Esther E. Wood

Esther Elizabeth Wood (September 2, 1905 – December 1, 2002) Her ancestors had settled in the eastern Maine towns of Blue Hill, Ellsworth, and Deer Isle before 1790. Her father managed quarries in Blue Hill and Deer Isle. She grew up in Friend's Corner, a rural neighborhood named after her paternal great-grandfather who had moved there in the 1820s. By 1900 the neighborhood was home to six families; growing up, Esther had four same-age cousins living close by.

Wood graduated from the George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill in 1922. She also wrote regularly for The Christian Science Monitor and Maine Life, Wood became known as the "town historian", although she disliked the moniker.

Wood's historical notes are often mentioned in tour books of the Blue Hill region. She contributed the report on historical and archeological resources for the 1991 Blue Hill Comprehensive Plan, which was reprinted in the 2006 Blue Hill Comprehensive Plan.

Like her mother, who maintained a daily journal from 1893 to 1971, Wood wrote daily in her journal from 1973 to 2002. She personally contributed to campaigns for a library expansion and the installation of tennis courts. Resembling round towers, the Wood Tower and Dickey Tower each have eight floors. and was buried in the Seaside Cemetery in Blue Hill. Her farmhouse was purchased by novelist Jonathan Lethem, who uses it as a summer home and writes in the same study that Wood did.

The Esther Wood Papers, containing her lecture notes on New England history from the 16th century through the American Revolutionary War and American Civil War, and 20th-century United States diplomacy, are housed at the University of Southern Maine. An oral history project which Hugh Curran conducted with Wood over a period of several years, comprising four 40-minute videotapes, is housed at the Blue Hill Public Library and the George Stevens Academy library.