In 1964, a 27-year-old woman bought an abandoned Maine island and lived alone; 22 years later, it became a wildlife sanctuary

Before it was a wildlife sanctuary, it was a woman's abode. Witch Island is an approximately 18-acre land area off the coast of South Bristol, Maine, United States. Named after the woman who used to live there, it was sold off to another who donated it to become a wildlife sanctuary, as per a report by Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust.The island's earliest known name was Stewart's, held by a settler whose identity dissolved into a rumour. Local lore claimed the pirate Dixey Bull once made his hideaway there in the 1630s, and a French and Indian War legend told of a corvette that ran aground nearby while fleeing a swifter British sloop. Ownership passed through the Gamage family of South Bristol before Captain Samuel H. Davis acquired it in 1830. Under his name, it became Davis Island, and the porgy boom of the 1860s brought fishermen to the surrounding waters in great numbers. When Davis died in 1884, a bitter family lawsuit over his will eventually sent the island to auction, and in 1887 it found new owners who would give it the name it carries still. Daniel and Anna Chittenden bought the island that autumn, intending to build a summer retreat. And Anna was no ordinary buyer.The ...