Smuttynose Island
Encyclopedia
Isles of Shoals
The Isles of Shoals are a group of small islands and tidal ledges situated approximately off the east coast of the United States, straddling the border of the states of New Hampshire and Maine.- History :...
, located six miles off the coast of New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, but actually in the state of Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
. It was named by fishermen, seeing the island at sea level and noticing how the profuse seaweed
Seaweed
Seaweed is a loose, colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthic marine algae. The term includes some members of the red, brown and green algae...
at one end looked like the "smutty nose" of some vast sea animal.
The island is best known for two murders that occurred there. On 6 March 1873, two Norwegian women, Karen and Anethe Christensen, were strangled and one struck with a hatchet. A third woman, Maren Hontvet, escaped and hid on the island at a place now called "Maren's Rock". Maren, the only witness to the murders, identified a German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
fisherman, Louis Wagner, as the killer. Wagner was tried, convicted and, although he maintained his innocence, hanged. Despite an airtight case, so vehement was his denial that people long believed he was innocent. The story of the murders was told by Celia Thaxter
Celia Thaxter
Celia Laighton Thaxter was an American writer of poetry and stories. She was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.-Life and work:...
in her account A Memorable Murder and by Anita Shreve
Anita Shreve
Anita Shreve is an American writer. The daughter of an airline pilot and a homemaker, she graduated from Dedham High School, attended Tufts University and began writing while working as a high school teacher in Reading MA. One of her first published stories, Past the Island, Drifting, was awarded...
in her novel The Weight of Water
The Weight of Water
The Weight of Water is a 1997 bestselling novel by Anita Shreve. Half of the novel is historical fiction that speculates about the true events of the Smuttynose Island murders of 1873.-Plot summary:...
.
Louis H.F. Wagner was hunted down after fleeing the Island. He was quickly caught in Boston and brought back to the Portsmouth Police Station. Ten thousand angry townspeople waited for him at the train station and shadowed him all the way back, chanting "Lynch him, kill him."
Wagner was then brought to Alfred, Maine for trial. After he was condemned to death, he broke out of jail and escaped to New Hampshire. He was recaptured and brought to the gallows at Thomaston State Prison.
The Smuttynose Island murders, trial, jailbreak, and execution is featured in the book "Return to Smuttynose Island" by Emeric Spooner.
Smuttynose Island is also the source of the name of the Smuttynose Brewing Company
Smuttynose Brewing Company
Smuttynose Brewing Company is a craft microbrewery that was founded in 1994 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It is named after Smuttynose Island, one of the Isles of Shoals....
of Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is a city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire in the United States. It is the largest city but only the fourth-largest community in the county, with a population of 21,233 at the 2010 census...
.