Rockland-area island hoppers are questioning the state’s decision to give away their oldest – and nostalgic – means of getting from there to here.
The Everett Libby, one of the original vessels of the Maine State Ferry Service, began carrying islanders to and from the mainland in 1960.
But after the Libby was recently replaced with a new boat, state transportation officials solicited bids to get rid of it.
The original bidder, a New York company called Prudence Sea Horse, offered $250,000.
After company personnel inspected the old girl they said “thanks but we’ll take a pass.”
The sale fell through so the state decided to get whatever it could, as fast as it could.
Enter Lehigh Maritime Corp, also New York-based, which paid $1 for the Libby, the Rockland Historical Society said Friday.
Seeing the Libby leave state service was hard enough for folks still carrying memories of the ship’s island-hopping.
But a mere dollar was just a little too much for some to bear. Those who remember riding the Libby considered it to be an insult added to injury.
“We’d like to have her back,” Donna Rogers of Matinicus posted on the society’s Facebook page.
The Libby’s most recent mission was serving the island on which Rogers lives.
The old 104-foot boat, named after a midcoast businessman who pushed for the creation of the ferry service, has been replaced by the Charles Norman Shay.
Shay, who is 101 years old, is an elder member of the Penobscot tribe and a decorated veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.
He spent his childhood on Indian Island, near Old Town, in the summers.
Shay was formally inducted into the Order of Military Medical Merit during a bedside ceremony in Bayeux, France on November 20.
He “is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished Native American soldiers of World War II,” the U.S. Army said in a statement.
At the age of 20, Shay, a combat medic, was among the first soldiers to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion.
“Under intense enemy fire and the rapidly-rising tide, Shay repeatedly waded into the surf to rescue wounded soldiers, pulling them to safety and administering lifesaving care,” the Army said.
