ST. GEORGE, Maine -- The funny thing about the Marshall Point Lighthouse Museum is that ``we don't pretend to be a lighthouse museum" at all, said former director Bob Ensor. Inside what was once the lighthouse keeper's house, the St. George Historical Society operates a fascinating little museum of the rural community's considerable history.
But on this small peninsula that juts into the Atlantic at the southwest corner of Penobscot Bay, it might be splitting hairs to distinguish between local history and the maritime life exemplified by the lighthouse. The first beacon on the site was built in 1832, less than 30 years after the town was established, and the current brick and granite light tower (and walkway ) went up in 1857.
The museum building was constructed in 1895 after lightning destroyed the original 1832 keeper's house. Even on a foggy day, light floods through the windows onto the homemade exhibits. Photographs, tools, and artifacts depict the granite quarrying industry that dominated the peninsula in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when St. George pavers were shipped around the world.
Other exhibits explain the history of the light tower and the changing technologies, from the original oil lamps with reflectors pointed out to sea to kerosene lamps shining through a fifth-order Fresnel lens to the present-day tiny bulb encased in plastic.
The museum also chronicles the ongoing lobster fishing industry. An 1890s photograph shows a bearded man in a shapeless hat hauling traps across the gunnels of his Friendship sloop , while a model lobster boat, sample traps, and assorted gear let visitors ``from away" get a handle on the often-romanticized enterprise. Two racks display miniature lobster trap buoys painted in the colors and pattern used by each of the town's licensed lobster fishermen.
Retired high school principal Dana Smith came up with the buoy display, but not everyone was immediately receptive. ``When we started making the replicas, a lot of lobstermen said, `My buoy in a museum -- no way,' " said Ensor, chuckling. ``Now they ask, `Why isn't my buoy in the museum?' "
The local flavor of the museum has a way of drawing residents as well as the tourists who drive down to see the keeper's house on the point and the lighthouse tethered to the mainland by a wooden bridge. The dramatic setting is a favorite with photographers.
On a beautiful June day, Beverly Worthington of nearby Rockland is showing friends the spot where she used to spend two weeks every summer. ``My friend, Barbara, was the daughter of Charles Allen, the keeper." Allen manned the light from 1933 to 1946, and ``things look just about like they did back then," said Worthington. ``I slept in every room upstairs except one." The front room was reserved for Allen and his wife so they could keep an eye on the light. ``You could hear the old foghorn all night."
Ensor, who still serves on the museum's committee, helped immortalize the lighthouse by illustrating ``Nellie the Lighthouse Dog," a children's book recounting the adventures of a wire-haired fox terrier in St. George. His books are for sale in the museum gift shop .
Marshall Point Lighthouse Museum
Marshall Point Road, St. George, Maine
207-372-6450;www.marshallpoint.org
Open through Columbus Day, Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun.-Fri. 1 p.m.-5 p.m.
Contact Cambridge-based freelance writers Patricia Harris and David Lyon at harris.lyon@verizon.net. 
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