MACHIAS — A 20-year-old Milbridge man suspected of setting five structure fires in Washington County on Wednesday night entered a not guilty plea during an initial appearance in Ellsworth Superior Court on Friday.

Hancock County Assistant District Attorney Steven Juskewitch said Jeremy Nash is charged with just one count of arson because the investigation of the other fires is continuing. Nash is suspected of setting all five fires, Juskewitch said.

Superior Court Judge Francis Marsano, who sat as a District Court justice for Nash’s court appearance, set bail at $50,000 with two sureties or 50 percent cash, Juskewitch said. Nash remained in the Washington County jail as of late Friday.

Nash was arrested at 4:30 a.m. Thursday after western Washington County firefighters responded to reports of fires at a cottage and two rental cabins in Harrington and two summer homes on Rays Point Road in Milbridge.

All but one of the structures, a one-story summer home on Rays Point, were leveled by the fires that were reported between 11:45 p.m. Wednesday and 1 a.m. Thursday.

Mary Gates, a Cambridge, Mass., woman whose summer home remains partially standing, said the family has grown used to people breaking into their vacation place, but the fire was “the ultimate trauma.”

Gates said she lives in a managed care facility because of heart problems and difficulties walking. Her daughter from Washington state and her son from New York will be in Maine this weekend to inspect the damage, she said.

“I was so heartened last night when I heard Sally and Stephen were going to go,” Gates said. “These young people just seize the moment. They’ll give me a full report and tell me what they’ve decided to do.”

Gates said her family built the summer home in 1958 after purchasing the land from J.C. Strout of Milbridge.

“We came up every summer,” she said. “It had windows all across the front and a nice view of the bay.”

Rachel Leighton described the 40-year-old cottage she and her late husband owned on Guard Point Road in Harrington as “a very dear place.” The main cottage and two smaller rental cabins were destroyed in the fire.

Leighton said the cottage was next to her family’s blueberry land and sat right in front of a sand beach. The family stayed there at harvest time to keep the sea gulls off the blueberry fields, she said.

“It was a very dear place, and you remember how you got it when you were really struggling,” she said. “Of course, you can never replace the things inside.”

Leighton said she hasn’t gone to the camp as much since her husband died eight years ago, but her son, Harold, is a frequent visitor. His children also loved it, she said.

“It was a very special place to Harold, who spent his youth there and had friends in the area,” she said. “He loved to ride his dirt bike on those roads.”

Leighton said one of the investigators told her Nash said he was targeting out-of-staters and mistakenly thought her cottage was owned by someone who wasn’t from Maine.

“I’m a native, but what an atrocious thing to do to anyone,” she said.

William and Pat Picard, who lost their summer home on the Rays Point Road, were expected to fly from their residence in Ohio to Bangor today, according to Betty Dow of Milbridge.

Dow’s husband, Michael, is the caretaker for the couple and he made the difficult call to tell them their 5-year-old oceanfront structure was gone. The Picards will stay in the cabin that was their vacation spot before they built the new summer home, she said.

“They’re just super people,” Dow said. “They’ve always been very generous to us.”

Dow described the couple’s summer home as “beautiful” with windows facing in all directions and a small surrounding deck. Pat Picard had just put up a small greenhouse and was beginning to garden to make the place “homier,” Dow said.

Juskewitch said conditions on Nash’s bail prevent him from using or possessing alcohol or dangerous weapons. Also, if Nash is released from jail he is subject to a curfew that requires him to be home between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., Juskewitch said.