Month: December 2022

Charles Bradbury’s house on Maine Street Kennebunkport

Charles Bradbury, author of The History of Kennebunkport from its First Discovery by Bartholomew Gosnold, May 14, 1602 to A. D. 1837, was born in Arundel, on October 7, 1799, in the Smith Bradbury House (C-5 in Strolling Through the Port). Charles’ father, Smith Bradbury, was a Sea Captain and a merchant in Kennebunkport, who...

December 29, 2022January 5, 2023

Kennebunkport view of Dock Square c.1892

This glass plate of Dock Square was taken between May 8, 1891, when the White School (1) was moved from the corner of Maine Street and Union Street to its present location tucked behind the Brown Block (2), and October 3, 1893, when the first Norton House burned (3). The building at far right was...

December 22, 2022January 5, 2023

The Launching of the Nimrod

Hundreds of spectators came to see the launching of the three masted schooner Nimrod from the Christenson Shipyard in Kennebunk Lower Village on August 22, 1891. The Nimrod was the last vessel Norwegian shipbuilder George Christenson framed out. He did not get to see her off the ways at what would later become Herbie Baum’s...

December 15, 2022January 5, 2023

Frank G. Littlefield’s Smithville Sawmill

The Ellen Littlefield Doubleday Collection contains the diaries of Frank G. Littlefield of Mills Road from 1895-1918. Frank writes about his day-to-day life in Cape Porpoise. Like so many of his neighbors, he worked a lot of jobs to make ends meet. He painted and papered local houses and hotels, he cut ice in the...

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022