Cushing Island

Levett's early settlement earned him the sobriquet "the pioneer colonist in Casco Bay" from eminent Maine historian James Phinney Baxter.

[1] After a host of owners, in September 1734, Nathaniel Jones conveyed the island to Joshua Bangs.

Simeon Skillings, a relation of Preble's later lived on the island and purchased small parts of the land.

[2] Born in Quebec, Canada, to Massachusetts emigrants, Lemuel Cushing planned to turn the island into a summer resort and built the Ottawa House hotel.

The United States Army began acquiring land on the island in the 1890s to build Fort Levett, named for explorer Christopher Levett, the English explorer and first settler of what is now Portland, which eventually grew to 200 acres (0.8 km²).

Levett has been described by the eminent Maine historian James Phinney Baxter as "the first owner of the soil of Portland.")

The island has a US Coast Guard Cutter that bears its name, USCGC Cushing (WPB-1321), previously stationed in Mobile, AL and currently homeported in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

This area is largely forested with well-maintained walking trails and abandoned military fortifications from when it was the US Army’s Fort Levitt.