In 1932 the Dorcas Society, a Christian women’s group in Prospect Harbor that supported community good works with money raised from sewing projects, built a small two-room building here, with one room for sewing and the other for a lending library. Over the years, the efforts of patrons and friends led to additions that expanded the library to include a 10,000-volume collection and a children’s room. Forbes Stream flows under the bridge and over ledge rock into the inner harbor behind the library, where the different elevations of fresh and salt water made the spot ideal for schooners to enter on the tide and resupply with fresh water. A 1772 mariner’s map called this place Watering Cove. On the high tide, schooners brought dry goods to supply the town’s three general stores, while at the busy wharf barrel staves, fish, and ice were loaded for export. From 1860 to 1890, ice was one of the largest exports in the U.S., second only to cotton. By the 1860s Forbes Stream had been dammed to create a mile-long pond, and in winter thousands of 300-pound blocks of ice were cut by hand and stored in a huge icehouse, insulated with sawdust to keep them frozen for shipment to Boston, New York, and the West Indies. The corner building across the street once housed the L. S. Ray store, which sold general merchandise and even furniture from the 1910s until the 1950s.