A small coastal Hancock County town chose new potential names at Tuesday’s election for two islands controversially known as Upper and Lower Negro islands.
Castine voters decided Tuesday that they wished to call the two islands Esther Island and Emanuel Island. The proposed names come from two of the earliest known enslaved African Americans in the area and the recommendation will be sent to a federal board that considers requests to change place names.
The islands, which sit in the Bagaduce River and are connected by a sandbar, are currently collectively known as the Negro islands. The islands have been called that since at least the 1700s, but historians have been unable to find a conclusive origin for the names. The town decided last year that it was time to re-examine them, though officials didn’t want to erase even the hazy connection to African American history.
The proposed new names in the survey were recommended by a town-appointed committee earlier this year. The other option was Pidianiske Island and Mary Jackson Island.
Esther and Emmanuel are mentioned in a local account book in the late 1700s. It’s unknown what happened to them and they don’t appear in later census documents.
Mary Jackson, born 1851, was the youngest daughter of two Black people that lived in Castine in the mid 1800s. Mary Jackson’s father was born in Africa and, after being captured as a young boy, was forced to work on a plantation in Brazil. He later escaped Brazil and eventually came to Castine to raise a family. Jackson, who died in 1917, was the last year round African American resident of Castine until the mid-20th century.
Voters were also tasked with picking a name that would be used to collectively refer to the island. The two options were Wabanaki names: Meguntic, meaning great swell of seas, and Sikkwenahk, or horseshoe crab.
Meguntic won out by a vote of 171 to 88.
The whole process started in 2021 when town meeting created a committee to come up with the new names in after a complaint over the name Negro Island was filed with the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, a federal board that deals with place names.
The board has increasingly been considering new names for places that are now deemed offensive or outdated. Earlier this year, 24 of the nearly 400 name requests before the board involved the word Negro.
Though Castine voters have cast their ballots for what they want the islands to be called, the board will have the final say. Officials with the board have said they take local preference into account when making a decision.
There is no timeline for the issue to be taken up, said Shawn Blodgett, Castine town manager after the survey count Wednesday.
One of the islands, both of which are popular with kayakers, is owned by Maine Coast Heritage Trust and has a short hiking loop and campsite. The other is owned by a private family.
