15 75 Out & About in Downeast Maine September 2011 Hitty Heritage By Katy Bergen In "Hitty," which docu- hen Rachel ments the adventures of an an- W Field published tique doll over a century, the "Hitty: Her First tall spruce tree beside the Pre- Hundred Years" ble home on Cranberry Road in 1929 and became the first becomes the tall pine tree be- woman to win the Newbery side book character Captain Honor Medal for young adult Daniel Preble's home. The fiction. she did not identify book also references the Preble Great Cranberry Island as a house lilacs, the raspberry primary setting in her book. patches, Indians who once PORTLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY SPECIAL But the island is an un- lived on the island and the COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES named character in the novel, church. Rachel Field and her constant alive in references and alluded Another Field book, "God's companion Spriggin. to in clues. Pocket," chronicles the 1820s No one understands this adventures of islander Capt. Cranberry Road better than island locals, who Samuel Hadlock Jr. who honor the rich history of the toured Europe and America in I'd like to be walking the Cranberry Isles and work to a traveling act that featured, Cranberry Road, keep alive the year-round com- among other things, an Eskimo Where the sea shines blue through munity that once inspired the couple who performed Native the bristling firs, author. The Cranberries are American skills. and the rocky pastures are overgrown five islands clustered off Many island visitors are With bayberry bushes and junipers; Mount Desert Island. Great fans of the Hitty doll and Where orchards of bent old apple and Little Cranberry Island are books. There are numerous trees inhabited year-round. Hitty clubs throughout the na- Go trooping down to the pebbly shore, "We want people to know tion. And the clapboard houses are who Rachel Field was," Great "I didn't know there was seaward turned, Cranberry Island Historical such a Hitty cult!" said Chris With larkspur clumps at every door; Society secretary and former Johnston, who works at the Where there's plenty of time to say president Wini Smart said. Cranberry House historical OUT & ABOUT PHOTO BY KATY BERGEN "We feel like the Hitty concept museum and lives on the island good-day started here." six months out of the year. When friendly eyes from a window I, the Preble House figures in author Field, born in Stockbridge, "Last year, when I was work- peer - en's classic, "Hitty, Her First Hundred Mass., started summering on ing the desk, someone bought Oh, I'd like to be back on the bery Medal in 1930. Captain Samuel Great Cranberry Island in 1919 $75 worth of Hitty stuff." Cranberry Road; hite clapboard, is the main character of before eventually living on Exploring Field's legacy I wish I were there instead of here! cket." nearby Sutton Island. on Cranberry Island requires - Rachel Fiel