From the Salt Institute gallery show of Malaga Island: A Story Best Left Untold, produced by Kate Philbrick, photographer, and Rob Rosenthal, radio producer.

Cemetary

Once the State of Maine purchased Malaga, they threatened to evict the islanders. During one of George Pease's visits to Malaga all of the islanders hid. He announced he would send more people to the Maine School for the Feeble Minded if they didn't come out. Under this threat, many villagers decide to move before things got worse. The State was very efficient in the removal of the Malaga Island community.

Finally, on July first, 1912, the eviction deadline, George Pease arrived on Malaga to set fire to the buildings. It was a wasted trip, no one is there and the homes are gone. All that remains are the school and the graveyard. Six months after the eviction, the State sold Malaga to the highest bidder for sixteen hundred and fifty dollars - four times what they paid for it.

Soon after everyone was gone, the State took two more steps to complete the purging of the community. First, the State donated the school to another island. Then, they dealt with the graveyard. Seventeen bodies were dug up, placed in five caskets, and then shipped by train to the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded where they were re-buried. A fifty-year old community of black, white, and mixed-race families is destroyed.

Archeology
Cemetary
Descendants
Malaga Today
Photo Illustrations