Margaret Hamilton Margaret Hamilton with son, Ham, and grandson Chris in Korea in 1967, during her visit with the family to welcome the birth of a second grandchild, Scott.

'The Wizard of Oz,' one of the world's best-loved classics, will be playing at the Harbor Theatre September 14, 15, and 16, and it will be a special showing for a couple of reasons.

First, it stars Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West, an actress whom many local residents consider 'one of their very own," since she summered here for many years on Cape Island, off Newagen.

Second, her only son, Hamilton Meserve, will host all of the plan- ned screenings, which will include a Friends of Harbor Theatre private showing Friday night, and two public showings on Saturday and again on Sunday. He is expected to share his experiences growing up with a famous mother, who made 71 feature films in her lifetime, as well as numerous television shows. Many TV viewers also remember her as Cora, the kindly Maxwell House coffee spokesperson.

Harbor Theatre plans to use an archival 35mm print of the film, provided by the studio, and will present it in its original 1-1:35 format. Public showings will be at 4 and 7 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.

Margaret Hamilton, a Cleveland native who was 36 when she starred in the classic with Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley, did summer stock in Brunswick, and while in Maine, decided she would like to own a lighthouse. She learned that Cape Island was for sale through real estate broker Madelyn Meredith of Southport, and purchased the island in her son's name in 1961.

She came up every summer, and while her son, Hamilton, was overseas with Citibank from 1962 to 1975, she rowed herself to and from the island and opened and closed the cottage herself, which still is very much as it was when she purchased it, utilizing kerosene lamps for light, and a generator on rare occasions for power.

The island is approximately 10 acres at high tide and 20 at low tide, with a pre-1857 cottage once owner by artist Earl Oliver Hurst, who built the newer stone wing utilizing rocks from the island.

The actress's son says she developed a close relationship with lobstermen who fished around the island, and used Jack Gray of Newagen as the caretaker of the island in her absence. She continued visits to the island until 1983. Her favoite haunts ashore included Grover's, House of Logan, and Carbone's, now the Village Market.

In 1969, her son and his wife, Helen, purchased the former Zamore house on Town Landing Road, near their beloved island, and spent much of their summers there, as did Helen's parents, Howard and Jean Murphy of San Antonio.

Hamilton Meserve's father was landscape artist Paul Meserve. Hamilton was brought up in Beverly Hills, and after working abroad for Citibank he and his wife owned Taconic Press, publishing seven community weeklies in Hudson Valley's Dutchess County in New York. He was a county legislator there, president of Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and chaired a group that brought Single-A short season baseball franchise to Dutchess and built the Dutchess Stadium.

Since 2006, the Meserves have made their permanent home in Newagen, and they operate Running Battle Antiques, doing 12-18 shows annually throughout the United States, specializing in 17th and 18th English oak furniture and 19th century China Trade and marine paintings.

Since moving here, Meserve has been active in the newly formed Friends of the Harbor Theatre, which now boasts 187 members and has enabled the purchase of a new screen and sound system. $16,000 has been raised to date, and the group's next project is to obtain new seats for the theatre.