This fall, as part of Maine Archaeology Month, the Stanley Museum in Kingfield will field a team of archaeologists to investigate the former site of the Squirrel Island summer home of Francis E. Stanley. Joining the Stanley Museum staff will be archaeologists from Colby College in Waterville and the New England Archaeological Institute in Brunswick.

The Stanley brothers, Yankee inventors famous for photographic dry plates and the Stanley Steamer automobile, have long been associated with Kingfield and Lewiston, but they also established a long-time summer residence on Squirrel Island in Boothbay Harbor. F.E. Stanley eventually built a handsome summer home there in 1908. Stanley also built two other cottages there for his daughters, and made a number of civic improvements to the island community: a new pier and breakwater, a standpipe for the village's water supply, and an extensive network of cement sidewalks. The last improvement is believed to have been brought about in fond deference to Stanley's disabled wife, and it made much of the island wheelchair-accessible before World War I. Stanley's summer cottage and one of the adjacent cottages that he built were destroyed in a row fire in 1932.

The Stanley Museum's archaeological investigations will focus on locating and mapping the physical remains of the Stanley home, and will also search for evidence of an early Stanley invention: a subsurface illuminating gas generator known as the Stanley Gas Machine. Invented in 1896 and produced commercially before the introduction of electricity, the Stanley Gas Machine was an early "off-the-grid" home lighting system, providing up-to-date gas lighting in locations where city gas was unavailable. There is historical evidence that Stanley equipped his Squirrel Island house with an illuminating gas system, but it is unknown if this was a system of his own design.

Support for the Stanley Museum's Squirrel Island expedition comes from the assistance of the Boothbay Railway Village in providing the team of archaeologists transport to and from the island on the historic ferry boat, the Nellie G. II. This past summer the Stanley Museum assisted in fund-raising activities which enabled the Boothbay Railway Village to acquire a working 1917 Model T Ford Touring Car, adding to their impressive collection of antique automobiles and enhancing the stature of the transportation museums of Maine