We took home with us old bricks as souvenirs.
They came from the ruins of an asylum that once operated on the island, torn down by the WPA in 1935, long after it had ceased to serve its original purpose.
But the building never housed a single ailing sailor, because naval surgeons found a new treatment for yellow fever—inducing diarrhea with purgatives like mercury, coal tar, castor oil, and caffeine—the following year.
The Widow's Island Naval Sanitorium was another $50,000 federal boondoggle.
The Navy donated the empty asylum to Maine in 1904, which turned it into a summer retreat for lunatics interned in asylums in Augusta and Bangor.
As part of the land transfer, the state renamed Widow's Island after a local judge, and the asylum became known as the Chase Island Convalescent Hospital.
But locals continued to call the place Widow's Island.
The lunatic asylum only operated for a decade, after which the building was used as a school for the children of lighthouse keepers, and again as a naval hospital during World War I.
When the WPA tore down the building, it intended to recycle the thousands of bricks, and piled them neatly on the island's shore.
That was a mistake.
Light-fingered lobstermen stole the bricks to weight their traps, pave the walkways around their homes, and line their chimneys.
Fortunately, they left a few for souvenir-hunters like us.
