Was the wreck of three-masted bark, Annie C. Maguire, which very conveniently wrecked at Portland Head Light on Christmas Eve 1886, simply an insurance scam? It is said that the ship wrecked so close to the light that the lighthouse keeper Joshua Strout, his son, wife, and volunteers were able to rig an ordinary ladder as a gangplank between the shore and the ledge the ship was heeled against. Captain O’Neil, the ship’s master, his wife, two mates and the nine-man crew crossed the ladder to safety. Thanks to Harry Milkman for passing the story along.

The tale of the shipwreck at Portland Head Light