Troy R. Bennett

Looking back now, Rich Cole knows opening his gunsmithing shop on Bog Hollow Road, just off Harpswell Neck's main drag, in 1985 was a big mistake. It was far too isolated to attract the kind of clientele Cole was looking for: bird hunters and competitive clay target shooters interested in custom, high-end, Italian shotguns as beautiful as they are accurate.

Jack Wilson was not born to run. Entering the world many weeks premature, he weighed just under 2 pounds at birth. Emergency, lifesaving intubation inflated both of Wilson's collapsed lungs but left serious internal scarring. Though he survived, doctors told his parents not to expect any more miracles. Their son would never be anything like an athlete.

Parny Hagerman and her neighbor Surrey Hardcastle have a lot in common. They live just a few yards from each other on Bailey Island. Both are retired school administrators and each has nearly two dozen grandkids. What's more, Hagerman and Hardcastle both have grandsons in the NFL.

With Confederates boarding his ship near Monhegan Island, Daniel Merryman, captain of the Harpswell-built P.C. Alexander, threw his money overboard rather than let the rebels have it. In total, Merryman consigned about $100 to Davy Jones' locker that day in August 1864. In today's money, the captain's cash would be worth nearly $1,000.

This month marks the 84th anniversary of the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The surprise assault sank four battleships, killed thousands and hurled the United States headlong into the Second World War. However, a persistent coastal Maine legend suggests the Axis powers actually fired their first fatal shot on an American vessel five months earlier, 5,000 miles east of Hawaii and not far from Bailey Island.

One swift blow to the head with an ax handle while he slept and Elisha Wilson, of Great Island, was dead.

With multiple recent sightings, a stunning National Geographic photograph, and a new scientific report confirming their growing presence, Maine's great white sharks are more on the public's mind than ever before. But five years after the state's sole confirmed fatal shark attack off Bailey Island, not much has actually changed in Harpswell.

Southern Maine has a slew of talented cover bands who delight crowds with note-for-note, rock 'n' roll replica hits, keeping hoofers on the dance floor for hours on end. The Harpswell band Dooryarders is not one of them.