Drury, Edith

Edith Prescott Drury, born 1916, daughter of Dr. Samuel Drury, head of St. Paul's School in Concord, NH and Cornelia Frothingham Wolcott. Edith attended Radcliffe College, worked with Maine Seacoast Mission and the Sunbeam for 20 years doing ministerial work for them. Author of “God’s Tugboat” newspaper columns written over many decades for Maine Coast Fisherman and National Fisherman, she presented readers a personal account of people and places on the mainland, along the coast, and on islands. She shared news of an Islesford committal service “for the two lobster fishermen…lost in their boat during a March blizzard”, thawing mittens in the warmed cabins of the Sunbeam, and documented the ways islanders in everyday life. A 1987 Mission Resolution honoring her said, in part, “For over twenty years, Edith shared her faith with the people of Down East Maine. She visited over fifty mainland schools and twenty island schools, working with the children, devising contests, recreational activities, and reading programs. She distributed garden seeds and plants in the schools and encouraged the children to plant gardens.” Edith was one of 3 Heroines of Cranberry Island authored by Wini Smart. She also donated a flat 14” cross of brass, encrusted with melted glass to the Maine Seacoast Mission. This was from the chapel at Mason’s Bay, which burned in 1968. “It formerly was part of the horse-drawn hearse on Cranberry

Edith lived in Bar Harbor and then Great Cranberry Island in an 1840s Cape house at 199 Cranberry Road. In 1945 the house was purchased from Samuel E. Chapman for $1 and then in 1990 it was transferred to Eliza Prescott Eager, Edith’s great niece. While the name of the house has changed over the years (Thomas F. Stanley, Robert Sterling, Drury House), it is referred to in the present day as the Meyers/Dowling House. In the early 1990s the house had a restaurant called The Granite Napkin. Edith died in November 1987 (location

To learn more, look through our archived items or follow the Related Items link to learn about Drury’s house. (Biography written by Wendy Todd.)