Vinalhaven is a large island, located off the coast of Rockland, in the middle of Penobscot Bay. It is one of the “Fox Islands,” a group of islands named after the gray foxes that once inhabited them. In the second half of the 19th Century, Vinalhaven was home to a thriving granite industry. (Granite was shipped from the area for the Washington Monument and the Brooklyn Bridge.) It was this industry, as well as the fishing industry, that led President Andrew Jackson to appropriate $4,000 for the development of Brown’s Head Light in 1832.