the United States assumed control over the old Spanish province of Florida, according to the terms of the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty. General Andrew Jackson was appointed Territorial Governor in Pensacola, and troops from the United States raised the American flag over the old Castillo de San Marcos in the "Ancient City" of St. Augustine. The civilized section of Florida was in the north; the southern extremities were the haunt of pirates, Indians, and wreckers.

At just past noon on June 2, 1884, the Light-House Service tender, the schooner Pharos, anchored near the channel buoy off the bar at Mosquito Inlet, today known as Ponce De Leon Inlet, just south of Daytona Beach, Florida. From the rail of the vessel, forty-nine-year-old General Orville E. Babcock gazed at the spit of land to the west, shimmering under the high, hot summer sun.