Celia's little brother lived nearly to 100
and became an icon of the Isles
On the tiny Isles of Shoals Oscar
Laighton was a superstar. He arrived at White Island in 1839,
just three months old, when his father Thomas Laighton, a sometime
successful businessman and politician, became lighthouse keeper. Oscar
died in 1939, just three months shy of his 100th birthday. He spent most of his century on
the barren islands. According to his own account in "90 Years on the Isles
of Shoals", Oscar was 16 years old before he first stepped foot on the New
Hampshire mainland 10 miles away.
Although he was known to sketch and write poems, Oscar Laighton's local fame came largely from longevity and proximity. His father Thomas purchased four of the nine Isles of Shoals, intending first to rebuild the Gosport fishing industry, then to become a sheep herder and a store owner. In the end, Thomas and his sons Oscar and Cedric, established a hotel and tourist industry that survives today.
His sister Celia Laighton Thaxter gained notoriety in the second half
of the 19th century as
one of New England's few prominent female authors. After the death of
their parents, Oscar, Celia and Cedric -- who called his brother Oscar
"Bocky" from childhood --- owned both the large hotel on Appledore and the
one that survives today on Star Island, hosting as many as 600 visitors at
a time.
Sister Celia died at age 59 in 1892. The Appledore Hotel burned in 1914, but Oscar lived on and on. Star Island was purchased from the Laightons in 1905 by a religious-based group and became the summer conference center that it remains today. For thirty years thereafter, Oscar was a fixture of the island. He is even depicted in postcards of the ear -- writing his memoirs on the Oceanic porch, posing with female conferees, standing in his fishing boat in a characteristic dark suit with flowing white beard.
Though handsome in youth and eternally romantic, Oscar never married. His privately published book of verse "Songs and Sonnets" contains simple poems of the sea and of love, each similar to the next in tone and content. As an artist he sketched two things -- fish and sailboats -- again and again. Uncle Oscar's ultimate creation was Uncle Oscar, an uncomplicated island character, a touchstone to the Golden Era of the Appledore House, when famous Boston-area artist made Celia's salon their summer retreat. And through it all was Uncle Oscar, enjoying the attention, loving the women in summer, and savoring a century of island sunsets.
Notes by J. Dennis Robinson
Copyright (c) 2002 SeacoastNH.com. All rights
reserved.
Images of Oscar Laighton courtesy Portsmouth Athenaeum.
SONG
By Oscar Laighton
A storm is gathering in the air,
The gulls fly high in
circles wide,
Deep murmurs usher in the tide
Foaming
o'er rocks all brown and bare.
These precious Isles are anchored fast,
Storm-swept by
many a northeast gale
That rends the bolt rope from the
sail,
And breaks in twain the groaning mast!
O love, my heart is like the sea,
Surging with every
gale that blows,
Longing for winds that bring the
rose,
The happy summer-time and thee.
BECALMED
By Oscar Laighton
Like a dream the moon shone down
On the craft off
Provincetown.
With them on the shining bay.
My old fishing schooner
lay,
Rolling gently with the tide,
Her rough rigging
glorified,
Outlined on the moonlit stream
Like a ship seen in a
dream.
Slow the movement of her rails,
Filled aloft her idle
sails.
Though so calm that pleasant night,
From my boat to Highland
Light,
Awful under winter stars,
Crashed the waves on Peaked Hill
Bars!
Source: Poems from "Songs and Sonnets", undated and privately
published in Andover, MA from collection of J. Dennis Robinson.
THE VISUAL ART OF UNCLE OSCAR
One of many paintings of fish by Oscar Laighton. This image was taken through a glassed framed picture in the Vaughan Cottage Museum on Star Island, dedicated to Oscar and Celia.
A bird house crafted by the man who helped build two great hotels, The Appledore House and the Oceanic, and who also renovated the Honeymoon Cottage on Lunging Island nearby. From the Vaughan Cottage Collection of the Star Island Corporation.
Typical of the ship drawings sketched by Oscar Laighton.
MORE UNCLE OSCAR
Photo of Oscar standing in his
boat, later 1800s
Laighton
family plot on Appledore Island
Vaughan Museum
dedicated to Celia and Oscar
The
Uncle Oscar charter boat out of Rye Harbor
Read more about CELIA THAXTER or view more POEMS
Uncle Oscar learns to drive at age 90 from a popular
postcard.
For more information read:
90 Years on the
Isles of Shoals
by Oscar Laighton
Privately republished by
the Star Island Corporation
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