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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
Remembering Freeport’s Archie Ross Master mariner and friend by Charles Francis
T
he first time I saw Archie Ross was the summer of 1952 when I was nine years old. We were going to spend several weeks on Bustin’s Island in the eastern part of Casco Bay. I had been excited about the idea of an island vacation because the thought of being in a place that was totally surrounded by water was a new experience for me. To get to Bustin’s at that time one drove to Freeport on Route One and then took the quiet Freeport Road to
South Freeport and the Harraseeket River. Little did I know at the time that this would be a trip that I would make several hundred times and that the wharf at South Freeport would become one of the most familiar and welcome sights of my early life. One of the chief reasons for this pleasant set of circumstances was a man by the name of Archie Ross, who ran the ferry from South Freeport to Bustin’s Island for some fifty years. On the day of my first trip to Bus-
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tin’s Island we unloaded our suitcases and bags at the wharf and parked the car at a rental space. About the time we finished doing that, a boat that looked like a cross between a lobster boat and a cabin cruiser pulled up to the float that was some fifteen feet below the level of the wharf as it was low tide. This was my first view of Archie Ross’ prized Marie L, the Bustin’s Island ferry. Much later I would learn that Archie had acquired the Marie L through the fundraising efforts of Bustin’s summer (cont. on page 32)
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