Celia Laighton Thaxter

The poet of the Isles of Shoals

Born in Portsmouth, NH, Celia Thaxter came to the barren Isles of Shoals at age four. her father Thomas Laighton purchased four of the islands on the Maine side in 1839. The Laighton family summered for a few years on Smuttynose before they built their Victorian resort hotel on nearby Appledore Island in 1848. It was Celia's family who rented the "Red House" to the Hontvet family. It was Celia's mother Eliza who hired Karen Christensen and fired her just days before she was murdered. Celia was the first person to interview survivor Maren Hontvet, still bleeding and in shock, the morning after the tragedy. And it was Celia who wrote the dramatic essay "A Memorable Murder" that appeared in the prestigious Atlantic Monthly in 1875, just days before Louis Wagner was executed at Thomaston Prison.  (Photo courtesy Portsmouth Athenaeum)