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History
Sailors gave the name Star Island, first referenced in 1651, because the Island's "points stretch out in all directions like flashes of a distant star". Fisherman are believed to have stopped here from before the time John Smith arrived in 1614 and mapped the seacoast, naming these islands, now known as the Isles of Shoals, "Smyth's Isles" and opening up New England to settlement. Probably named for the "shoaling" or schooling of fish, the Isles of Shoals became the busiest commercial port on this side of the ocean and dominated the fish market, indeed setting the price, for a century and a half.