History of Rockaway

“Rockaway” on Vinalhaven is the name for the Timothy Lane house, originally built in 1857 as a 10-bedroom sea captain’s house on Lane’s Island at the south end of Vinalhaven. Timothy Lane was Vinalhaven’s most successful fisherman, who built a fleet of cod fishing vessels and salted and dried the catch that was sold throughout Atlantic and Caribbean ports during the second half of the 19th century. This iconic structure, with its commanding presence overlooking Carver’s Harbor, passed out of the Lane family ownership, and became the Ocean House and later the Rockaway Inn. During its years as an inn and hotel, Rockaway expanded several times to accommodate generations of “rusticators” who traveled to Vinalhaven on steamboats from Boston, Portland and other ports along the East Coast. Rockaway Inn served guests for approximately a half century until it closed during the 1950s. When a group of Vinahaven residents organized a campaign to buy Lanes Island as a nature preserve, Richard Morehouse, an architect who summered on the island, purchased the abandoned structure for his family in 1969. The family restored Rockaway room-by-room over a period of several decades.

If you would like to learn more about the history of the area while you are visiting, stop in at the Vinalhaven Historical Society. They are located at 41 High Street.