Founded in 1905 to provide access to medical and dental care, spiritual support, education, and crisis services to the islands, lighthouses, and isolated coastal communities around Mount Desert Island. The first of the Mission's ships, the Sunbeam, was commissioned in 1912. The current vessel (in 2017) serving the mission is the Sunbeam V.
"Founded in 1905 by two brothers, Angus and Alexander MacDonald, [the purpose of the Maine Seacoast Mission Society] was "to undertake religious and benevolent work with the people in the neglected communities and among the isolated families along the coast and on the islands" (from the Society's by-laws). The Society maintained a mission for three decades on Head Harbor Island (1910-1940) and another intermittently for some years on Crowley (Moose) Island in the Indian River. Its vessels - initially the sloop Hope, followed by the Morning Star and later by the steam and diesel-powered Sunbeams I, II, III, and IV - cruised regularly back and forth along the coast, summer and winter, to maintain contact with the missions as well as to visit other islanders, including the life saving and lighthouse crews at the fifteen or more island stations in our sector. Alexander MacDonald, a large and impulsive man (who once physically removed a heckler from his church at Frenchboro), was the first pastor as well as captain of the Mission's vessels; he died aboard Sunbeam I in 1922. He was succeeded by the Reverend Orville J. Guptill and in 1935 by the Reverend Neal D. Bousfield, who served for thirty-seven years (to 1972). The work of the society continues." - "Islands Of The Mid-Maine Coast, Vol.II: Mount Desert To Machias Bay" by Charles B. McLane. Falmouth, Maine, The Kennebec River Press, Inc., c. l989, pp 22-23. - "Islands Of The Mid-Maine Coast, Vol.II: Mount Desert To Machias Bay" by Charles B. McLane. Falmouth, Maine, The Kennebec River Press, Inc., c. l989, pp 22-23.
